10 Movie Stunts That Went Very Wrong (But Are Still In The Film)
7. Stuntman Rick Sylvester's Parachute Is Almost Destroyed - The Spy Who Loved Me
One of the most famous stunts in cinema history occurs in The Spy Who Loved Me's pre-title sequence, when James Bond (Roger Moore) skis off the side of a mountain to evade his pursuers, and after freefalling for a stomach-knotting amount of time, deploys a parachute to ensure his safe landing.
The sequence was executed entirely in-camera without any optical trickery, with stuntman Rick Sylvester hired to straight-up ski off the edge of Canada's Mount Asgard and parachute his way to safety.
The stunt ultimately cost $500,000 - making it the most expensive movie stunt ever at the time - and though the end result looks absolutely spectacular in the film, it's easy to miss that Sylvester came incredibly close to total disaster.
The stunt required Sylvester to ditch his skis mid-air before deploying his parachute, yet the skis ended up falling directly into the stuntman's path as he opened the chute, making contact with the top of it.
This presented a massive risk for Sylvester, given the potential for the skis to pierce or otherwise damage the chute and leave him hurtling to the ground without assistance.
Thankfully the chute resisted the impact and Sylvester made it to the ground in one piece, ensuring the most ambitious stunt in the series' history didn't become a tragic footnote.