8 Movies That Had No Regard For The Environment

Based on true events, Werner Herzog's Fitzcarraldo tells the tale of an ambitious rubber baron who employs a horde of Peruvian natives to literally pull his gigantic steamship over a hill. Not content with using trickery to make that madness appear on screen, Herzog actually decided to try and pull it off in reality.

The original story involved a 30-ton ship that was split up into parts for easier transportation, but movies tend to make everything bigger and more bombastic, so Herzog's film called for a 300 ton vessel instead. The idea of physically moving such a huge and heavy boat over a muddy hill was, to put it mildly, insane, and production of the film was famously difficult.

It wasn't too kind to the local area either. Naturally, in order to get the boat up and down the hill, local wildlife and foliage had to be cleared out completely, and the presence of hundreds of people and all that film-making equipment caused a lot of damage to the surrounding rainforest. Mother Nature reclaimed the area in the years that followed, but it can take decades for flora and fauna to fully recover after being so brutally pushed aside.