10 Insane Ways Movies Got Sabotaged
3. The Film's Data Drives Were Allegedly Stolen - Foodfight!
2012's animated family comedy Foodfight! lays claim to one of the strangest development histories in the entirety of Hollywood.
The film began production in 2002 for a planned Christmas 2003 release, but in late 2002 producer-writer-director Lawrence Kasanoff announced that hard drives containing animation assets has been stolen in an alleged act of "industrial espionage."
Production eventually resumed in 2004, but numerous deadlines for delivery were missed, causing distributor Lionsgate to grow impatient. In 2011 the film was finally auctioned for a mere $2.5 million - despite its ultimate $65 million budget - and released direct-to-video in most countries the next year.
Reviews were universally negative and the film made a pathetic $73,706 worldwide, but a year later a Redditor who claimed to have worked on Foodfight! suggested that the original hard drive theft never actually happened.
They posited that director Kasanoff actually deleted the hard drives himself under shady circumstances.
Whether you believe the Redditor or not, it's clear that somebody - either the thieves or Kasanoff himself - worked hard to undermine the roughshod production.