10 Film Documentaries That Accidentally Uncovered Major Scoops

5. Seaspiracy - Suistanble Seafood Is Harming Marine Life

Gimme Shelter 1970 documentary
Netflix

Motivated by his love of marine life, the director of Netflix's Seaspiracy initially set out to make a more celebratory documentary than the one he ended up with.

Along the way though, he changed tact, choosing instead to focus on the numerous ways that humans are damaging the Earth's oceans, such as plastic pollution, overfishing, whaling, and other big topics.

The filmmaking process ended up shining a bright light on the dark secrets of the fishing industry, with many grim moments (including scenes of a bloodthirsty whale hunt in the Faroe Islands) peppered throughout the runtime.

But one of the biggest scoops in the film comes when Mark J. Palmer - associate director of the International Marine Mammal Project - admits that fishermen might actually be killing dolphins in the process of collecting their nets of tuna.

In an interview after the film was released, director Ali Tabrizi stated that Palmer's revelation felt like "a huge betrayal", angry that this so-called "sustainable" seafood might not actually be helping the marine life it claims to protect.

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for almost nine years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. He has been writing and video editing for 10+ years, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers and uploading them to YouTube (they're admittedly a bit rusty by today's standards). If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order or to tell you about the making of 1988's Remembrance of the Daleks, Danny is the person to ask.

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Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.