9 Movie Sets Recycled In Other Movies

8. Das Boot Becomes Raiders Of The Lost Ark

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Columbia Pictures/Paramount

You know what's a little bit silly when making a movie that you know is going to feature a submarine? Not having a submarine lined up by the time it comes to shoot scenes involving the submarine exterior.

Bizarrely, that was exactly that case with Steven Spielberg's Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Raiders was due to shoot these moments at La Rochelle, France, yet the penny suddenly dropped that the production didn't actually have a sub on hand to film with. Coming to the rescue, was Das Boot.

Wolfgang Petersen's movie just so happened to be filming at the same location at the same time, and so Spielberg's crew were able to persuade Petersen to let them borrow the Das Boot submarine for those Raiders shots - all likely with the promise of "Don't worry, Wolfie, we'll take dead good care of the sub, honest."

When the Wurrfler submarine was returned to the Das Boot set, wouldn't you know it, but the sub was a mess. So much so, it actually fell apart and sank.

Luckily for Petersen and his movie, enough of the submarine was salvaged in order to complete the filming of Das Boot.

As another interesting Raiders fact, the film's Golden Idol trinket would be reused in Robert Rodriguez's Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams.

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Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.