We've been conditioned to expect the biggest and brightest stars of the entertainment world to have one or two screws loose. After all, you can't be Hollywood royalty for long before you start to lose touch with reality. But you rarely read any news stories about crazy directors, which is strange.
Because, generally speaking, the director is the craziest person on set, possessed with the sort of creative tunnel vision that allows them to completely disregard human life and the mental health and safety of the cast and crew for the sake of completing the film. Here are six reckless visionaries responsible for film productions that could arguably be considered crimes against humanity.
6
The Director Of Dr. Moreau Gets Fired, Shows Up In An Animal Costume After Living In The Jungle For Two Months
New Line Cinema
The Island Of Dr. Moreau is a legendarily terrible film about two egotistical dickfarts who try to turn animals into people until everything explodes. The story of the making of the 1996 version of The Island Of Dr. Moreau is somehow more insane than that last sentence.
Before filming had even begun, director Richard Stanley was in danger of being thrown off the movie, because New Line Cinema didn't have faith in his ability to direct a big-budget studio film. So he enlisted the help of a warlock to perform a good-vibes blood magic ritual in order to guarantee that the movie got made. That is not a joke. Stanley got his wish -- New Line went ahead with the production, with him as director and Marlon Brando and Val Kilmer as his two stars. However, the magic turned out to be more of a curse than a blessing, sort of like a monkey's paw wish or an episode of The Twilight Zone.
New Line Cinema
We didn't say a good episode.
First of all, the movie required a ton of live animals to be shipped out to the coast of Australia, where filming was to take place. Naturally, the animals were caught in a hurricane in transit, and Stanley refused to leave the ship until all of the animals were safely removed. This is another way of saying that a terrified puma, suspended in its cage in mid-air as they tried to ferry it from one ship to another, pissed all over Stanley and the crew, thus setting the tone for the rest of the film.
Brando's arrival on set was severely delayed for personal reasons (Brando's daughter had suddenly committed suicide), and Brando had been one of Stanley's most vocal (and only) supporters. So Stanley was forced to try to film around Brando's absence, which meant trying to get all of Kilmer's scenes done. This proved to be difficult, because Kilmer, who was an actual movie star back in 1995 and not the confusing punchline he is today, was fighting the director at every turn, issuing an endless list of movie-star demands. One such demand was the construction of a treehouse, which Kilmer felt was the only natural place his character would want to stay. Stanley pointed out that there was no treehouse in the script, and that they were not about to build a treehouse just to accommodate him. Kilmer responded by making sure Stanley got fired from the film.
Robert Hanashiro/USA Today