5 Movies Sabotaged By the People Who Made Them
We all make mistakes. For most of us, they’re not much more consequential than buying the wrong kind of milk, but in Hollywood, it might be signing onto a seven- or eight-figure project only to realize it’s garbage. Those who can’t just write it off on their taxes sometimes take extreme measures to make sure it never gets seen or at least make the experience as unpleasant as possible. Sometimes, they design it that way from the get-go.
Blade: Trinity
Wesley Snipes had some potentially legitimate beef with the producers of Blade: Trinity. He believed other Black actors were the subject of discrimination on the set, suspected the movie’s only purpose was to set up spin-offs for its white stars, and also, it was Blade: Trinity. His reaction, however, might have been a little overboard. He refused to communicate with director David S. Goyer outside of cryptic Post-It notes (and eventually physically assaulted him) or indeed perform most of the movie, preferring instead to smoke weed in his trailer. They even had to CGI his eyes in one scene because he refused to open them.
Leonard Part 6
Until recently, the biggest stain on Bill Cosby’s career was 1987’s terrible Leonard Part 6, which also gave us a preview of his ability and willingness to silence his enemies. He told everyone from talk show audiences to reporters not to see the movie, then to cap it off, he bought the television rights so they could never be exercised. To make matters more confusing, the movie was his idea. Well, we taught him to take responsibility in the end.
The Telephone
And to think, he could have simply gone the Whoopi way and sued producers to shelve the film. That’s what Goldberg did upon seeing the final cut of 1988’s The Telephone. She claimed she was granted the legal right to approve it prior to release, so she sued New World Pictures to prevent them from inflicting the film onto moviegoing audiences. Unfortunately, she lost.
The Fantastic Four
The 1994 production of The Fantastic Four, on the other hand, was successfully prevented from release — by its own producers. The only reason it was made in the first place was because producer Bernd Eichinger was going to lose the rights to the franchise unless he made something quick, so that’s exactly what he did. He slapped together a low-budget production, gave it a perfunctory marketing push and then pulled it from release at the last minute. It remains unreleased to this day, but don’t worry — there are still lots of bad Fantastic Four movies you can watch.
Zyzzyx Road
Similarly, 2006’s Zyzzyx Road was a disastrous production that producer/director John Penney was looking to “get out of” in the “cheapest way” possible. He was hoping to maybe make up some of the losses in the international market, but he learned that if he neglected to release the film domestically, he’d have to pay the actors a lot more, per Screen Actors Guild rules. Instead, he scheduled a premiere attended by almost no one at a random theater in Dallas that showed the movie once a day at noon for a week. It made a total of $30, making it the lowest-grossing movie in film history. At least it’s in good company.
