10 Risky Film Moments Directors Thought They'd Lose You

Immediately following its 2012 Cannes premiere, Lee Daniels' crime drama The Paperboy whipped up a storm of controversy due to an infamous sequence in which Charlotte Bless (Nicole Kidman) urinates on protagonist Jack Jansen (Zac Efron) after he's stung by a swarm of jellyfish.

But Daniels very nearly cut the scene entirely during editing after becoming anxious that it was perhaps one step too far:

"I got nervous at the end, after we shot it... Right before I sent it off to Cannes, I called Nicole at three in the morning. I said, 'Nicole, I can't do it, I've gone too far.' She said, 'Lee, you made me pee on Zac Efron, if you don't put that in the movie, you're out of your freakin' mind!'"

Though The Paperboy went on to receive mixed reviews and tanked at the box office, it has nevertheless endured as a trashy cult classic, and this scene is by far its most memorable.

For some, though, it may indeed have been the tipping point to turn the movie off.