8 Movies That Put Their Extras Through Hell

5. Many Extras Were Injured While Shooting The Sinking Scene - Titanic

Titanic production
20th Century Fox

Titanic was a gruelling shoot for almost everyone involved, whether you're talking about star Kate Winslet catching hypothermia and nearly drowning, or 60 of the cast and crew falling ill after eating chowder that was laced with PCP.

Most relevant to this list though, countless extras were put through the wringer when the time came to shoot the movie's climactic sinking scene. Spoilers.

Over 100 extras (and a further 100 stunt performers) were called in to bring this sequence to life, with director James Cameron wishing to capture the chaos of all those helpless passengers scrambling for safety. And when you have that many people on a moving set? There are bound to be a few accidents.

And sure enough, there were. Injuries sustained by extras ranged from a ruptured spleen to a fractured cheekbone - with broken ankles and cracked ribs thrown in for good measure. Fortunately, computer-generated people were used for a lot of the more dangerous work, but not before dozens of performers had battered their bodies in the name of Cameron's cause.

Contributor
Contributor

Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!