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Against all odds

Rachel Weisz in The Fountain
  • Posted at 1:01pm
  • 07 March 2008
  • by AndrewCollins-RT

Francis Ford Coppola spent 16 months in the Philippines making his Vietnam War odyssey Apocalypse Now, a shoot beset by typhoons, ill-health and potential bankruptcy. After a year in the editing suite, the press nicknamed the movie “Apocalypse When?”

You could argue that without the trials and tribulations, it wouldn’t be half the film it is. The same goes for The Fountain (pictured left), Darren Aronofsky’s beleaguered sci-fi meditation. After losing star Brad Pitt over "creative differences", the plug was pulled, sets auctioned off and the budget halved for this second attempt, which was greeted with rapture and bafflement by critics. But I say that less money led to greater invention on Aronofsky's part.

At least it saw the light of day, unlike certain items on Terry Gilliam’s CV. The adaptation of cult comic book Watchmen is now due out from 300 director Zack Snyder in 2009 and the aborted shoot (owing to illness and bad weather) of The Man Who Killed Don Quixote was the background to gripping documentary Lost in La Mancha. Even The Brothers Grimm, which reached the big screen, saw its funding pulled, and various cast and crew fired by studio heads.

Orson Welles, whose film-making career was littered with failed projects (including a version of Heart of Darkness, on which Apocalypse Now was based) was also thwarted by Don Quixote – the incomplete version of his adaptation was only released seven years after his death.

Forget the 1963 Cleopatra (illness), the 1967 Casino Royale (overrun) and The Bonfire of the Vanities (general argy-bargy), the grandaddy of all “difficult” shoots remains Heaven's Gate. Perfectionist director Michael Cimino's budgetary overspend on this western actually brought down its studio, United Artists. And he couldn’t even blame bad weather.

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