10 Movies That Started Shooting Without A Completed Script

6. Xanadu

While not having a finished screenplay helped Iron Man, Boyhood, and 8½, it hasn't always worked out for filmmakers. Xanadu was a big-budget roller disco fantasy film starring actress/recording artist Olivia Newton-John. Initially, the project wasn't intended to be a major film, but when Newton-John and dancing legend Gene Kelly became involved the budget increased and more money was spent on the special effects than story development. Both stars agreed to do the film before a script had been finished, and it remained unfinished throughout production. Newton-John later admitted that some of the film's stilted dialogue was a result of the movie's script being written during filming, and it is rumoured that there were multiple versions of the script that director Robert Greenwald was working with. Critics took notice of the movie's disjointed story and gave Xanadu awful reviews. Those bad reviews actually made Xanadu one of the films that inspired the creation of the Razzie Awards to annually "salute" the worst movies of the year. Xanadu's soundtrack was far more successful than the actual movie. Probably because unlike the filmmakers, the songwriters actually wrote the songs before they recorded them.