7 Insane Behind-The-Scenes Problems Recent Movies Dealt With
Going from script to screen can be a lot like getting burnt bacon grease out of a frying pan. It seems like it'll be easy, but by the end of the whole process, everyone is exhausted (and smells like delicious BLTs).
But unlike your kitchen exploits ("Screw this, I'm just going toss this pan in the yard, next to that crappy pasta maker somebody jumped on"), a film production is generally contractually obligated to keep marching forward ... even if the cops show up. Here are the kind of unforeseen horror stories that will someday be taught in film schools to weed out the faint of heart.
The New Pirates Of The Caribbean Movie Battles, Among Many Things, A Rogue Pirate
It's already been four years since our last look at Captain Jack Sparrow -- arguably the most "normal" role Johnny Depp has ever played -- and it'll be at least another two before we finally see Pirates 5 on the silver screen. It's been hit with long-term delays a couple of times, as if Davy Jones himself doesn't want us to see it.
Early on in filming, things got a little hairy when a man dressed as a pirate, complete with a live parrot, pulled a knife on security as he tried to board the Black Pearl, Jack Sparrow's pirate ship. The man was able to get as far as he did because people thought he was an extra, since he happened to be in the one place in the world where a pirate costume is good camouflage. After making some threats, the man fled into the bushes, disgracing the honor of pirates everywhere.
Meanwhile, the film has been having several animal problems as well. Co-star Jack the Monkey, a capuchin who's been portrayed by several different monkeys over the course of the series, was placed in quarantine by Australian animal control. This should come as a surprise to nobody, because Australia has a notable interest in keeping any more potentially dangerous animals out. However, this turned laughable and then very serious when Depp's wife Amber Heard attempted to smuggle her Yorkies into the country. She was caught, and will likely face a hefty fine in lieu of jail time.
Finally, on top of everything else, Johnny Depp managed to royally fuck up his hand. He injured it off-set so badly that he had to fly back to the United States for surgery, requiring a pin to be inserted into it. All of this collective bullshit inflated the budget by over $70 million before they even finished filming, which is the Universe's way of saying, "Maybe it's time to reboot Condorman instead."
The Maze Runner Cast Goes Grave Robbing
After some success at adapting The Maze Runner to a film, it only made sense to tackle the remaining books in the young adult series. But while filming Maze Runner movie number two, The Scorch Trials, the cast and crew experienced some setbacks. And by "setbacks," we mean that they discovered they were filming on an ancient Native American burial ground.
This could have been problem-free if everyone wasn't hell-bent on desecrating the place. According to one of the film's stars, most of the cast "just takes stuff, you know, obviously," sort of like the older brother who sneaks an extra $100 bill from the bank when nobody's looking. As if the idea of not stealing is completely alien to movie stars. Apparently, after listening to the owner of the Diamond Tail Ranch tell the cast and crew to leave the land be, the cast proceeded to immediately pick up and pocket several artifacts.
Of course, since this is real life, there were no consequences for the desecration of the site ... except for five of the actors all falling ill within a week of leaving the set. The Boxcar Children never would've pulled this shit.
Game Of Thrones Is Nearly Bombed By Terrorists
In the unlikely event that you're reading a Cracked article but have also been living under a rock for the past few years, Game Of Thrones is a television series based on a series of books based on a Jets fan's medieval sex and war fetishes. It's notorious for killing characters off in ungodly quantities and methods. It probably shouldn't be surprising that there are fans who have been, uh, "inspired" by the bloodlust, but here we are all the same.
The show films all over the place, but one of their more frequent locations is Paint Hall Studios in Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland also happens to be home of the IRA. No, not the people who manage your 401(k). A terrorist organization.
The IRA attempted to plant a bomb in the studio cafeteria, seemingly in an effort to target the ex-police and military who were working as security guards. It doesn't seem like they had any beef with the show itself, but someone had apparently given the IRA some very specific information about the dietary habits of a particular group of security guards, which enabled them to pinpoint the exact garbage can they'd plant a bomb in.
Thankfully, an informant on the inside alerted the studio to the plot, and the added security during the day of the planned attack was enough to thwart the terrorists. No word yet on whether this caused any further delay in the book series.
Top Gear Gets Literally Chased Out Of Argentina
For its Christmas 2014 special, Top Gear decided to shoot somewhere besides the United Kingdom, because winter weather up there gets old around roughly July. The weather that year was so debilitatingly stupid that the crew decided to head on down to Patagonia -- which, for the less geographically-inclined of you, is quite damn close to the South Pole. Get your shit together, British weather.
After a day of filming in the mountains, the crew retired to their hotels for some rest and relaxation, not knowing about the terrible storm that was brewing. No, not a blizzard. Twitter.
An Argentinian photojournalist had tweeted a picture of a Porsche that was being used in the episode which had a license plate reading "H982 FKL." This would sound like a typical randomized string of letters and numbers to most people, but some Argentinians noticed that it was a (likely accidental) bit of an homage to the ill-fated invasion of the Falkland Islands back in 1982, a military exploit that ended in Argentina's surrender.
The Top Gear team woke up to find a miffed crowd of Argentinians outside of their hotel big enough to prevent them from filming, and a segment that included running over a bunch of people on their way down the mountain would not have been pretty. After weighing their options, they decided to get the hell out of the country, but the trouble didn't stop there. In Chile, more protesters pelted their car with rocks, injuring a driver and making the car look like it was supposed to have been on Mythbusters instead of Top Gear. Everyone would make it back to the UK fine ... just in time for one of the hosts to get fired over an unrelated incident.
Vanilla Ice Was Arrested For Burglary During His Own Reality Show
When it comes to post-music careers, flipping houses is something you'd expect your Uncle Doug to take up after his acoustic metal cover band never made it out of the garage. It's not what you'd expect from one of the more memorable hip-hop artists of the 1990s. But it turns out that Vanilla Ice has been fairly successful in the house-flipping business for about 20 years now.
Surprisingly, The Vanilla Ice Project, the reality show about Ice's proclivity for real estate, is entering its fifth season of reasonable success. But during the filming of season five, some rather large items -- including furniture and bicycles -- went missing from a neighboring house, and then happened to show up on set (read: in the house he was fixing) shortly afterwards. Because Ice is a nearly-50-year-old man with millions to his name, police saw no reason for such a blatantly obvious burglary, and arrested his icy ass.
The police report contends that Mr. Matthew Van Winkle ordered his film crew, who were apparently hired while loitering in a back alley behind a Walmart, to break into the house next door and steal certain items for the show. The rapper claimed that he thought items on the curb were "fair game," which makes sense if you believe that a curb extends into a house's backyard.
Vanilla Ice pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 100 hours of community service. So don't be surprised if the next house he flips is decorated with bags of trash. One man's junk can be another man's treasure!
The Allman Brothers Biopic Killed A Crew Member
At some point in the past couple of years, someone decided that the Allman Brothers deserved a biopic, and yet another someone decided to give it a green light. Since Gregg Allman had already conveniently written an autobiography, that basically meant half the work was already done, so off to a "camera test" they went.
The crew was setting up a dream scene in which a hospital bed was lined up on some railroad tracks, and now we're feeling like maybe we were too harsh on the idea of a Gregg Allman biopic. In a sequence involving a catastrophic level of negligence and stupidity, a train began to steamroll towards the set as the crew was filming. Apparently, nobody had bothered to get permission from the rail lines that used that railroad to film on what was apparently a still-active one.
"It'll be fine. Do they even use trains anymore?"
Everyone pitched in to clear the area as best they could in the roughly 60 seconds they had before a giant train plowed into them. Thankfully, nobody was strapped to that hospital bed. However, in a moment of terrible prophecy that should only appear in movies, lead actor William Hurt said out loud and to nobody in particular, "Someone's going to die now." Sadly, he was right. A camera assistant was struck and killed, the director pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter, and Gregg Allman sued to shut down the film, because holy shit.
An Indie Horror Flick Stars A Fugitive Bank Robber
Horror is one of those genres that works well for independent filmmakers, since people will forgive cheesy visual effects as long as the script is clever and the acting is good. And by all accounts, indie horror film Marla Mae had a great actor for the lead villain (an abortion doctor gone mad): a man named Jason Stange. This bad guy would commit unspeakable acts, such as killing the leading lady's boyfriend and robbing a bank.
Well, we should clarify. The first part there was the one that happened in the movie. The actor was the one who robbed a real bank.
Stange (who went by the stage name Jason Strange, because of course he did) was sentenced to ten years in prison for robbing a bank, but managed to get himself on probation by July 2014, which he then violated before going on the lam. He somehow found himself on the set of the horror film, and made himself right at home, because horror sets are such inviting places. Co-workers described him as a very friendly guy who absolutely nailed the audition for the insane criminal doctor, which we're reasonably sure is a red flag of some sort.
Stange was arrested by the police on the very day they finished shooting. The director has stated that all of Stange's scenes will remain in the movie, because when life drops the ultimate publicity gimmick in your lap, you'd have to be an idiot to brush it aside.
"Thanks for the felony, dude!"
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