10 Recent Movies That Were Absolute HELL To Make

If you know anything about filmmaking, you'll appreciate just how difficult it is to get any movie to the finish line, no matter how great or awful it ultimately ends up being.

The sheer number of things that can go wrong when hundreds of cast and crew members come together to collaborate on a project potentially costing hundreds of millions of dollars speaks for itself.

And while many blockbuster projects are firmly well-oiled machines that release without a hitch, there are many movies that only reach cinemas after going through some serious turmoil.

That's certainly the case with these 10 recently released movies, each of which saw the cast and crew suffer through some major behind-the-scenes hardship for the sake of their work.

From films that were almost cancelled due to the pandemic, to those which had to deal with meddlesome producers, enormously complicated logistical nightmares, disastrous test screenings, and everything else in between, these movies all went through fresh hell to make it to the big screen.

In some cases it's plainly clear that the shoot was anything but smooth, while in others the end result is so damn polished you'd never guess it was born through serious physical and mental anguish...

Dev Patel's directorial debut Monkey Man was a damn blast - a supremely confident action flick which made it clear that Patel has some serious chops behind the camera as well as in front of it.

But Monkey Man's production was anything but smooth, with Patel himself describing it as "absolute catastrophe."

Shooting was originally scheduled to begin in India in early 2020, but then the pandemic hit, at which point the original production designer and cinematographer left the project, and Patel had to beg his financiers not to shut the entire thing down.

Shooting was ultimately moved to a small island in Indonesia where the entire cast and crew could reside in a bubble in a hotel until production was completed. 

Also due to borders closing during the pandemic, Patel's pool of supporting actors and extras was limited, forcing him to have crew members pull double duty on-screen.

That was just the beginning, though. Patel broke his hand while filming the first action sequence, camera equipment regularly broke and, with closed borders preventing new equipment from being flown in, he had to film some shots on mobile phones and use GoPros instead of sturdier camera rigging.

The scant $10 million budget also proved problematic, enough that a producer had to use his credit card to buy props.

And even once filming was finally completed and Netflix acquired it, the streamer ultimately decided the film's political commentary would put them in a tricky position with the Indian government.

It was only when filmmaker Jordan Peele saw the movie and persuaded Universal to acquire it from Netflix that it was finally dusted off and sent out into the world. What a ride.