10 Troubled Shoots That Resulted In Great Films
5. Everybody Thought It Would Be Rubbish - Star Wars
Star Wars was initially rejected by everyone in Hollywood until 20th Century Fox decided to take a risk and gave George Lucas some spare change to make his weird 'space-opera'.
When production began in Tunisia, filming fell behind schedule almost immediately due to the onset of rainstorms, equipment that didn't fare well in the sandy conditions, and props that kept malfunctioning. Post-production was also a nightmare as the special effects were often delayed or sometimes discarded altogether, thus causing budget overruns. On top of all the technical problems, the cast thought the film was nothing more than a kid's movie and basically half-assed their way through filming. Perhaps the most accurate description of the cast and crew's overall feeling about the film was best said by Harrison Ford when he told George Lucas "you can type this sh*t, but you can't say it."
Lucas was so sure the film will bomb that he planned to go on a long holiday in an attempt to wipe his memory of anything Star Wars related. Having forgotten the film's premiere day, Lucas was walking down the streets of LA with his wife until he was surprised by the massive lines of people queuing up to see his alleged failure of a film. The rest of course, is history.