It may seem like there’s a ton of money to be made in the film industry, but that’s actually not the case. Not always, at least. In many instances, actors stick their necks out to do a movie they are very passionate about or are very inspired to produce, and they come away broke! Forget the multi-million dollar salaries, the huge box office totals, and the massive marketing budgets. Some movies just suck money out of the room. Even for the stars who sign on to do them, hoping it’ll propel their A-list profiles to even higher heights!

In this list, we’ll take a closer look at ten Hollywood movie stars who actually lost money producing hit movies seen by millions of people. From marketing costs stretching the budget thin to paltry low salaries after agreeing to get on set, these ten stories prove that the movie biz isn’t all sunshine and rainbows!

Related: Top 10 Tremendous Wastes Of Money

10 Dwayne Johnson

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson was incredibly hopeful that moviegoers would love to see Black Adam (2022). The brains behind the DC Comics Extended Universe were hopeful that audiences would connect with the character, too. After all, the franchise was sputtering at the time, and they desperately needed to turn over a new leaf. So they signed Johnson on in large part because all of his movies have always been massive hits. Well, until this one! The superhero story about an Egyptian slave from 2600 BC who was granted great power by the ancient Gods simply failed to connect with audiences in the biggest and worst way.

For one, the film’s production was marred by the COVID-19 pandemic. Then, when it came time to release it, Johnson himself put his money where his mouth was and stepped up as both a producer and a promotional mouthpiece. Sadly, it didn’t work. Despite all of Johnson’s other films raking in dough, this one lost tons and tons of money for both him and Warner Brothers. According to reports, the film’s funders lost as much as $100 million after fans failed to show interest in the story and its off-shoot title character. Oops!^[1]

9 George Clooney

George Clooney believed so much in his 2008 sports comedy film Leatherheads (2008) that he invested a lot of his own money to make it work. But while the production got off without a hitch, and the film did live long enough to see theaters and be sold to moviegoers, the public mostly panned the flick. Sure, George may have written the film, starred in it, directed it, and even produced it by taking in the bigger picture with marketing and funding. However, he forgot the most important part: to make a movie the public wanted to see.

Ultimately, the film came to life on a budget of $58 million, which was put up by George’s own production company, Smokehouse Productions. Unfortunately for the ER alum and his Smokehouse brethren, they didn’t come anywhere close to making back their money. According to film industry watchdog reports, the film only brought in just a shade over $41 million in box office receipts. So it left George about $17 million in the hole. Ouch!^[2]

8 Kevin Costner

Kevin Costner isn’t afraid of investing his own money into his films. There’s just one problem with that strategy, though: When he misses, he misses REALLY big. Take The Postman (1997) as the perfect example of this. Costner himself helped fund the flick, but unfortunately, audiences didn’t go see it nearly enough to earn the star his money back. The film’s budget topped $80 million, according to reports, but it only turned around and brought in $17.6 million in ticket receipts. Worse yet, it didn’t even get an international release, preventing Costner from scoring big on foreign money after its disappointing American run.

But is Costner upset with losing so much money on the movie? Nope! Speaking to HuffPost about it after the film bombed, Kevin called The Postman a “really good movie.” Defending his decision to fund and produce it, he added: “If you revisit the movie, that’s a good thing to do. You can go back and revisit some movies that made well over $100 million and you might not care anything about them. And you can go back and maybe review a movie like that—you know, it was a pretty big, epic movie.” Hey, as long as he’s proud of it and okay with it losing so much money, who are we to criticize?^[3]

7 Brad Pitt

Brad Pitt felt so strongly about his 2007 movie The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford that he put up his own money to get it off the ground and out in theaters. The issue came when he found out how fans didn’t feel nearly as passionately about the movie. Pitt and his production team spent more than $30 million on the film—much of which came out of the A-list star’s own deep pockets. But the movie only returned about half of that total in gate receipts, making it a complete failure on every financial level.

Don’t count on Pitt regretting the process, though. “The way producers get us actors on is if it’s something we love and have to do, we do it for a price and get the movie made,” Pitt explained to Variety five years after the movie came out, in 2012. “It actually cost me money in the end. I paid to work on that one, and I think the film still lost money, but it was one of my favorites and one of the most rewarding to me.” Of course, there isn’t a price to be put on emotional satisfaction. Still, the thought of losing tens of millions of dollars is a tough pill to swallow!^[4]

6 John Travolta

John Travolta took a big risk when he decided to take Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard’s book Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000 to the big screen. He had trouble nearly from the very beginning, too. Most notably, Travolta couldn’t find funding for the 2000 movie! So he had to fund it himself if he wanted to see it get made—and that’s exactly what he did.

The A-lister put in millions of his own dollars to fund the film and even agreed to forfeit the majority of his normal paycheck to make it. In turn, he hoped to see a major return on his investment with a popular showing at the box office. But he didn’t! Not even close. The film’s budget ended up soaring higher than $73 million in the end. And as for how much it brought in? Well, it didn’t even clear $30 million in returns. Ouch!

Still, even though he took a $43 million haircut, Travolta has no regrets about it. Speaking to the Daily Beast about losing so much money on Hubbard’s book-turned-film, Travolta argued: “Why would I ever regret that? I had the power to do whatever I wanted, and I chose to do a book that I thought was worthy of making into a movie. It’s a beautiful film. It’s a good movie.”^[5]

5 Sharon Stone

Sharon Stone had one of the most iconic film roles of all time with her work in Basic Instinct (1992). But it might surprise you to learn that she didn’t make any money on the film! Her co-star, Michael Douglas, may have commanded millions of dollars with his role in the flick, and he came away as a clear financial winner. But Sharon didn’t make that kind of money for her role, which catapulted her into true superstardom. Then, to make matters worse, she had to do the awards show run because the film was so successful—and so she lost money spending big on dresses, makeup, and stylists!

Between promoting the movie as it hit theaters and then doing the Oscars dance after it started to gain traction, Stone ended up bottoming out in the red. After looking back on her Basic Instinct experience in a chat years later with the CBC, Stone reminisced. “I didn’t get paid [well] to do Basic Instinct. I made a little bit of money. Michael made $14 million and has points. I made not enough money to buy my dress to go to the Oscars the next year. I was in this weird limbo where I was suddenly famous, but didn’t have any money.”^[6]

4 Jack Black

Jack Black thought so highly of Tenacious D that he used up all his willpower and goodwill with producers and Hollywood movers and shakers to bring it to the big screen in 2006. The result was the funny and bizarre movie Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny. While he may have loved that the film was even greenlit and produced at all, his adoration for his band didn’t translate into a financial windfall. In fact, it went completely in the other direction! Things got so bad that Black even had to forgo his usual $12 million per movie salary that he had been accustomed to drawing in other productions.

In the end, the movie was made on a $20 million budget. That’s not huge compared to the costs of some films nowadays. However, the issue was that Jack’s passion project only made back $13.9 million in theaters. So that’s quite a significant loss compared to what he and Tenacious D co-creator Kyle Gass had been hoping to get. Oh, yeah, and that’s the other thing: being partners on the musical side of things, Gass and Black had agreed to split their movie money evenly in the end. So each one ended up netting about $500,000 on a movie that cost $20 million of their own money and privately raised investor funds to make. Yikes!^[7]

3 Will Smith

Will Smith and his production company Overbrook Entertainment took a big chance in 2013 when they took the sci-fi flick After Earth to theaters. The film wasn’t cheap at all to make. In fact, they spent $150 million to produce the film—and then another $100 million to market it. Those numbers are massive in any context! And they are even more massive when you consider how much the film didn’t make! In the end, After Earth only brought back $234 million during its theatrical release. A big number out of context, obviously, but when you spend north of $250 million to get it out there, falling $17 million short doesn’t feel good. Smith himself later called it “the most painful failure in my career.”

“What I learned from that failure is how you win,” Smith told Esquire after the movie bombed so badly, and he took some time to reflect on its losses. “I got reinvigorated after the failure of ‘After Earth.’ I stopped working for a year and a half. I had to dive into why it was so important for me to have number-one movies. And I never would have looked at myself in that way.”

And he continued: “That Monday started the new phase of my life, a new concept: Only love is going to fill that hole. You can’t win enough, you can’t have enough money, you can’t succeed enough. There is not enough. The only thing that will ever satiate that existential thirst is love. And I just remember that day I made the shift from wanting to be a winner to wanting to have the most powerful, deep, and beautiful relationships I could possibly have.”^[8]

2 Patricia Arquette

Patricia Arquette was paid so little to be in Boyhood that the movie nearly wasn’t worth it to do. Financially, she came away with just a few thousand dollars for her trouble. Which, when you factor in time spent on set, time preparing and learning lines and blocking, and the costs of having assistants and helpers keep up her home and pets when she was gone to film, it just wasn’t worth it! Well, that is until she won the Oscar for Best Supporting Acctress for her role in it.

“It’s important to me as an actor to be able to make a living, but I’m going to tell you something,” Arquette revealed after the movie hit theaters and turned into a massive critical and award-show success. “I paid more money to my babysitter and my dog walker than I made on ‘Boyhood,’ and to be in Boyhood.” That seems kind of backward to us, considering popular movies make bank. But again, she won an Oscar for her role, so we have a feeling that she’s not too upset by the outcome.^[9]

1 Rebel Wilson

Rebel Wilson revealed in her memoir that the early career-defining role she had in Bridesmaids netted her just $3,500 in salary. That’s a remarkably small salary for a movie that turned out to be so popular and well-known. Not only that, but Rebel actually had to wait more than a year before the check cleared and was sent to her! We hope she wasn’t counting on paying rent or anything with the proceeds. She did use the money to join the Screen Actors Guild, at least, so that’s a nice move to make. But she ended up in the red on it overall because she had to dish out dollars for dresses and beauty bills when it came time to premiere and promote the film!

“I basically made no money,” Rebel wrote about the financial reality behind Bridesmaids in her memoir. “I lost money because I had to pay to go to the premiere, like to buy my dress and everything. That was a really skint year where I was living on $60 a week in L.A. once I’d paid my rent and my car hire. I wasn’t partying or living this [movie star] life. It was basically having that focus, trying to write for myself, like going to auditions.”^[10]

Filming a movie can get more emotional than you might expect—and we don’t just mean on camera when actors are required to show their emotions based on the scenes they’re in. Behind the scenes and away from the camera, tensions often rise to the point of creative differences polluting working relationships. Actors, producers, screenwriters, and directors can have heated arguments about where a film or television show is going or how they see a script playing out. And sometimes, that can lead to some extremely aggressive and contentious moments.

That’s what this list is all about, in fact. Today, we’ll tell the sordid tales of ten actors who got so angry at their co-stars and/or other co-workers that they stormed off set in the middle of filming. It’s obviously incredibly unprofessional to leave a project right in the middle of it. But for these ten actors, tensions got so high that they couldn’t help it. So, in each case, we’ll leave you to be the judge: were they being divas? Or were they justified in walking away from filming in the middle of a gig?

Related: 10 Actors That Are Polar Opposites from Their Characters

10 Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio

Back in 1989, James Cameron was busy directing The Abyss, which starred Ed Harris. Alongside that veteran actor was the talented actress Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio. In one scene in the film, Mastrantonio’s character is called to sacrifice herself. Then, she is revived by Ed’s character. It’s a heavy scene and one in which Cameron directed Harris to scream at Mary Elizabeth and slap her during the revival. The duo filmed the scene over and over again—to the point where Cameron’s camera actually ran out of film. But the scene didn’t stop!

Even though there was no film rolling, nobody told Ed or Mary Elizabeth. They both continued the scene involving the awful slapping and screaming for an audience of no one. And when they found out that the emotionally challenging moment hadn’t even been filmed, Harris and Mastrantonio were both livid. Mary Elizabeth was so mad about it that she (understandably) stormed off the set.

Years later, Harris recalled the difficult moment—and Mary Elizabeth’s strong reaction to it—in an interview with Entertainment Weekly. “I was slapping her across the face, and I see that they’ve run out of film in the camera—there’s a light on the camera—and nobody had said anything,” Harris said. “And Mary Elizabeth stood up and said, ‘We are not animals!’ and walked off the set. They were going to let me just keep slapping her around!” Wow. Pretty brutal!^[1]

9 Patrick Stewart

While he was working on the very first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation, legendary actor Patrick Stewart once got so angry that he had to storm off set to contain himself. That seems unlikely based on Stewart’s impeccable reputation in Hollywood and among his fans, doesn’t it? But the incident really happened. And Stewart himself was the one who confirmed it while providing the context for the runaway!

Looking back on that difficult moment as part of his memoir Making It So, Stewart said that at the time, he was becoming mad over how he felt like his co-stars weren’t taking their work seriously. “I grew angry with the conduct of my peers,” Stewart wrote in the memoir, “and that’s when I called that meeting in which I lectured the cast for goofing off and responded to Denise Crosby’s, ‘We’ve got to have some fun sometimes, Patrick,’ comment by saying, ‘We are not here, Denise, to have fun.’” Whoa! And then he was gone—he stormed off to take a much-needed breather!

Stewart then went on to add: “In retrospect, everyone, me included, finds this story hilarious. But, in the moment when the cast erupted in hysterics at my pompous declaration, I didn’t handle it well. I didn’t enjoy being laughed at. I stormed off the set and into my trailer, slamming the door.” Hey, even the most beloved actors sometimes have moments of deep frustration.^[2]

8 Diana Rigg

While Diana Rigg was working on Game of Thrones, her frustration level at on-set antics was set to a hair trigger. It all started one day when she arrived on set to film her scenes when the crew was still setting up the shot. She recited her lines twice and then was asked to film a close-up as part of the scene. According to her former co-star Jessica Henwick, Rigg got so mad at the request that she simply walked off the set. And that was that!

Speaking to ET about Rigg’s rude on-set behavior, Henwick claimed: “[Rigg] walked onto the set, and she went, ‘I’m ready now!’ A cameraman came over and went, ‘Well, okay, but we haven’t finished setting up.’ She interrupted him and said, ‘Roll the cameras!’ And she just started doing her lines. She did two takes, and then the guy came over and was like, ‘Great, now we’re going to do a close-up.’ And she just stood up, and she went, ‘I’m done!’”

And Rigg really meant it, too—she was DONE! Rigg, who died at 82 years old in 2020, couldn’t walk very fast at that point in her life, but she stormed off set to whatever degree that she could. Henwick explained: “Now, she can’t walk fast. She has to be helped. So basically, we just sat there and watched as Diana Rigg effectively did her own version of storming off the set, but it was at 0.1 miles per hour. She cracked me up.” Now, it cracks us up, too!^[3]

7 Nicolas Cage

Nicolas Cage was filming the movie The Old Way when he stormed off the set because the crew was putting everyone’s safety in jeopardy. The film’s armorer at the time (the person on set in charge of firearms and weapons) was Hannah Gutierrez-Reed. You may know that name, as she was also the armorer on the set of Rust when a gun Alec Baldwin was holding discharged unexpectedly, wounding the movie’s director and killing the cinematographer. Well, on the set of The Old Way prior to that, Gutierrez-Reed apparently failed to go through proper firearm safety protocols.

According to key grip Stu Brumbaugh, who worked on that film with Hannah, she allegedly fired live ammunition twice on set in a span of just three days—and she failed to warn cast members and crew workers each time. After the second firing incident, Cage flipped out and ran off set. Per The Wrap, he reportedly yelled in anger at Gutierrez-Reed over the two shootings: “Make an announcement, you just blew my f**king eardrums out!” Knowing what happened later on Rust, which eventually led to Gutierrez-Reed being sentenced to 18 months in prison on voluntary manslaughter charges, makes the Nicolas Cage incident that much more alarming.^[4]

6 James Caan

It all came down to choking (or possibly coughing) on a cookie. The late James Caan was busy filming a movie called Nailed when he got into an on-set fight with the director of the film, David O. Russell. At the time, Caan was filming a scene that called for his character to choke to death while eating a cookie. Russell wasn’t convinced about Caan’s portrayal of the choking incident, though. The director asked the legendary actor if he might consider doing both—coughing AND choking—with the cookie lodged in his character’s throat.

Caan pointed out (correctly, by the way) that you can’t exactly cough and choke at the same time. After all, if you’re able to cough, enough air is getting in and out that you’re not literally choking, you know? Russell didn’t see it that way, though. He took umbrage at Caan’s hesitance and then asked the veteran thespian if they could film the scene both ways and see which one turned out better. Caan didn’t care to do that, and he’d had enough with Russell. He stormed off the set and left the project. His part in the film was quickly recast.^[5]

5 Sharon Stone

Back in 2014, news broke that actress Sharon Stone had stormed off the set of the movie A Golden Boy. The film’s director, an Italian man named Pupi Avati, went to the media and took Stone to task for supposedly being unprofessional. He claimed that there had been too many people milling about on set for Stone’s liking while they were shooting. So, in the heat of the moment and after getting mad at all the people watching her work, Stone rushed away from the film and refused to shoot any more scenes until most of the non-essential crew left.

In an interview with the Hollywood Reporter after the fact, Avati claimed: “She immediately disappeared. We looked for her everywhere, but nothing! Then my brother received a phone call from Los Angeles from her manager: she wouldn’t come back on the set until the photographers and especially that damned TV cameramen had gone away. Obviously, we did so, and she, like nothing happened, shot the scene.” Sounds like diva behavior, doesn’t it?

Only maybe it didn’t quite happen like that. After Avati’s words reached the eyes and ears of media consumers worldwide, Stone’s camp pushed back hard at the allegations. When questioned about it, her reps flatly denied that Sharon had ever stormed off the set of A Golden Boy. That denial left the rumblings to die down well enough to the point where the media buzz was curtailed. But forever after, Stone’s career has been associated with that supposed on-set meltdown.^[6]

4 Chevy Chase

Toward the end of the third season of Community, iconic comedic actor Chevy Chase had such a difficult moment with the show’s creator, Dan Harmon, that he stormed off set. And the bitterness followed Chase so closely that Harmon had him booted from the show after that season! Per Deadline, tensions had been high between Chase and Harmon for a while as the production of the third season got into the swing of things. That included multiple prior walk-outs by Chase, who was protesting the way Harmon ran the show and treated his subordinates.

Then, during the final episode of the season, Chase had it, and he stormed off set one more time. While the specific disagreement that time around wasn’t reported, the continued contentious behavior between the two of them was enough to seal the deal. Chase’s final storm-out was the last straw for Harmon, who booted Chase from future seasons.

To make things even more interesting, at the next day’s cast and crew wrap party, Harmon gave a speech about the incident to everyone assembled. In his remarks, Harmon allegedly slammed Chase with some very harsh words sent out in front of everyone. That enraged Chase even further, and he again walked out—this time, leaving early from the wrap party. The next day, he called Harmon’s phone and left an equally scathing voicemail. Bitterness all around!^[7]

3 Joaquin Phoenix

Scarlett Johansson came across co-star Joaquin Phoenix in a perilous place while the two were working on Her together. Awkwardly, the duo was filming an orgasm scene for the production when Phoenix abruptly had to excuse himself from the set. Johansson could commiserate with him on it, though, as even she thought the scene was “bizarre” and “gross.”

She revealed those thoughts—and Phoenix’s self-removal from the Her set—later in an interview on the Armchair Expert podcast. Explaining the situation to podcast host Dax Shepard, Johansson said: “We tried to get through one take, and he was like, losing it. He left the studio. He needed a break. You definitely don’t want to hear what you sound like having an orgasm. You definitely don’t want to hear what you sound like having a fake orgasm. Ew.” Ew indeed!

Interestingly, that’s not even the only time Phoenix has left the set in the middle of a production over something difficult that was taking place on camera. While filming The Joker, director Todd Phillips revealed that Phoenix was known to very often rush away from set “in the middle of the scene.” Phoenix would just “walk away and walk out” of the studio in certain unpredictable moments if he “wasn’t feeling it” with what was happening in the script. Oookay!^[8]

2 Frankie Muniz

Frankie Muniz didn’t just storm off the set when he was a child starring on the sitcom Malcolm in the Middle.” No, he stormed off set… and then didn’t return for more than two months! The walk-out came in a bid to protest the toxic environment that the show’s producers had supposedly foisted upon Muniz and the other child stars on the show. Years later, while Muniz was starring on the Australian reality TV show I’m a Celebrity… Get Me out of Here, he very cryptically detailed what happened. But he clearly still felt some type of way about it because he only referred to those creating the toxicity as “certain people” rather than naming them by name.

“There were two episodes I’m not in,” Muniz remembered years later as an adult during his time on the reality TV series that filmed Down Under. “I walked off the set. Everyone was so afraid to stand up when certain people were controlling or rude or disrespectful. Like, they walked on pins and needles… I was so mortified by seeing people afraid to stand up for themselves, I was like, ‘Say something.’ I didn’t care if they told me I was never going back because it was worth it to me.” Hey, at least he had a good reason for rushing away. Hopefully, things got better after that!^[9]

1 Emma Watson

Emma Watson’s guest-starring turn on This Is the End created a cascade of rumors that she had stormed off the set in the middle of filming. As the story went, Watson supposedly had a major disagreement with star Seth Rogen and the producers over a last-minute change in the script. And as it turns out, that rumor was true—Emma really did leave the set in the middle of filming. But it wasn’t quite for the reason that the rumor-spreaders initially thought. Oh, and it also didn’t help that Rogen himself fanned the flames of those rumors when he spoke to British GQ about the movie and suggested Watson had run away from production after a heated disagreement.

Once the rumors really started churning online, Rogen was forced to take to Twitter and confirm them while debunking some key details. “The scene was not what was originally scripted,” Rogen wrote when it came to what happened with Watson leaving the set. “It was getting improvised, changed drastically, and it was not what she agreed to. The narrative that she was in some way uncool or unprofessional is complete bull s**t. I, for sure, should have communicated better, and because I didn’t, she was put in an uncomfortable situation. She and I spoke on the night; it was overall a s**tty situation, and it must have been hard for her to say something. And I’m happy and impressed that she did. We agreed on her not being in the scene together.” So she DID storm off set—but apparently had a pretty good reason for doing so!^[10]

The art of film holds a very special place in many of our hearts. Transporting us to unique and creative worlds that capture our attention and our imaginations. No film would be complete without a great set to further immerse its viewers in the setting that it’s trying to sell us. Most films are brought to life on a backlot, only to be torn apart after filming. What happens however, when the production wraps up on films that are shot on location? More often than not, these sets are only partially torn down, if they’re torn down at all. All over the world, relics of cinema past litter abandoned and remote areas, acting as relics of the movies and their crews that once inhabited the area years before. Here are ten movies sets that were left abandoned by their crews after filming wrapped up.

See Also: 10 Notorious Film Sets That Injured, Maimed And Killed

10 Intolerance: Babylon Set

Back during the earliest days of Hollywood, no one really knew that movies would become anything more than a novelty, or if the medium would even stick. Due to this, there was a lot of experimental stuff going on. Cue W.D. Griffith who in 1916 decided to make a three and a half-hour long epic titled “Intolerance”. Griffith really tried to push the limits of filmmaking and even opted to put 1/3rd of the budget (Nearly 2 Million in today’s dollars.) towards creating a movie set of the ancient city of Babylon. This was constructed right off of Hollywood Boulevard and is an impressive set even to today’s standards. However, the film slowly turned into an ego trip for the director, who strived for perfectionism, and spent large sums of money on individual scenes really going for the visual aspect of the film. This caused for the film to become an absolute production nightmare, and after it’s release and lackluster reviews, nearly bankrupted Griffith. Due to this, the ancient Babylon set was left to rot right in the middle of downtown Hollywood as no one really wanted to dedicate the time or money into tearing it down. It sat this way for years, acting as a bizarre eyesore that anyone could just wander into until finally in 1922 it was razed by the city. The set still exists today in a different form. In 2001 a shopping mall opened near the original set, in which a semi-replica of the original set was constructed. While not complete, it features the stairs, some buildings, and a few statues in the exact scale of the originals that were torn down 80 years prior.^[1]

9 The Ten Commandments: City of the Pharaoh

As was the style at the time, creating massive sets for your film was a no-brainer if you really wanted to wow people with visuals. In 1923 Cecil B. Demille did just that while constructing the “City of the Pharaoh” for his version of the “Ten Commandments. He constructed the set in the desert outside of the small town of Guadalupe, California. The set consisted of an 800 Ft. wide temple complete with twenty-one giant papier-mâché sphinxes lining the way to its entrance. It’s impressive size left the production team with the dilemma of cleaning up the set after filming, and transporting its pieces. DeMille instead hatched the idea to simply bury the entire thing right in the sand where it stood, and they did exactly that. The set sat for nearly 90 years in the desert until in a strange twist, archeologists decided to try to dig up its remnants. They discovered near-intact sphinxes as well as remnants of buildings and pottery all from the original sets of the movie, untouched for nearly a century.^[2]

8 Big Fish: Spectre movie set

Tim Burton is well known for his love of pushing the boundaries of cinema with special effects. In his 2003 film “Big Fish” he opted to physically create the town of “Spectre” in which the main character visits multiple times throughout the movie. Built on an island in the middle of the Alabama river, the crew decided to leave the town after filming wrapped up. What remained was a dilapidating and sagging small town made of facades fake trees and rocks. Over time, the set began to fall apart, and a fire destroyed many of the buildings. However, today six of the buildings still exist as well as some remnants of the others, acting as a living testament to the movie that was shot there nearly two decades ago.^[3]

7 Star Wars: Tatooine Set

No one knew that Star Wars was going to be a hit when it first premiered in 1977. Not even George Lucas had too much faith in his own film. Regardless, much effort was put into trying to create the illusion of the exotic worlds featured in the film. The desert of Tunisia was chosen to be the location of the desert planet of Tatooine. Here, sets were constructed, and props were left. Including the exterior of Ben Kenobi’s home, and a skeleton of a fictional Krait Dragon. When cast and crew returned in the late 1990s to film the prequel film “The Phantom Menace” they were shocked to see that although locals had picked over these sets, they remained almost fully intact. The sets expanded as they created an entire village in order to make the “Mos Espa” set. This set still stands in full, a tourist attraction by the Tunisian government who realized it could be marketed as a pilgrimage site to any Star Wars fan wanting to bring themselves a bit closer to the film.^[4]

6 The Good The Bad and The Ugly

Regarded as the greatest western of all time, The Good The Bad and The Ugly is usually pretty high up on lists of people’s favorite movies. Primarily filmed in and around Almería, Spain many of the “Old West” style buildings were left on location, and used in various other “Spaghetti Westerns” as time went on. In 2014 restoration procedures began on the site of the “Sad Hill Cemetery” location of the film’s iconic final standoff. The cemetery had been constructed solely for the film, and fell apart after filming wrapped up. However, a near replica now exists on the exact site of the former set thanks to some dedicated film enthusiasts.^[5]

5 Popeye village

Some films are baffling that they ever got made. 1980’s Popeye, featuring a young Robin Williams, is one of these films. Even more baffling is that for such a bizarre film concept, they created an entire village complete with fully constructed buildings, in the island country of Malta. Such a large set would be very expensive to destroy and they instead opted to leave it there, with the government of Malta deciding to turn it into a tourist attraction. It’s still open to this day complete with its own website. I don’t know exactly who is going out of there way to visit the village featured in the old Popeye movie, but it does look like a neat little Mediterranean getaway regardless of its significance to cinema history.^[6]

4 Patriots Day

The 2016 Mark Wahlberg movie, Patriots day, features some exhilarating scenes recreating real life firefight between the Boston Police and the Boston Marathon Bombers. Shooting on location in actual urban Massachusetts would be not only extremely expensive, but also possibly harmful to the community as the actual tragedy had only taken place three years prior. Due to this, sets were constructed on the grounds of now defunct South Weymouth Naval Base. These sets were used to recreate the Marathon finish line on Boylston street as well as a residential street that was featured in the film’s climactic shootout. Although they were just facades of buildings, they still exist on site today, easily accessible for anyone who wants to check them out.^[7]

3Field of Dreams

If you build it, they will come. That’s exactly what they did. Just as Ray constructed his own baseball field at the edge of a cornfield in the 1989 classic “Field of Dreams” so did the construction crew for the movie. Built in the small town of Dyersville, Iowa, this set consists of the baseball field itself, as well as the house of the film’s main character. Once all over the field and home were left there, and not unlike other locations on this list, quickly became a tourist attraction. Today you can visit the site, take a tour of the house, and occasionally watch a baseball game. In fact, Major League Baseball has even decided to have a game played on the site in 2020. Although it loses a bit of its novelty when you realize they’re constructing another additional field on the other side of the cornfield in which the teams will play, and not the actual set.^[8]

2 Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters

Despite this movie being a cliched, horribly written, and just all around awful movie, the creators of 2013’s Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters, opted to create a physical set for the movie’s town setting. Built in Augsburg, Germany right outside of Berlin the small and highly detailed medieval village was constructed and left to rot. Almost completely accessible to the public, the site remained as no one knew at the time whether or not the film would ever garner a sequel. Luckily for us, it never did.^[9]

1 Schindler’s list

The most chilling and eerie set on this list. Spielberg aimed for brutal accuracy in his depiction of the Nazi concentration camp “Plazlow” in his 1993 historical drama Schindler’s list. The actual camp had been torn down years ago, and would’ve posed an ethical dilemma to film there, so instead Spielberg opted to build a replica in a nearby quarry in Poland complete with seven watchtowers, 34 barracks, and replica officer villas. Once filming wrapped up, they left the replica camp to rot in the old quarry. Although it’s just a movie set and nothing really happened there, doesn’t make it any less sobering and terrifying to visit due to the real life counterpart it represented. ^[10]

About The Author: Dylan Hallett is a Journalism Student at the University of Maine with an interest in Sociology and Film. Twitter.

People love movies. There is almost nothing better than watching an epic tale unfolding on the big screen while you sit on the edge of your seat munching on popcorn. But behind the scenes there are often terrible sacrifices made in order to get the movie out into the world. People die, are injured or left with mental scarring (these include actors and stunt doubles). And what’s more, sometimes the directors simply don’t care as they are too focused on executing their vision. On this list are 10 examples of things that went terribly wrong during filming.

Top 10 Movie Sets Abandoned After Filming Wrapped Up

10 Stuntman attacked by shark

Many directors are embarrassed by their earliest works. Samuel Fuller directed White Dog and The Big Red One but wished that he had never been involved with Shark! which was released in 1969. So much so that he even requested for his name to be removed from the credits. However, Fuller wasn’t simply embarrassed because the film was bad. The movie, starring Burt Reynolds, also cost the life of Mexican stuntman, Jose Marco.

Marco filmed a scene with a bull shark attacking him. While he was struggling with the bull shark, a great white shark broke through the netting that was set up in the open waters and also attacked Marco, ripping open his stomach. Sadly, Marco passed away a few hours later, after crew members succeeded in scaring off the great white. Disgustingly, the producers of the film changed the name from its earlier moniker, Caine, to Shark! and proceeded to release it. Even worse, they publicized the stuntman’s death to promote the film.^[1]

9 Stunt pilot killed in plane crash

The Flight of the Phoenix, starring Jimmy Stewart, was not a terrible movie. In fact, it was nominated for two Academy Awards in 1965. However, it was a dismal failure at the box-office despite taking its plot from a best-selling novel and having an all-star cast.

But bombing at the box-office was the least of the producers’ troubles. Director producer Robert Aldrich and 61-year-old stunt pilot Paul Mantz wanted to re-shoot a scene where Mantz lands the “Phoenix” in the dunes. As the cameras were rolling, Mantz landed but hit one of the dunes too hard. This caused the fuselage to break and the plane’s nose to pitch forward at a sharp angle, killing Mantz instantly. Bobby Rose, a 64-year-old stuntman flying with Mantz broke his shoulder and pelvis. The cameras caught the entire horrific accident and the video can still be viewed online.^[2]

8 Light fixture nearly kills actor

Working on a true horror movie set is sure to rattle some nerves, no matter how seasoned the actors and crew. Director of the first Annabelle movie, John Leonetti, claimed that there were two supernatural events that happened on set during filming.

One of these events saw three claw marks drawn through the dust on the window of the living room set they were shooting from. It terrified those on site, considering the demon in the movie has three talons.

The second incident was a lot scarier, though. While shooting in an apartment building near Koreatown, the demon was brought into the shot. As the actor playing the janitor of the building headed into the shot as well, a massive light fixture promptly fell on his head. This incident became even creepier after it was revealed in the script that the demon kills the janitor in the hallway where the light fixture used to hang.^[3]

7 Boat sinks during filming

The making of Jaws is just about as legendary as the movie itself. There are lots of jaw-dropping tidbits surrounding the film, including Stephen King’s son claiming that an extra in the movie was an unidentified murder victim found in Provincetown in 1974. Also, one of the scariest scenes in the entire film, involving a severed head, was shot in a swimming pool.

There was drama on set as well, as might be expected when filming in the ocean. What was meant to be a 55-day shoot turned into 159 days. Richard Dreyfuss and Robert Shaw were feuding, and people were getting restless. To make matters worse, while filming the final scene, the boat used in the movie had its hull ruptured and started sinking with the actors still on board. Director, Steven Spielberg, panicked and shouted: “get the actors off the boat.” Another boat was sent in to rescue the sinking Orca and fortunately no one was injured in the incident.^[4]

6 Actors suffer near mental breakdown

While James Cameron is well-known for movies like Titanic and Avatar, he also directed the 1989 film The Abyss. This movie has gained the reputation of being one of the toughest to shoot because most of it was filmed under water.

The whole experience was very taxing on the cast and crew alike. The actors spent up to 12 hours a day on set which was 40 feet underwater in an abandoned nuclear reactor. The crew went up to 50 feet underwater and had to decompress regularly in a specialised decompression chamber. Everyone had to relieve themselves in their wetsuits which caused algae to bloom and extra chlorine to be required. Eventually star Ed Harris’ hair turned white because of the chlorine and he once broke down crying while driving home due to the sheer stress of filming. His co-star Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio had an emotional and physical breakdown on set and even walked off once.

Cameron himself nearly died on set after he ran out of oxygen underwater and had to be rescued by a safety diver.^[5]

10 Ridiculous Myths We Believe Because Of Movies

5 Stunt double paralyzed after stunt gone wrong

David Holmes was Daniel Radcliffe’s stunt double in the Harry Potty films. He and Radcliffe had worked together on 6 of the films when tragedy struck. During filming at the Warner Brothers Studios for the next instalment, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Holmes was practising a ‘jerk back’ stunt. He was thrown into a wall at one point and pulled back by a high-strength wire. Things went awry though, and he ended up with a broken neck and was instantly paralyzed.

He spent the next six months in hospital and was told he would be paralyzed from the chest down for the rest of his life. Next up was months of rehab. Daniel Radcliffe assisted Holmes with his medical bills by hosting a charity auction dinner and the two remain friends. Holmes went on to start his own production company with two new friends who are also paralyzed.^[6]

4 Camera assistant dies during freight train accident

Midnight Rider only ever had one scene made. And that scene was edited from footage depicting a horrific train accident that killed crew member Sarah Jones and injured 7 others.

The movie was supposed to be a biopic about rock star Gregg Allman and would have starred William Hurt. The raw footage from that tragic incident shows several crew members and actor Wyatt Russell struggling to get off a set of train tracks, while also trying to move props on the movie set out of the way. The next minute a freight train is upon them. William Hurt later told a news agency that he had felt very unsettled when they arrived at the tracks and he asked the assistant director, Hillary Schwartz, whether they would be safe there. She said they would be safe, but these words would come back to haunt her later. She was fined $5,000 and sentenced to 10 years’ probation for her role in the accident. It was also revealed later that the filmmakers had been denied permission to film at the train tracks by the company who owned the railway. The movie’s director, Randall Miller, received a two-year prison sentence and 8 years’ probation for trespassing and involuntary manslaughter.^[7]

3 Stuntman left with brain damage after head-on collision

During the filming of The Hangover Part II, stuntman Scott McLean was performing a stunt that he had rehearsed over and over beforehand. He was inside a moving truck and leaning out of the window for the shot, when the car driving towards the truck skidded and hit him.

McLean was rushed to hospital where he was placed in a medically induced coma to help him recover. He stayed in the coma for two months and unfortunately retained brain damage. McLean had to move to a rehabilitation clinic and went on to sue Warner Bros film studios for financial damages. The former stuntman now suffers from ongoing seizures as well as speech and physical impediments.^[8]

2 70 injuries by wild animals on set

In 1974, shooting began for Roar, a movie about a family being attacked by jungle animals. Tippi Hedren and her husband Noel Marshall couldn’t get anyone to rent them forty lions for their script requirements, so they started their own ‘zoo’.

The couple started off raising a lion cub named Neil until neighbors complained. They then moved to a ranch outside Los Angeles where they added tigers, more lions and elephants to their animal family. They used this site to shoot their movie. What should have been nine months of shooting dragged out to become 5 years and included several injuries inflicted by the wild animals. The cinematographer had his scalp lifted by a massive lion, resulting in around 220 stitches. Hedren tried to ride an elephant and was kicked off for her efforts, resulting in a broken leg and scalp wounds. Her daughter, Melanie Griffith, almost lost an eye after being attacked and needed 50 stitches to her face.

As if the constant injuries weren’t bad enough, the ranch even flooded at one point, resulting in the death of three lions. And, adding insult to injury, the film performed very poorly after its release in 1981.^[9]

1 Radioactive set causes actors to develop cancer

The film, The Conqueror, starring John Wayne and Susan Hayward, was released in 1956. Unfortunately, this film too performed badly at the box office and is often ranked as one of the worst movies of all time.

The controversy surrounding the locations where the film was shot far overshadowed its poor performance, however. The makers of the film thought it wise to shoot the exterior scenes a mere 137 miles away from the Nevada National Security Site, regardless of the nuclear weapons test that had taken place near there. The federal government assured the public at the time that the tests would pose no hazard to anyone’s health.

They were badly mistaken. By the end of 1980, 91 of the 220 cast and crew that had worked on the film had developed cancer and 46 had died from the disease. Director Dick Powell developed terminal kidney cancer and committed suicide in 1963. John Wayne developed lung cancer and eventually died of stomach cancer in 1979. Susan Hayward died of brain cancer in 1975. While many argue that some of the cancers cannot be linked to the location’s hazards, experts say that the sheer number of cancer cases in people who worked on the film cannot be a coincidence.^[10]

10 Influential Movies With Dark And Surprising Origins

Movies filmed on location often add greater realism not found in those shot on sound stages or studio backlots. From the montage of New York City’s iconic landmarks in Manhattan to Rome’s Trevi Fountain in La Dolce Vita, authenticity can greatly enhance the viewer’s cinematic experience. But sometimes looks can be deceiving, as showcased in our top 10 filming locations at odds with the movie. 

10. Body Heat

South Florida served as the backdrop for this 1981 steamy, neo-noir thriller starring William Hurt and Kathleen Turner. However, frigid temperatures in the Sunshine State required the cast and crew to summon all their talents and skills to depict a sweltering heatwave.

Inspired by noir classics such as Double Indemnity and The Big Sleep, Body Heat revolves around a femme fatale (Turner) who plots to murder her wealthy husband with the aid of an unscrupulous lawyer (Hurt). Principal photography began in late November 1980 over a stretch that saw temperatures drop into the low 40s. As a result, the actors had to suck on ice cubes before delivering their lines to prevent condensation, and crew members constantly applied ‘sweat’ with spray water bottles.  

Despite frigid conditions, the clever stagecraft proved convincing and helped launch the careers of the lead performers — both relatively unknown at the time. Fellow newcomers Ted Danson and Mickey Rourke also appeared in supporting roles, adding heft to the critically acclaimed film.

9. Saving Private Ryan

Although Ireland remained neutral throughout WWII, the country saw plenty of action thanks to Steven Spielberg’s epic masterpiece in 1998. For starters, there’s the stunning 20-minute long battle sequence, capturing the intensity and carnage of the Normandy Invasion — better known as D-Day. But instead of the beaches of northern France, cast and crew invaded the southeastern Irish coast to re-create the largest amphibious operation in military history.

Due to various issues, including the actual site’s status as a historical landmark, filming there simply wasn’t possible. Fortunately, Ballinesker Beach in County Wexford, about 70 miles south of Dublin, provided a close match to stage the brutal combat that occurred at Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944.

Over $11 million was spent transforming the usually serene Irish shores into a war-torn battlefield. Spielberg’s keen attention to visual detail meant the meticulous construction of Nazi “pillboxes” and barbed wired barricades and splattering thousands of gallons of fake blood. 

Bolstered by a stellar ensemble of actors that included Tom Hanks, Matt Damon, Edward Burns, Tom Sizemore, and Barry Pepper, the war epic went on to gross $481,840,909 worldwide and earned Spielberg the Oscar for Best Director.

8. Lone Survivor

New Mexico’s Sangre de Cristo Mountains (Blood of Christ), the southernmost subrange of the Rocky Mountains, owes its name to the reddish glow that occurs at sunrise and sunset. In 2013, a cacophony of hellfire explosions and gunfire replaced the celestial atmosphere during the making of Lone Survivor.

Based on Marcus Luttrell’s biographical book of the same name, the movie chronicles the exploits of a Navy SEALS team ambushed in the Hindu Kush mountains of Afghanistan. The film stars Mark Wahlberg in the role of Lutrell, who managed to survive a ferocious siege and subsequent failed rescue attempt, resulting in the deaths of 19 U.S. soldiers.  

In real life, Luttrell stands 6’5″ tall. Walhberg doesn’t (more like 5’6”), and northern New Mexico lies roughly 7,500 miles from the battle-scarred terrain of central Asia. No matter. Director Peter Berg relied on combat veterans to serve as technical advisors, whose duties included whipping the actors into shape. Furthermore, a small army of stuntmen took their lumps (and several broken bones) to create an avalanche of falling bodies — action that film critic Andrew O’Hehir described as “war porn.” 

7. Good Will Hunting

This 1997 coming-of-age tale shines a spotlight on Will Hunting (Matt Damon), a young blue-collar math whiz from the tough streets of south Boston. But Canada’s biggest city served as the primary filming location, with the University of Toronto and Central Technical High School standing in for MIT and Harvard University.

In one of the film’s most memorable scenes, Will tells a condescending Harvard student, “How you like them apples?” The location is supposed to be the Bow and Arrow bar in Beantown – but it was actually Toronto’s Upfront Bar and Grill. Sadly, both are now shuttered. 

Movie fans, however, can visit the park bench where Will has a heart-to-heart discussion with his therapist (Robin Williams) at Boston Public Garden. The site has become a memorial of sorts to honor Williams, who won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, and died in 2014.  

6. Cold Mountain

Set during the American Civil War and loosely based on Homer’s Odyssey, Cold Mountain stars an Australian actress (Nicole Kidman), a British actor (Jude Law), and was filmed in Romania. But who needs the authenticity when enticing tax incentives can be had?

Disgraced mogul Harvey Weinstein and his company, Miramax, green-lit the production after securing a 10% rebate to shoot in the former communist country. To be fair, the Carpathian Mountains proved to be a worthy substitute for North Carolina’s Appalachians, where much of the story takes place. Moreover, the Transylvania region also had less infrastructure at the time, such as power lines and paved roads, creating an underdeveloped, rural setting. 

The film also benefited from the talents of director Anthony Minghella (“The English Patient”) and an Oscar-winning performance by Rene Zellweger, whose spot on southern accent reflected her upbringing in Texas. 

5. Braveheart

Directed by and starring Mel Gibson, Braveheart tells the story (or, rather, a story) of Scottish national hero William Wallace. Aside from a few scenes filmed in Bonnie Scotland, the historical drama was shot almost entirely in Ireland, which included the medieval Anglo-Norman fortress, Trim Castle. Additionally, more than 1,000 members of the Irish Defense Forces were featured in the large-scale battle scenes. 

Substituting the Emerald Isle for Scotland was congruent with a narrative rife with inaccuracies, such as anachronistic clothing and military tactics, as well as Gibson’s paltry Scottish accent. The Aussie movie star later justified his vision for the 13th-century warrior: “Some people said that in telling the story, we messed up history. It doesn’t bother me because what I’m giving you is a cinematic experience, and I think films are there first to entertain, then teach, then inspire.”

4. Dallas Buyers Club

Despite having the city’s name in its title, this biopic about AIDS patient Ron Woodruff replaces “Big D” with the “Big Easy” of New Orleans. Matthew McConaughey stars as Ron Woodruff, a womanizing, homophobic cowboy who establishes a drug distribution network, providing AZT to fellow patients afflicted with the deadly disease. 

The demanding role saw McConaughey lose 47 pounds (a quarter of his body weight), and co-star Jared Leto shed 30 pounds. For their efforts, both men would take home Oscars. 

The movie’s low budget greatly benefited from Louisiana’s hefty 30% tax incentive program. Filming took place over a twenty-five-day period, during which rehearsals were largely excluded, and scenes given limited takes.

McConaughey, a native Texan, provided this insight on the disguised location: “You have to watch the tropical foliage; that ain’t in Dallas. In some places you can see the humidity and the mildew and the overgrowth where Mother Nature takes over in New Orleans.”

3. Titanic

While attempting to circumnavigate the world, legendary Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan named the western reaches ‘Mar Pacífico’ (‘peaceful sea’). Nearly 400 years later, director James Cameron also made history, transforming these waters into the treacherous North Atlantic during the making of Titanic. 

In 1996, 20th Century Fox built a 17 million gallon outdoor tank that adjoined and overlooked the Pacific Ocean near Playas de Rosarito, Mexico. A demanding shooting schedule followed, creating a hostile environment that further cemented Cameron’s tyrannical reputation.

Several members of the cast and crew fell ill due to spending long hours in cold water and turning the tank into a giant toilet. Kate Winslet suffered several bruises and nearly drowned during a scene in which her coat got caught on a gate while underwater.

Titanic would eventually emerge as the highest-grossing movie of all time, raking in $1.8 billion worldwide. As for his temperamental behavior, Cameron shrugged it off as merely doing his job: “Film-making is war. A great battle between business and aesthetics.”

2. Elf

Christmas movies typically feature heart-warming themes such as love, family unity, and Santa Claus. In 2003, Elf managed to tick all these boxes and more, even though several scenes took place at an abandoned mental institution near Vancouver, British Columbia.

For nearly a century, Riverview Hospital operated under the governance of BC Mental Health & Addiction Services before closing its doors in 2013. The expansive complex later became a popular location for film and TV projects, including Supernatural, The X-Files, and Halloween: Resurrection. 

For Elf,  a comedy starring Will Ferrell as a fully grown elf in search of his real family, the hospital interiors were used to create a wide variety of sets ranging from a police station to an orphanage. According to the film’s production designer Rusty Smith, “It is one of the creepiest places I’ve ever been in my life.” 

1. Journey to the Center of the Earth

Based on the best-selling Jules Verne novel, this 1959 sci-fi movie stars James Mason, Pat Boone, Arlene Dahl, and “Gertrude the Duck.” The filmmakers at 20th Century Fox selected Carlsbad Caverns in southeastern New Mexico to stage several of the underground sequences. Although the renowned caves provided an exotic setting for the earth’s core, it’s a safe bet that neither humans, reptiles, nor waterfowl could survive in an environment with temperatures hotter than the sun.

Studio executives, eager to match the success of previous Verne adaptations, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and Around the World in 80 Days,  invested heavily in the project and “filmed in the incomparable magic of CineScope.” The gamble would pay off in spades as audiences flocked to “monstrous” creatures, which in reality, were iguanas with prosthetics glued to their backs and a painted Tegu lizard.