9 Movies That Studios Were Scared Of Releasing

The Rocky franchise is one of the most iconic in cinematic history, but just getting the series off the ground in the first place proved a massive challenge. Studio United Artists - which was worried about its financial outlook - strongly opposed the making of the film, and even tried to sabotage it on more than one occasion.

According to producer Irwin Winkler (via Mail Online), the problems began before a single frame had even been shot, with the studio rejecting the basic premise, as well as the idea of having Sylvester Stallone play the lead:

"It became a little complicated because United Artists, the studio where we had our deal, came back to us and said, 'Why in the world would we want to pay for a movie that starred an unknown guy called Sylvester Stallone who has a rough life as a fighter and has a love story with an ugly duckling girl? There's nothing here that is appealing to us, and so we're not going to make the movie.'"

However, because Winkler had a deal with the company which stated that they had to make one of his films as long as both parties agreed on certain terms, United was forced to push ahead - but they didn't like that fact, and they made their disdain known.

Attempting to wriggle out of the deal, the studio offered Winkler $2 million to make the movie - $500,000 more than the deal stipulated - so that they could say "oh look, this movie is costing too much, sorry, no deal!" However, Winkler countered by saying that he would make the movie for $1 million instead, and United reluctantly agreed.

Next - in a truly ballsy move - one of the studio's executives went behind Winkler's back and attempted to buy the script off Stallone for $250,000. This way, they would have owned the script, and could cancel the movie themselves. Fortunately though, Stallone rejected this offer, despite being broke at the time.

Things didn't get any easier from here either, as the studio put financial restraints on the filmmakers, demanded that the film be shot in no more than 25 days, and slashed the budget down to $950,000. Even when the movie was completed, United only put it on two theatre screens, almost embarrassed to send it out into the world.

But then, they ended up with a huge bit of egg on their face. Rocky turned out to be a box-office smash and earned a bunch of Oscar nods to boot - and the rest is history.

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Any other movies that studios didn't want to unleash on the public? Let us know in the comments section!