10 Famous Movies With Crazy Behind the Scenes Stories

1. Gone with the wind started filming while they were still searching for the perfect Scarlet O’Hara

2. While filming The Passion Of The Christ, an assistant director was struck by lightening twice, and Jim Caviezel was struck by lighting once, caught hypothermia, suffered a separated shoulder, and had a lung infection.

3. Kate Winslet had a bit of bad luck while filming Titanic. She chipped her elbow bone and nearly drowned, and in another incident nearly 80 people got sick from drugged food.

4. While filming Borat, Sascha Baron Cohen never bathed and never washed his clothes. The smell was overpowering. It was done to add another layer of discomfort from anyone who came into contact with him.

5. While looking for a tattered coat for the character playing The Wizard in the Wizard of Oz, a costume assistant bought one from a second hand store. When the actor put the coat on he turned the pocket inside out – written in the pocket was the name L. Frank Baum who is the author of The Wizard of Oz books. Baum’s widow later identified the coat as actually having belonged to her husband.

6. Alien 3 was a disaster from start to finish. Sets were built before the production even had an approved script so whatever happened had to fit with the already-built sets. This meant the film focused on Ellen Ripley being trapped on a prison planet with an alien baby inside her, despite the teaser trailers suggesting the Xenomorphs would come to Earth to terrorise humanity.

7. Shelley Duvall was under constant stress while filming the Shining. She was constantly arguing with the director. Stanley Kubrick wanted Duvall to feel on edge and fearful, and the stress eventually made her physically ill.

8. The opening of World War Z was delayed due to production problems. Significant rewrites of the script were necessary – and dragged on much longer than anyone expected. Brad Pitt was not speaking to the director and so the studio had to send in another executive to Budapest to mediate. It opened to lukewarm sales, earning $540 million worldwide.

9. While making The Abyss, James Cameron almost drowned when trying to map out a shot in a flooding room. Actors Ed Harris and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio were under mental and physical stress because of the production’s slow pace and underwater shoots. Expensive repairs to underwater tanks, delays, and James Cameron’s notorious on-set behaviour made the whole experience miserable.

10. Shooting on American Graffiti stopped on the first day when the city of San Rafael, CA pulled the permits and licenses due to business owners complaining of the noise. Filming had to move to Petaluma, about 20 miles away. Harrison Ford was arrested for being in a bar fight, a crew member was arrested for growing marijuana, and someone set George Lucas’ motel room on fire.