The Human Body Can Only Take So Much Racism and Nuclear Waste
The Conqueror originally cast Marlon Brando as Genghis Khan, but when he wasn’t available, they opted for avowed white supremecist John Wayne. Forty-one percent of the cast and crew would go on to develop cancer, and 21 percent — including Wayne — would die from it. It’s very likely this was because they filmed at a nuclear testing site in Utah.
Jerry Lewis’ Long-Lost ‘Comedy’
The Day the Clown Cried was a supposed comedy about a clown who led children into Auschwitz’s gas chambers, and was so bad, the main screenwriter refused to give his blessing to the final product. It was shelved and never seen by human eyes — until May of this year, when a Swedish actor came forward claiming to have a copy of it that he’d stolen in 1980.
Warner Bros. Lost ‘Home Alone’ Over Table Scraps
Director Chris Columbus said he needed $17 million to make the film, but Warner Bros. refused to go higher than $14 million. Columbus, writer John Hughes and company got the extra three mil from 20th Century Fox, who would go on to reap the $500 million the film made at the box office alone.
Burt Reynolds Sure Knows How to Pick ’Em
He turned down what wound up being some of the most iconic roles in Hollywood history: R.P. in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Michael Corleone in The Godfather, Han Solo in Star Wars and freaking James Bond.
Columbia Pictures Sure Knows How to Pick ’Em
After Steven Spielberg made the company untold millions with a string of all-time hits, Columbia inexplicably balked at E.T. A little while later, they decided to rescind their dibs on Back to the Future, and after that they did the same with Pulp Fiction. The CEO who turned down E.T., by the way, would go on to greenlight Howard the Duck at Universal.
The 2017 Oscars
Accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers was entrusted with one, sacred job: To make sure the presenters were given the right envelopes, and that those envelopes had the right winners written inside. They blew it spectacularly when Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway went to announce the Best Picture award. Beatty noticed that the card inside was for Best Actress, and started stalling. Dunaway missed that detail, and read the card: La La Land. PricewaterhouseCoopers promptly buried their heads in the sand for several moments, and the stage manager finally took charge and announced that Moonlight had in fact won.
Matt Damon Turns Down ‘Avatar’
Not only would he have starred in the multi-decade blockbuster franchise, but he was offered 10 percent of whatever the films netted. James Cameron says, “He’s beating himself up over this. And I really think, you know, ‘Matt you’re kind of like one of the biggest movie stars in the world, get over it.’”
Scientology’s Big Blunder
John Travolta made one of the biggest box office bombs of the century in 2000’s Battlefield Earth. While he denied working in conjunction with the church, it was based on L. Ron Hubbard’s book of the same name, and was clearly intended to get people psyched about Scientology. With his dreads and forehead turned up to 11, Travolta instead lost $14 million and racked up eight Golden Raspberries.
Gus Van Sant’s Grand Experiment
After knocking it out of the park with Good Will Hunting, Van Sant whiffed the very next year with his Psycho remake that was, oddly, a shot-for-shot remake of the original. Only this time with 100 percent more Vince Vaughn. Roger Ebert gave it, generously, one and a half stars, calling it an “invaluable experiment” in film theory: “It demonstrates that a shot-by-shot remake is pointless; genius apparently resides between or beneath the shots, or in chemistry that cannot be timed or counted.”
The ‘Twilight Zone’ Catastrophe
Safety took a distant back seat while filming 1983’s Twilight Zone. Director John Landis didn’t fill out the proper paperwork for two child actors, which seems minuscule, but feels oddly prescient considering what followed: a helicopter crashed, killing both actors as well as one adult.
‘Cats’ (2019)
Universal Pictures conducted a $100 million expedition to the bottom of the uncanny valley, gathering an ensemble cast and CGI-ing them to within an inch of their lives. It garnered a 19 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, and its most enduring legacy is a worldwide clamoring for the legendary “butthole cut.”
The Hays Code
It’s easy to imagine we’ll have a reboot of this any day now. In response to a prudish government that was cracking down on all manner of vice, Hollywood gave a master class in obeying in advance: The self-imposed Hays Code determined that a movie couldn’t show homosexuality, “mixed race” couples or anything making light of Christianity. Oh, and if a character did anything immoral, they must be punished before the movie ends. I don’t think even a Minion movie would pass muster.
