7 Directors Who Purposefully Sabotaged Other Movies

While he is often viewed fondly as the internet's surrogate weird great-uncle figure, Warner Herzog is not somebody you mess with lightly. For example, the man tried to burn down actor Klaus Kinski's house. But the unspoken threat of arson didn't stop director Abel Ferrara doing his level best to try and sabotage his 2009 film Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans.

Ferrara had directed the original Bad Lieutenant film in 2002 and his grievance was two-fold. First, Herzog openly admitted he'd never seen Ferrara's film so his would have as little to do with it as possible. Second, Herzog was taking home a drastically larger paycheck for his follow up than Ferrara did for his original.

While the film was being marketed, Ferrara did an interview where he lambasted both Herzog and the film's producers, even going so far as to wish death by car bombing on them. Despite his visceral insults, Herzog replied with his usual chillingly calm demeanour, stating he'd never even heard of Ferrara and comparing him to famously naive literary figure Don Quixote.

Their exchange may have had any impact on the film's box office returns, which were middling at best, but the two eventually met in real life, reportedly shared a bottle of whiskey, and put their feud behind them.