12 Movies That Were Dead On Arrival

Michael Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate is now seen as a classic Western, with a superb cast, an epic scope, and an admirable ambition. At the time, though, it was perhaps cinema’s biggest disaster, the film that nearly destroyed a production company and brought an end to Hollywood’s auteur era.

Beset by problems from the off - by day six, they were already five behind schedule - Cimino’s astonishingly demanding nature turned the shoot into a slog. Fresh off the success of The Deerhunter, the director was not afraid to throw his weight around, insisting on reshoots and endless tinkering, leaving A list actors kicking their heels on an increasingly chaotic set. Such was the scale of Heaven’s Gate’s public disaster that production company United Artists’ owner sold up and quit the business.

In the wake of Heaven’s Gate’s maligned 1980 release, Hollywood dialed back on the experimental vibe of the ‘70s, in which the likes of Coppola and Scorsese thrived, and refocussed on safe product that would turn a buck. The film has rightly been reappraised, but for the auteur era - as well as Cimino himself - this was a death knell.