10 Ridiculous Ways You Won't Believe Films Accomplished Shots

8. Danny Boyle Destroyed An Ecosystem For The Beach (2000)

Before Leonardo DiCaprio became a coke-snorting stockbroker for The Wolf of Wall Street, and before Danny Boyle became some kind of national saint for directing the baffling opening ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics, the two collaborated to adapt Alex Garland's bestselling novel, The Beach, for the big screen. And while the resulting film, which could be aptly described as your uncle trying to teach you all about the backpacking scene of the late 90s, didn't go down too well with critics, there was a more important matter: that of the film's production 'landscaping' (read: bulldozing) over the natural beauty of Thailand's Phi Phi Lay island.

To more accurately match the filmmakers' idea of what the titular beach would look like, Maya Bay, The Beach's principal location, reportedly became a "forlorn scene of ugly bamboo fences and dead native plants" after the crew removed unsightly local flora and planted alien plants and palms in their place.

The complex ecosystem then later fell apart, and wasn't restored to its original state until the 2004 tsunami came and put it all back together. And that was after years of legal battles and claims of illegal "rearranging" on the part of the production team. But hey, The Beach! It was worth it, right? Nah.