15 Popular Movies Which Were Notoriously Difficult To Produce

Once again, Apocalypse Now is an example of a movie that went way over filming schedule – to be exact, it went from six weeks to sixteen months! There was 200 hours of footage to trim down and the editing process took nearly three years because of all the problems on set which manifested themselves visible on camera.

Francis Ford Coppola was heavily stressed throughout the process. He was particularly infuriated with Marlon Brando who arrived to set late, drunk and overweight, without knowing his lines or even reading the original novel. Brando was a nuisance to work with and it got to a stage where production members couldn’t even stand to be in the same room as him.

Martin Sheen had a heart attack during the shoot which meant Sheen’s brother, Joe Estevez, was called in to film as a stunt double and a voiceover for the Willard character, as they were so similar.

Dennis Hopper was known for his substance abuse and got everyone hooked on drugs, including 14-year-old Laurence Fishburne. To top it all off, a large typhoon destroyed many set pieces, causing many delays in filming.

Coppola lost over seven stone, frequently threatened to commit suicide and was forced to invest $7 million of his own money because the film went dreadfully over budget.