10 Movies That Started Shooting Without A Completed Script

7. 8½

Masterful Italian director Federico Fellini rarely made a film with a completed screenplay, but his magnum opus, the 1963 semi-autobiographical avant-garde masterpiece 8½, is the best example of how he turned not having a script into a positive influence on the finished film. When pre-production on 8½ (so named because it was Fellini's eighth feature, with the ½ referring to another movie that he co-directed) was underway, Fellini forgot what he had intended the movie to be about. He used that forgetfulness as the new concept, making the movie about a director who loses interest in the sci-fi film that he is directing. During shooting the actors didn't even have lines - dialogue was mouthed and the entire film was redubbed with finished dialogue written by Fellini and his three co-writers in post-production. At the time, most Italian films were shot without sound, but few were shot without knowing what the dialogue was supposed to be. Fellini even replaced the original ending with a sequence he had shot just for the trailer. Fellini€™s decision to retool the story as he went along worked out for the best. 8½ won two Academy Awards and has consistently been ranked as one of the greatest films ever made.