Random Behind-The-Scenes Feuds That Changed The Direction Of Movies (15 items)

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  (#12) Heaven's Gate

  • Kris Kristofferson, Christopher Walken, Isabelle Huppert, John Hurt, Jeff Bridges, Sam Waterston

  Heaven's Gate (1980) is widely known as the film that nearly bankrupted United Artists and ruined director Michael Cimino's career. Cimino was on fire after making The Deer Hunter, an epic that won five trophies at the Oscars in 1978. For Heaven's Gate, Cimino was able to work a deal with UA that pretty much gave him total creative control. The stories regarding Cimino's manic, excessive nature have become Hollywood legend. He reportedly used a minimum of 32 takes for every single shot and made the cast learn how to roller skate for six weeks.

  Cimino was so wildly intent on making another epic and not wanting to deal with the studio that he reportedly changed the locks on the editing room to keep detractors away. The result was a whopping five-and-a-half hour running time. The studio responded to Cimino's film by chopping it down to 149 minutes. Heaven's Gate turned out to be one of the biggest box office bombs of all time and some critics consider it one of the worst movies ever made.
  
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  (#1) Batman Forever

  • Val Kilmer, Tommy Lee Jones, Jim Carrey, Nicole Kidman, Chris O'Donnell, Michael Gough, Pat Hingle, Drew Barrymore, Debi Mazar, Ed Begley

  In the early '90s, actor Val Kilmer garnered a reputation for being hard to work with. On the set of Batman Forever (1995), director Joel Schumacher witnessed the reason for Kilmer's bad rep firsthand. Schumacher had a conversation with Kilmer about his poor treatment of others on the set, and the talk resulted in Kilmer not speaking with the director for several weeks.

  The fallout from this feud may not have affected this particular Batman movie, which did well at the box office, but it certainly affected Kilmer's career: this was a one-and-done performance for Kilmer as Batman. The franchise and Schumacher chose to recast the role of the Caped Crusader, bestowing the black cowl upon George Clooney in 1997's Batman & Robin.
  
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  (#4) American History X

  • Ed Norton, Edward Furlong, Fairuza Balk, Beverly D'Angelo, Avery Brooks, Stacy Keach, Jennifer Lien, Elliott Gould, William Russ, Ethan Suplee, Joe Cortese, Guy Torry, Giuseppe Andrews, Antonio David Lyons, Keram Malicki-Sanchez, Jordan Marder, Nicholas R. Oleson, Anne Lambton, Alex Sol, Paul Le Mat

  Tony Kaye is known around Hollywood for being a bit of a hothead. For his feature film directorial debut American History X, Kaye did not want to cast Ed Norton (who was later nominated for an Oscar for his performance), but finally agreed when he couldn't find anyone else for the role. After Kaye finished editing the movie, he handed over a 96-minute cut to New Line. When the studio and Norton responded with several notes and questions about the cut, Kaye reportedly responded with a temper tantrum.

  New Line wound up booting the director from the editing room, and Kaye asked for his name to be entirely removed from the project. His request was denied. New Line added 40 minutes of footage to the controversial film, which has gone on to become a cult classic and film school staple.
  
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  (#11) Transformers: Dark of the Moon

  • Shia LaBeouf, Josh Duhamel, John Turturro, Tyrese Gibson, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Patrick Dempsey, Kevin Dunn, Julie White, Ken Jeong, John Malkovich, Frances McDormand, Peter Cullen, Hugo Weaving, Leonard Nimoy, Chris Sheffield

  Megan Fox and director/uber-producer Michael Bay had a rocky relationship during the filming of the first two Transformer movies. Even still, it probably wasn't a good idea for Fox to bite the hand that feeds her. Fox publicly compared Bay to Hitler right before filming Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011) was set to begin. "He wants to be like Hitler on his sets, and he is. So he’s a nightmare to work for but when you get him away from set, and he’s not in director mode, I kind of really enjoy his personality because he’s so awkward, so hopelessly awkward.” Bay responded by writing  Fox out of the film and recasting the role with Rosie Huntington-Whiteley.
  
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  (#15) The Incredible Hulk

  • Ed Norton, Liv Tyler, Tim Roth, William Hurt, Tim Blake Nelson, Ty Burrell, Christina Cabot, Peter Mensah, Lou Ferrigno, Paul Soles, Débora Nascimento

  Ed Norton and Marvel Studios feuded during the production of the fairly well-received The Incredible Hulk (2008). Norton kept insisting that the script was not right, and he even refused to promote the movie. The blow up between Norton and Marvel resulted in a recast. Mark Ruffalo took over as The Hulk in The Avengers (2012) and the subsequent follow-up movies with The Hulk in the Marvel franchise.
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  (#13) The Island of Dr. Moreau

  • Marlon Brando, Val Kilmer, David Thewlis, Fairuza Balk, Ron Perlman, Marco Hofschneider, Temuera Morrison, William Hootkins, Daniel Rigney, Nelson de la Rosa

  It's hard to believe that Val Kilmer is actually harder to work with than Marlon Brando, but that was the case for this feud. Audiences got to go behind the scenes of the sci-fi remake The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996) thanks to the documentary Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley's Island of Dr. Moreau. Val Kilmer's career was smoking hot at the time after portraying Batman and he arrived on set with a bad attitude. Richard Stanley tried to direct him, but Kilmer was often disagreeable, sometimes refusing to act in a scene. 

  The feud and Kilmer's behavior got the best of Stanley; he left the production after only a few days and was replaced with John Frankenheimer. However, Stanley did return to the set in disguise to work as an extra. Who knows what could have been if Stanley stayed on to direct, but we know for sure that Frankenheimer's version was a box office disappointment and a critical punching bag.
  

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