10 Movies That Had An Insane Amount Of Attention To Detail
7. The Ten Commandments (1923) - An Ancient Egyptian City Was Recreated
Before James Cameron and his cripplingly-expensive blockbusters, there was Cecil B. DeMille. Despite working mainly with silent films, DeMille circumvented the lack of sound by making his films as grand and epic as humanly possible. For his 1923 version of the The Ten Commandments, rather than take the easier route and excavate an actual ancient Egyptian city for his film, DeMille decided to just recreate an entire replica ancient Egyptian city.
With the authority of an actual Pharaoh and his own army of 1500 workers, DeMille had them build a replica city that included an 800 foot by 120 foot temple, four 35 foot tall Pharaoh statues, twenty one 12 foot tall sphinxes each weighing five-tonnes, and 110 foot city gates. It's also presumed that the workers were only wearing loincloths, materials were transported by dragging them with logs, and whips were used to 'encourage' hard work.
At the conclusion of filming, DeMille had the small problem of figuring out what to do with the set. Seeing as how much had been spent and epic movies requiring ancient Egyptian cities were in short supply, DeMille decided to do the logical thing and bury the entire city for someone to find in the future.
Ironically, the faux city was unearthed by archaeologists in 2014 and was treated with more reverence than when archaeologists unearth an actual ancient Egyptian city.