8 Directors Who Did Crazy Things To Get Their Movies Made

7. Francis Ford Coppola Pushed His Cast So Hard That One Of Them Had A Heart Attack

Apocalypse Now is one of film-making's most notable examples of trouble on-set resulting in a phenomenal final product. The set backs Apocalypse Now faced are well-documented, but it's still shocking just how far Francis Ford Coppola was willing to go to get the film made.

At the beginning of shooting, many of the sets built in Iba (a municipality in the Philippines) were destroyed by a violent typhoon. This caused production to cease, and many of the crew were stranded. Nevertheless, Coppola used this down time to continue with research, intent on getting the film made. When shooting commenced again in early 1977, one of the lead actors, Martin Sheen, had a major heart attack out in the jungle and almost died. Once again Coppola continued, and Sheen was brought back to set a month later. Setbacks continued to plague the shoot, yet Francis Ford Coppola returned to the jungle day after day, ignoring the obvious dangers. Not only that, but he even order a water buffalo be slaughtered with a machete for the final scene. As Coppola himself once famously said about the making of the film:

"We were in the jungle, there were too many of us, we had access to too much money, too much equipment, and little by little we went insane"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQ672prcUNM