12 Sci-Fi Movies Plagued By Reshoots

A production story so crazy that it spawned an entire documentary, the story of how The Island of Dr. Moreau was made beggars belief.

Director Richard Stanley had wanted to adapt H. G. Wells' sci-fi/horror novel for many years and when he got the go ahead, New Line Cinema signed on big names Marlon Brando, Bruce Willis and James Wood to star.

But right before filming began, a family tragedy meant Brando was absent for much of the production. Furthermore Willis and Woods were forced to drop out at the last minute and replaced by Val Kilmer and Rob Morrow.

A few days into filming, in the sweltering heat of a rain forest, Stanley and Kilmer fell out hard over the former's directing and script, with much of what was shot being deemed unusable. Then Morrow quit due to all the tension on set, so all of his scenes had to be reshot later on with David Thewlis.

That was only in the first few days. New Line suddenly fired Stanley and replaced him with John Frankenheimer, who alienated all of the cast and crew and ordered a rewrite of the script, rendering all footage up to that point useless.

The film was constantly reshot over its disastrous six month production, with a stand-off between Brando and Kilmer, Brando refusing to learn his lines and Stanley sneaking back onto set as an extra, just a few of the many insane things that went down.

To the surprise of no-one, the film was panned and bombed heavily at the box office.