7 Movies Plagued by Behind-the-Scenes Drama

A big-budget movie’s production is bound to be beset by at least a few minor problems. The whole process is far too complex, filled with too many people, for it to run smoothly and without a hitch. But, sometimes, what happens behind the scenes can be considered nothing short of a disaster. Perhaps the whole production isn’t tumultuous, but there’s at least one event that ends up finding its way leaked for the whole world to judge. Those are the movies listed here, those where someone’s bad behavior while the cameras weren’t rolling (or when they were and that take wasn’t used) threw a wrench into everyone’s workday.

But, tragedies like with The Twilight Zone: The Movie and The Crow, or productions troubled by natural elements, were not included. Plenty of movies have been delayed and had their budget run up by inclement weather conditions. After all, productions take place all over the world. There has to be a specific event, or a specific example of trouble caused by a castmate or director, for it to be listed here.

The Abyss

The Abyss may fall somewhere towards the middle of the quality scale when it comes to James Cameron’s filmography, but that’s still a better filmography than most directors have under their belts. Visually stunning and well-acted, Cameron’s vision nonetheless came at a cost. This is especially true when it came to his actors, like Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio and Ed Harris.

The 70-hour weeks were practically unbearable for all involved, but when the stress got to be too much for Cameron, he (according to the cast) started to take it out on the principal players. Mastrantonio suffered a physical and emotional breakdown while Harris sobbed driving home and Michael Biehn nearly drowned. The scene where Harris Bud Brigman screams his dialogue while reviving Mastrantonio’s Lindsey Brigman? That volatile frustration was real.

Rent The Abyss on Prime Video.

Blade: Trinity

Wesley Snipes disliked Ryan Reynolds so much on the set of Blade: Trinity that there was a joke about it in Deadpool & Wolverine. It’s good that the bad blood was tamped down, but the fact remains it was strong enough to last two straight decades.

Blade: Trinity was David S. Goyer’s second time in the director’s chair, and it was his first major studio film. Because Snipes felt that his title character was getting sidelined (which, admittedly, he was), he repeatedly acted out. For instance, Patton Oswalt has said that it was nearly impossible to even get him out of his trailer. It was little things, too, like how, at one point, Snipes’ Blade is supposed to open his eyes while on an operating table. Snipes wouldn’t do it, so when the viewer sees his open eyes, they’re the result of CGI.

Stream Blade: Trinity on Peacock.

The Island of Dr. Moreau

1996’s The Island of Dr. Moreau would be the most trouble-plagued production of Marlon Brando’s career if it weren’t for Apocalypse Now. But, here, it wasn’t so much a demanding director as much as it was one lead consumed by grief (Brando), another consumed by his own ego (Val Kilmer), and a director in over his head. That director was Richard Stanley, director of the Terminator-like cult-classic Hardware. The Island of Dr. Moreau could have been Stanley’s big breakthrough into major studio filmmaking, but his vision for the project was just too outlandish for New Line. Stanley was fired a week into production and replaced by John Frankenheimer.

The film went through a ton of cast changes, with Bruce Willis originally hired to play David Thewlis’s role. That role then went to Val Kilmer, who made his availability so limited that he was instead given the smaller role of Dr. Montgomery. But, partially because of his then-current divorce from Joanne Whalley, Kilmer clashed with absolutely everyone, including Brando, for whom he joined the project in the first place (Kilmer had always dreamed of working with Brando). On his part, Brando wasn’t the easiest to work with either. He was supposed to have a larger role, as opposed to dying an hour in, but his daughter took her own life, and he retreated to his private island. Even before that, though, Brando forced in some of the film’s more bizarre elements, like the white face paint and the weird ice helmet he wears in a scene shared with Fairuza Balk. There are far more interesting details to share, and for those, one should check out Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley’s Island of Dr. Moreau.

Stream The Island of Dr. Moreau for free with ads on The Roku Channel. Stream Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley’s Island of Dr. Moreau on Prime Video.

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It Ends With Us

At the time of release, It Ends with Us made headlines for its excellent box office performance. Since then, it hasn’t left the headlines, though the reasoning has significantly changed.

In one of the most prominent celebrity feuds perhaps of all time, Blake Lively filed a lawsuit against co-star and director Justin Baldoni accusing him of sexual harassment and intimidation back in December 2024. In response, Baldoni sued The New York Times for libel, given they wrote a piece siding with Lively, and then sued Lively, Ryan Reynolds, and their publicist Leslie Sloan for defamation, civil extortion, and invasion of privacy. Why Reynolds? Amongst other claimed reasons, there’s a character in Deadpool & Wolverine who seems awfully similar to Baldoni, a similarity that has now found itself wrapped up in the ongoing lawsuit.

Stream It Ends with Us on Netflix.

Mad Max: Fury Road

Quite possibly the best action film of the 2010s, and one of the best action movies of all time, Mad Max: Fury Road was nonetheless a living hell to make. It took years for the film’s production to even get going, with events such as 9/11 and the Iraq War indefinitely postponing it. By the time it did get going, Mel Gibson was so roiled in controversy it was clear he was going to need to be replaced.

Cut to 2010 and Tom Hardy, two years shy of The Dark Knight Rises, was all set to play Max. Even still, it took another few years for the cameras to start rolling. Once they did, the heat in Namibia certainly made things difficult, but that’s not why Fury Road is listed here. Instead, it’s because Hardy and Charlize Theron allegedly hated each other throughout the shoot, with Theron’s razor-sharp professionalism clashing with Hardy’s frequent tardiness, which only served to throw yet another wrench in getting the movie done.

Stream Mad Max: Fury Road on Netflix.

The Shining

Source material author Stephen King hated it, but the macro-scale consensus is that Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining is one of the very best horror films ever made. But, in terms of the late Shelley Duvall, it was a masterpiece that came at considerable personal cost. At the time, the film didn’t generate as flowery a critical appreciation as it has now, with it being nominated for Worst Director and Worst Actress at the very first Razzies. Since then, both of those nominations have been deemed errors of judgement. For one, it’s now considered one of the best films of 1980, not one of the worst. As for “Worst Actress,” it’s since been determined that The Shining is an example of the director being the problem. Yet, Kubrick was also a major reason as to why the film has such a profound legacy.

Pretty much everything about The Shining that works is due to Kubrick. He’s the one who makes it feel like a dream. But for Duvall, he made it an absolute nightmare. Allegedly, Kubrick hounded her on a daily basis about her acting techniques, line readings, just about anything. At one point, Duvall collapsed from exhaustion on the set. In 2022, the Razzie committee officially and rightly rescinded Duvall’s nomination for the inherently negative award, saying, “We have since discovered that Duvall’s performance was impacted by Stanley Kubrick’s treatment of her throughout the production.”

Rent The Shining on Prime Video.

Terminator Salvation

There may have been an R-rated cut of Terminator Salvation released on Blu-ray, but even that cut feels like a compromised film. That’s because it is; McG’s actual director’s cut has never seen the light of day. And, even with talented cast members like Helena Bonham Carter, Bryce Dallas Howard, Anton Yelchin, and Sam Worthington on display, maybe it’s for the best the theatrical cut didn’t see the light of day either (though at least it stands a bit above the subsequent Terminator Genisys).

Oh, and then there’s Christian Bale, who played the lead role of John Connor. It’s essentially a war movie, everyone is playing things tensely, and that’s especially true of Bale’s Connor. And it seems that tension ran within him at all times, as he excoriated director of photography Shane Hurlbut for walking through the set while cameras were rolling. That situation was actually resolved rather quickly, with Bale accepting responsibility publicly and apologizing to Hurlbut both publicly and privately. That wasn’t the only issue that plagued the film before its release, as producer Moritz Borman filed a lawsuit against Halcyon Company claiming he was not paid the $2.5 million owed for arranging the transfer of the IP’s rights. Furthermore, executive producer Peter D. Graves filed a similar breach-of-contract claim just one day before the movie started playing in theaters.

Stream Terminator Salvation on Max.

What’s your favorite movie with a troubled production? Let us know in the comments below!