10 Promising Movies Cancelled For Bizarre Reasons
2. Paul Verhoeven's Crusade Was Cancelled Because He Couldn't Keep His Mouth Shut
When it comes to finding a director to helm a controversial project filled with gratuitous violence, RoboCop's Paul Verhoeven is almost certainly going to be a safe bet.
So, when it came time for Hollywood to produce a medieval epic based on The Crusades it is no surprise that Verhoeven was at the top of the list to direct.
Unusually for Hollywood, the film was not set to cast the Christian invaders in a positive light as had been the tradition and was keen to emphasise the underlying racism and antisemitism behind the wars.
However, a few weeks before production was due to begin, in a meeting with studio executives at Carolco, Verhoeven was asked to guarantee production costs would not exceed $100 million.
This request led to Verhoeven going off on a screaming rant about how "guarantees don't happen" in the film industry.
This rant continued for some time with the film's star Arnold Schwarzenegger apparently kicking him under the table in an attempt to stop him tanking his own film.
Unsurprisingly, executives were deeply unhappy with Verhoeven's behaviour and chose to cancel the project in favour of Renny Harlin's Cutthroat Island.
Although this may have seemed like a loss for Verhoeven, he eventually had the last laugh when Cutthroat Island totally bombed at the box-office and forced Carolco into bankruptcy.