10 Woefully Troubled Film Shoots That Derailed Major Movies
8. Everything Went Wrong On Apocalypse Now
Again, Francis Ford Coppolas war epic Apocalypse Now is a film with plenty of admirers. That doesnt mean it wasnt a complete shambles on set, though. According to Eleanor Coppola (Francis wife), the director didnt even have an ending to the film in mind when shooting began. From there, things only got worse. Harvey Keitel was sacked after only a week of shooting in the Philippines. He was replaced by Martin Sheen, who later suffered a heart attack at the age of just 38, delaying the film even further. On top of that, after two months of shooting, production was shut down when a typhoon destroyed a fair proportion of the films sets and locations. As the production overran, it became increasingly costly to keep the cast and crew in hotels or to fly them home and then bring them back again which sent the budget spiralling out of control. The films release date was eventually pushed back by a year. This gave Coppola time to finish the shoot and rerecord sound effects that he had missed. The result of this huge derailment was somehow a critically acclaimed film that audiences love to this day. Go figure.
