8 Movie Villains Created Out Of Spite

Filmmakers draw inspiration from all sorts of places.

Some use fond childhood memories as fuel when creating their onscreen adventures, others base characters on people they know in real life, and many are simply inspired by the works of other writers, directors, and artists in general.

Sometimes though, inspiration doesn't come from a positive place. Sometimes, a filmmaker will throw shade at someone or something that's offended them, by immortalising them in villainous form.

Whether it's a producer naming a bad guy after a vocal movie critic, or a director modelling their main villain on someone they hate for real, some of cinema's most memorable antagonists were created from a place of pure spite.

From classics like The Lord Of The Rings and Back To The Future, to modern hits like Free Guy, these connections are often subtle - although, in some cases, the filmmakers clearly weren't too fussed about trying to mask their contempt!

This spite may not always feel earned (although, with our number one pick, it definitely does), but then again, who are we to tell these filmmakers how they should and shouldn't vent their frustration?

The original idea for 1988's Willow came from the mind of Star Wars creator George Lucas, who envisioned all the movie's strange fantasy creatures, and thus had the responsibility of naming them.

One of the monsters he came up with was the Eborsisk, a slimy, two-headed beast that Willow accidentally creates towards the end of the film.

At face value, "Eborsisk" just seems like a totally made-up word with no real meaning behind it, but in reality, Lucas did have a specific intent in mind when he devised this monster - and this intent wasn't exactly pure.

Apparently, Lucas wasn't a fan of legendary film critics Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, considering that they'd given some of his previous efforts a hard time. So, in response, Lucas combined their names and created the Eborsisk as a middle finger to the difficult-to-please duo (he also did the same with General Kael, another villain in the movie, who was named after film critic Pauline Kael).

Hilariously, Siskel and Ebert ended up giving Willow "two thumbs down" in a joint review, while Ebert himself gave it two-and-a-half-stars out of four. The Eborsisk probably didn't help!