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I'm curious about The Conqueror, especially the rumours surrounding the radiation aftermath. Has there ever been definitive proof one way or another? I mean, those numbers are pretty damning in and of themselves but has anyone ever made a focused effort to lay the facts down?

Doris Wishman's A Night to Dismember (1983)

According to an unverified claim by director Doris Wishman, much of the negative for the movie was destroyed by a disgruntled lab employee. Wishman then spent the next few years re-writing and re-editing the film, mixing new and existing footage, adding a voice-over narration to the soundtrack and dubbed in dialogue and sound effects. Except most of the sound effects were done by mouth.
For example, when a car drives over the head of a person you'll hear a person saying "sssquiiiissssh". The barking of a dog in another scene was also badly imitated by a person.

How about Casino Royale (1967)? Filmed in six parts with six different directors and meshed together into a psychedelic mess. A fun mess (at least to me), but a mess.

Wes Craven's Cursed (2005). Half of the movie was re-shot and caused a one year delay. According to rumors the studio didn't like Craven's first version, according to IMDb script issues and "production problems" were the reason.

Joel Schumachers recent stinker Trespass has some interesting tidbits:
-The film had a budget of $35 million, the movie grossed $24,094 and was pulled from theaters after only ten days.
-Production was disrupted on August 3, 2010 when it was reported that Nicolas Cage had abandoned the project as he had allegedly insisted on switching roles from Kidman's husband to the kidnapper. The role was then offered to Liev Schreiber. However, the following day Cage resumed his role as the husband.
(from imdb)

How about The Conqueror (1956)?

In this movie, John Wayne is Genghis Khan.  Really do you need to know more about it?  

If that isn't enough for you, here a few fun facts.  

It was shot on a site where nuclear bombs had been tested just ten years before.  
Out of 220 people involved in making this film, 91 of them would die of cancer, including John Wayne himself.  

This doesn't include numerous extras that also ended up dying of cancer, or John Wayne's son, who visited him on the set.  

After principal filming, around 50 or 60 tons of radioactive dirt from the location was shipped to Hollywood so they could finish filming on sound stages.  There's no record as to what happened to this radioactive dirt after filming was complete.  

     There were rumors that the dirt was dumped on the Paramount back lot, and may have accounted for the deaths of most of the principal cast of BONANZA.Once the movie was proven to be a flop, Howard Hughes, the producer ended up buying every copy of the film and kept them in his home for twenty years so nobody could see it.  

Supposedly in his later years, he watched the movie almost every night regretting he ever made it.  

According to John Wayne, the moral of the movie was, "not to make an @$$ of yourself trying to play parts you're not suited for."

In a 1980 People Magazine article, A scientist from the Pentagon Defense Nuclear Agency was quoted as saying “Please, God, don’t let us have killed John Wayne.”

I must risk sounding obvious and list...

JAWS- The shark wouldn't work until the end of the movie.  It actually made the movie better.  They had trouble filming in the ocean. JAWS II had some of the same problems. 

Star Wars- Rain destroyed their Tatooine set; George Lucas nearly had an hear attack, and the FX crew burned through a million dollars to film two unusable shots.

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea- The famous squid scene was almost a complete disaster.  They had to completely rewrite it, build a new squid, go way over budget.  They also had trouble filming in the ocean.


Here's the original sequence....
[url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l22tsktu8D8[/url]


Ben-Hur (20's version)- Extras died trying to film the sea battle and chariot race.  Oh, If I remember correctly, the sea battle was filmed on the ocean.

Water World- Note to self: If you ever get to make a movie, Don't film it on the ocean!

Ed Woods NIGHT OF THE GHOULS (1959)-a semi sequel to BRIDE OF THE MONSTER (1955) sat on unreleased for 23 years (!) because Ed Wood could't afford to pay the film lab for processing!

[url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZ5Wk7Z1pI0[/url]

In his autobiographical film Portrait Werner Herzog, Herzog has stated that the film's spectacular production was partly inspired by the engineering feats of ancient standing stones. The film production was an incredible ordeal, and famously involved moving a 320-ton steamship over a hill without the use of special effects. Herzog believed that no one had ever performed a similar feat in history, and likely never will again, calling himself "Conquistador of the Useless".[4] Three similar-looking ships were bought for the production and used in different scenes and locations, including scenes that were shot aboard the ship while it crashed through rapids, injuring three of the six people involved in the filming.

Casting of the film was also quite difficult. Jason Robards was originally cast in the title role, but he became ill with dysentery during early filming and, after leaving for treatment, was forbidden by his doctors to return. Herzog then considered casting Jack Nicholson, and even playing Fitzcarraldo himself, before Klaus Kinski accepted the role. By that point, forty percent of shooting with Robards was complete, and for continuity Herzog was forced to begin a total reshoot with Kinski. Mick Jagger was originally cast as Fitzcarraldo's assistant Wilbur, but due to the delays his shooting schedule expired and he departed to tour with the Rolling Stones. Herzog dropped Jagger's character from the script altogether and reshot the film from the beginning.

Klaus Kinski himself was a major source of tension, as he fought virulently with Herzog and other members of the crew; a scene from the documentary My Best Fiend depicts Kinski raging at production manager Walter Saxer over trivial matters, such as the quality of the food. Herzog notes that the native extras, contrary to Kinski's feeling of closeness to them, were greatly upset by his shows of anger. In My Best Fiend, Herzog says that one of the native chiefs offered, in all seriousness, to murder Kinski for him, but that he declined because he needed Kinski to complete filming. In one scene, when the crew is eating dinner while surrounded by the natives, the clamor the chief incites over Fitzcarraldo was, according to Herzog, his exploiting their hate of Kinski.

The Thief and The Cobbler has a history, notably that it came out the same year as Aladdin, but actually TTaTC was drawn thirty figgen years earlier than Alad.

Understatement of the year.  They began working on it in the 60's.  Richard Williams worked slooooowly trying to get everything just right.  After he won an Oscar someone gave him money to finish it.  He still took his time, so they took it away from him, re-edited it, added songs, finished it, and released it.  Oh, and there were two different versions (the other was called The Princess And the Cobbler.  It's still a good movie, with some of the best hand-drawn animation made by anyone after the 40's.

Edit: I forgot to mention that Vincent Price is on of the voices.  :thumbup: