12 Things That Were Really To Blame For Hollywood's Biggest F*ck Ups

6. Heaven's Gate Went For Too Much Realism

Michael Cimino's own Hollywod Jail-worthy crime was one of Hollywood's more noble failures €“ but a failure regardless. And one which marked a sea change in the film industry from the utopian auteur era that began with Easy Rider and a return of control to the studios. Heaven's Gate is one of the biggest box office bombs of all time, and in some circles has been considered to be one of the worst films ever made, opening to poor reviews and a box office return of less than $3 million, from a budget of $44 million. The film pretty much single-handedly caused the collapse of its studio, United Artists, and ensured that Cimino €“ who had previously won plaudits and a decent financial return with Vietnam drama The Deer Hunter €“ would barely work in that town again. Looking back, critics have become a little kinder about the film (whilst still complaining about the butt-numbing 219 minute run time). They've also done some significant evaluation of the film's trouble production, trying to figure out exactly what went wrong. It was mainly down to the overbearing director's perfectionism, causing the production to overrun by several months and inflating the budget to a ridiculous amount, whilst also building up the pre-release hype the film could never live up to. What really sunk Heaven's Gate, though, was Cimino's obsessive attention to detail €“ rather than using sets or locations to recreate the American frontier, he demanded an entire city being built from scratch, the entire cast being outfitted in period dress, and various other totally unnecessary things which inflated the film's cost and distracted him from what was actually important. Like making a good movie.