10 Troubled Shoots That Resulted In Great Films

Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now began as a production on a war film before descending into a brutal struggle to the finish line.

Filming was scheduled for five months in Manila but was extended to an mammoth sixteen months due to the unpredictable weather. In fact, production was actually shut down for two months as some sets were lost due to typhoons. The budget inevitably grew due to actors being flown to and from Manila whenever filming could be done.

The cast and crew also had to endure what was essentially a boot camp set in the harsh jungle conditions. Harvey Keitel was replaced by Martin Sheen a week into filming and Marlon Brando turned up fat and unprepared. Sheen suffered so much during filming that he had a breakdown on set and a near-fatal heart attack whilst Coppola was forced to improvise around Brando's fat gut and inability to learn lines. When filming was finally completed, Coppola delayed the release date and spent many months in post-production painstakingly re-recording all the sounds required and editing down the thousands of feet of footage he had shot. 

After enduring what must've been a war himself (and even a few thoughts of suicide), Coppola inadvertently gave the world one of the greatest war films of all time and one of the most definitive portrayals of the Vietnam war ever seen on-screen.

What other great movies had less-than-stellar productions? Share any we missed down in the comments.