8 Great Movies Everyone Expected To Suck

Perhaps the most famous example of a masterpiece being born from a nightmarish production, Apocalypse Now should have been a total mess. It was only supposed to shoot for four months, but the schedule eventually blossomed to over a year’s worth of filming.

Sets were destroyed by hurricanes, the script was being written on the fly and various actors working it – Dennis Hopper, for one – were fond of indulging mind altering substances. Coppola ended up shooting reams of footage, most of which wasn’t even used in the final cut, and the intense stress of the shoot caused Martin Sheen to have a heart attack.

When stories leaked of how badly the shoot was going the press lapped it up, and they fully expected a bomb when Coppola delivered the film. They were sadly disappointed, though, since it was instantly acclaimed and has been labelled one of the greatest war movies of all time.