10 Film Documentaries That Accidentally Uncovered Major Scoops

3. Everest - Training Doc Turns To Disaster Doc

Everest 1998 IMAX documentary
Miramax

While not a "scoop" in the traditional sense, the directors of the 1998 IMAX film Everest certainly encountered a twist in the tale when they set out to make a documentary about the training required to scale the titular mountain.

In a horrifying turn of events, the film ended up being in production at the exact same time as the 1996 Mount Everest disaster, in which eight climbers died after a blizzard interrupted their descent from the summit.

Understandably, this drastically affected the focus and tone of the documentary, with the filmmakers deciding to construct their edit around this great tragedy - and incredibly, the final cut even features footage of the disaster itself.

This wasn't the last time a documentary filmmaker happened to be rolling cameras at the same time a shocking event occurred, either. The 2002 film 9/11 was supposed to be about a probationary firefighter's first day on the job, but ultimately ended up capturing one of the only known recordings of American Airlines Flight 11 colliding with the World Trade Center.

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, 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 and Presenter, 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 day job, his role as 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 and Eli Roth to Kevin Smith and the Russo Brothers, to Kevin Conroy and Frank Miller, to Bret Hart and Sting, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, and Brian Flynn, to many, many more. Where his beloved Wrexham AFC is concerned, Andrew is a long-standing season ticket holder and an FSA Award-winner for his time co-hosting the Fearless in Devotion podcast.