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

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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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  (#2) Once Upon a Time in America

  • Robert De Niro, James Woods, Elizabeth McGovern, Treat Williams, Tuesday Weld, Burt Young, Joe Pesci, Danny Aiello, William Forsythe, James Hayden, Darlanne Fluegel

  Once Upon a Time in America, Sergio Leone's epic ode to American gangster films, is a classic case of studio interference. Leone's original tale of Jewish gangsters in prohibition-era New York City ran for 229 minutes. Leone and studio heads clashed over the film's running time, and distributors subsequently edited the film down to a mere 139 minutes. They also turned the film's non-linear narrative into a chronological tale, a move that critics widely criticized. The butchering made the story very difficult to understand, and it ultimately resulted in box office failure. However, Leone's original vision is available for viewers who don't mind the four-hour running time.
  
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  (#3) Iron Man

  • Robert Downey, Terrence Howard, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jeff Bridges, Shaun Toub, Faran Tahir, Leslie Bibb, Sayed Badreya, Clark Gregg, Bill Smitrovich, Jon Favreau

  Due to Iron Man's enormous success, it's hard to remember what a mess Robert Downey Jr. was before putting on the suit. His battle with drugs and alcohol led to multiple arrests, and it seemed like the talented actor's career was over. However, sometimes all it takes for a comeback is to have one very persistent man in your corner. Director Jon Favreau battled Marvel to cast Downey as Iron Man. The studio rejected the idea several times, but Favreau insisted because he knew Downey was perfect for the part. "It was my job as a director to show that it was the best choice creatively…and now the Marvel Universe is the biggest franchise in film history," Favreau said. Sometimes feuds actually do end well.
  
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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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  (#5) Cop Out

  • Bruce Willis, Tracy Morgan, Adam Brody, Kevin Pollak, Guillermo Díaz, Seann William Scott, Jason Lee, Ana de la Reguera, Michelle Trachtenberg, Rashida Jones, Jim Norton, Susie Essman, Sean Cullen, Francie Swift, Michael A. Pitt

  Cop Out (2010) was both a box office bomb and critical punching bag. The film was called joyless, poorly paced, cliched, poorly executed, and half-baked. But who was to blame when this big-budget movie tanked? Was it director Kevin Smith, the writers, or the film's stars Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan?

  According to Smith, the brunt of the blame should be placed on Willis's shoulders because of his attitude on the set. Smith talked about the experience of working with Willis on Marc Maron's WTF Podcast: “It was difficult. I’ve never been involved in a situation like that where one component is not in the box at all. It was f*ckin’ soul crushing. I mean, a lot of people are gonna be like, ‘Oh, you’re just trying to blame the movie on him.’ No, but I had no f*cking help from this dude whatsoever.”
  
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  (#6) Maidstone

  • Rip Torn, Norman Mailer, Harris Yulin, Isabelle Collin Dufresne

  Norman Mailer's experimental 1970 film Maidstone is most well-known for the fight that broke out between Mailer and Rip Torn. In the film, Mailer plays a filmmaker who is running for President while also working on a film project. Rip Torn plays his money-grabbing brother-in-law Raoul. The film was shot over the course of five days and drugs were readily available and consumed heartily. Towards the end of the project, it seemed as if reality and fiction had blended together. At one point on set, Torn went after Mailer with a hammer and a massive fight broke out between the men. Cameras were serendipitously rolling during the brawl, and Mailer put the fight into the final cut of the film. 
  
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  (#7) Alien 3

  • Sigourney Weaver, Charles S. Dutton, Charles Dance, Paul McGann, Brian Glover, Ralph Brown, Danny Webb, Christopher John Fields, Holt McCallany, Lance Henriksen

  David Fincher was the hottest music video director of the 1980s and '90s before directing his first feature-length film, Alien 3, in 1992. The experience was so awful for Fincher that after the film was complete, he vowed to never direct another movie again. Thankfully, he later changed his mind, as Fincher has become one of the most talented auteurs of modern-day cinema. The studio execs and Fincher battled over creative differences, with the execs calling for rewrites to the script and footage re-shoots, most of which the director was adamantly against. Fincher ultimately disowned the film, which was totally panned by critics.
  
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  (#8) All the Pretty Horses

  • Matt Damon, Henry Thomas, Penélope Cruz, Lucas Black, Rubén Blades, Robert Patrick, Julio Oscar Mechoso, Miriam Colon, Bruce Dern, Sam Shepard

  Here's another battle between director and producer. This time, it's Billy Bob Thornton vs. Harvey Weinstein. Thornton directed an adaption of Cormac McCarthy's novel All the Pretty Horses (2000). His vision was an epic western with a running time of almost four hours. Weinstein battled Thornton over the movie's length, and of course, Weinstein won. The theatrical cut ended up being under two hours. Additionally, the film's original score by Daniel Lanois was also replaced. All the Pretty Horses wound up making only $18 million at the box office against a budget of $50 million. The movie was critically panned.

  Matt Damon came out in defense of Thornton's film during an interview with Playboy in 2012. He was asked if there was one film that made him want to pack it all in. Damon responded:

  "Everybody who worked on All the Pretty Horses took so much time and cared so much. As you know, the Cormac McCarthy book is set in 1949 and is about a guy trying to hold on to his old way of life. The electric guitar became popular in 1949, and the composer Daniel Lanois got an old 1949 guitar and wrote this spare, haunting score. We did the movie listening to his score. It informed everything we did. We made this very dark, spare movie, but the studio wanted an epic with big emotions and violins. They saw the cast, the director, Billy Bob Thornton, and the fact that we spent $50 million, and they never released our movie—though the cut still exists. Billy had a heart problem at that time, and it was because his heart f*cking broke from fighting for that film. It really f*cked him up. It still bothers me to this day."
  
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  (#9) Blade Runner

  • Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, Edward James Olmos, M. Emmet Walsh, Daryl Hannah, William Sanderson, Brion James, Joseph Turkel, Joanna Cassidy, James Hong, Morgan Paull, Kevin Thompson, John Edward Allen, Hy Pyke, Kimiro Hiroshige, Bob Okazaki, Carolyn DeMirjian

  Now, Blade Runner is considered a sci-fi noir classic, but at the time of its release, the movie totally flopped at the box office. The well-known story is that director Ridley Scott wanted to use a twist for the film's ending which hinted that Deckard (Harrison Ford) was actually a Replicant. Ford was completely against the idea, and it caused a feud between the actor and director. Scott ignored Ford and shot the scenes that would signal at Deckard's true nature.

  Since Scott wasn't listening to Ford, the actor decided to talk to the studio about his opinion. The studio agreed with Ford, and the scenes were cut. Thankfully, Scott was later able to add the deleted scenes in his 1992 Director's Cut. It makes for a more interesting, thought-provoking story with a realm of possibilities.
  
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  (#10) Fantastic Four

  • Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba, Chris Evans, Michael Chiklis, Julian McMahon, Hamish Linklater, Kerry Washington, Stan Lee, Mark S. Allen, Lorena Gale, G. Michael Gray, Gina Holden, Laurie Holden, Aonika Laurent

  Movie studio Fox did not like director Josh Trank's final cut of the superhero movie Fantastic Four (2015). A feud erupted between the director and the studio, and Fox opted to completely take over production by re-shooting several important scenes. Trank responded on Twitter, stating, "A year ago I had a fantastic version of this. And it would’ve received great reviews. You’ll probably never see it. That’s reality though.”

  The movie was panned by critics and tanked at the box office. Despite the results, it seems that the studio did the right thing by pulling Trank from the project. According to an article written in Entertainment Weekly, Trank was a nightmare during production:

  "On set, Trank was said to be abusive and insulting to the crew and cast. The studio hadn't wanted Whiplash star Teller, but Trank had fought for him. Then he ended up almost fighting Teller, who has a reputation for sarcasm and recalcitrance while working. At one point, the conflict nearly became physical, with Trank and Teller chest to chest, daring each other to throw the first punch. Neither did."
  
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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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  (#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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  (#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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  (#14) Charlie's Angels

  • Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore, Lucy Liu, Bill Murray, Sam Rockwell, Tim Curry, Kelly Lynch, Crispin Glover, Matt LeBlanc, LL Cool J, Tom Green, Luke Wilson, John Forsythe

  Bill Murray is known to sometimes be unkind on movie sets. The legendary story from Charlie's Angels (2000) is that Murray got into a fight with co-star Lucy Liu and said to her, "What in the hell are you doing here? You can’t act!” Liu reportedly responded by throwing punches at Murray. Director McG, who claimed Murray headbutted him, was also not happy with Murray's on-set antics. The director replaced Murray with Bernie Mac as Bosley for the next film in the franchise, Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle (2003). 
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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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