When the real drama happened off-screen

Did you know someone spiked the Titanic crew's food with PCP?

Some movies are memorable for what happens on screen. Others? Well, let's just say the real show was happening behind the camera. From explosive feuds to total meltdowns, these ten productions were a mess—and honestly, that makes them even more fascinating. Grab some popcorn and enjoy the chaos.

This epic was supposed to be Hollywood's crown jewel. Instead, it nearly bankrupted 20th Century Fox. The budget spiraled from $2 million to over $44 million—the equivalent of hundreds of millions today. Elizabeth Taylor fell seriously ill, sets were scrapped and rebuilt, and the production moved from London to Rome.

And then there was the love affair. Taylor and her co-star Richard Burton fell head over heels for each other—while both were married to other people. The scandal made headlines worldwide. The movie became the highest-grossing film of the year, but its massive budget meant it struggled to turn a profit and was a box office disappointment. The gossip? Priceless.

This beloved classic looks like pure magic on screen, but behind the curtain, it was anything but. The original Tin Man actor had to be replaced after the aluminum dust in his makeup nearly killed him. Judy Garland, just 16 at the time, was put on a strict diet by the studio and given pills to keep her energy up—a troubling practice that haunted her for years.

Multiple directors came and went during filming. There were costume accidents, on-set injuries, and the actors playing the flying monkeys reportedly terrorized cast members. It's a wonder the yellow brick road led anywhere at all.

Director Francis Ford Coppola went to the Philippines to make a war film—and essentially ended up living one. The shoot stretched from a planned six weeks to over a year. Marlon Brando arrived overweight and completely unprepared. Martin Sheen suffered a heart attack mid-production. A typhoon destroyed the sets.

Coppola himself had a nervous breakdown and threatened to quit. The documentary about the making of the film, Hearts of Darkness, is arguably more gripping than the movie itself. That's saying something, because the movie is considered one of the greatest ever made.

Steven Spielberg's thriller almost sank before it ever hit the water. The mechanical shark—nicknamed "Bruce" by the crew—malfunctioned constantly in the saltwater. It looked ridiculous, broke down every other day, and production on the water was a nightmare from the start.

But Spielberg turned the disaster into a stroke of genius. Unable to show the shark, he built suspense through music (John Williams’ score became iconic) and reaction shots instead. The result was one of the most terrifying movies ever made. Sometimes your problems solve themselves—or at least make for a better film.

Finding Scarlett O'Hara was a two-year circus. Over 1,400 women were tested for the role before Vivien Leigh was cast—famously just days before filming began. Director George Cukor was fired early on, reportedly because Clark Gable didn't like him, and Victor Fleming took over (while also directing The Wizard of Oz that same year—the man was busy).

On set, tensions ran high between the stars, the producers, and pretty much everyone else. Leigh and Olivia de Havilland both clashed with the production at various points. Still, the film won eight Academy Awards. Hollywood was always good at keeping its scandals off the official record.

This noir classic had real-life darkness lurking behind it. Director Roman Polanski and writer Robert Towne argued bitterly over the ending—Towne wanted something hopeful, while Polanski insisted on tragedy. Polanski won, and the bleak final scene became one of the most memorable in cinema history.

Then there was the tension between Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway. By most accounts, they did not get along. Dunaway allegedly threw a cup of urine at Polanski during a dispute about her hair. Nicholson was reportedly frustrated for reasons too numerous to list. And yet somehow, they made magic.

James Cameron has a well-earned reputation for being, let's say, intense on set. During the making of Titanic, crew members were reportedly pushed to exhaustion, shooting in freezing water tanks for hours on end. At one point, someone spiked the crew's clam chowder with PCP—yes, really—sending dozens of people to the hospital.

Cameron himself was so difficult to work with that a crew member reportedly wore a T-shirt reading, "You Can't Scare Me, I Work for James Cameron." The budget ballooned to $200 million, making it the most expensive film ever made at the time. It also became the highest-grossing film in history. So he gets to keep being intense, apparently.

From day one, this film felt cursed, and the cast and crew weren't shy about saying so. There were mysterious fires, set accidents, and a string of deaths connected to people involved in the production. Jack MacGowran and Vasiliki Maliaros, who both played characters that died in the film, passed away before it was even released.

Linda Blair, just 14 when she played the possessed Regan, suffered a back injury during a violent scene that caused problems for years. Director William Friedkin reportedly fired a gun on set to provoke a shocked reaction from actors. Audiences fainted in theaters. The making of this one was as unsettling as the film itself.

Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn were not exactly natural companions, and filming deep in Africa didn't help. The cast and crew battled dysentery, insects, heat, and flooding rivers throughout the shoot. Director John Huston insisted on eating and drinking whatever the locals offered—and stayed perfectly healthy.

Bogart and Hepburn, however, were miserable. She reportedly hated every minute in Africa, while he found the whole experience rather amusing. The creative tension between them, though, translated beautifully on screen. Their performances earned both actors Academy Award nominations, which goes to show that suffering is sometimes good for art.

Before it became a punchline, Waterworld was already a catastrophe in progress. Filming entirely on the ocean turned out to be as chaotic as it sounds. The sets broke apart and sank. The weather was brutal. Costs ran so far over budget that it became the most expensive film ever made at the time, a title it held until Titanic came along.

Kevin Costner and director Kevin Reynolds had a very public falling out, with Reynolds quitting before the film was finished. The press had a field day calling it "Kevin's Gate" and "Fishtar." The movie was actually decent, but the behind-the-scenes disaster overshadowed everything. Some films just can't escape their own reputation.

BELIEVE IT OR NOT

Stranger Than Fiction: 10 Unbelievable Events That Actually Happened

Image: Diana van Ormondt

They say truth is stranger than fiction, and some of these historical events are living proof of this old adage.

Brace yourself for a rollercoaster ride through history, where the strange and unexpected take center stage in the theater of reality. From absurd battles to mysterious weather phenomena, these 10 astonishing tales will leave you thinking long and hard about the complexities of human history.

Image: Sharon Co Images

Wars are typically waged between nations, but in 1932, Australia faced an unusual adversary: emus. After large numbers of these flightless birds invaded crucial farmland within Western Australia’s Wheatbelt, the government decided to intervene by sending soldiers armed with machine guns to reduce the emu population in the area. However, most attempts were ineffective at most, killing very few birds and costing thousands of dollars in supplies and ammunition.

As soon as the first shot was fired, the seemingly tame emu dispersed way beyond the range of the machine guns, and apparently switched to guerrilla tactics of sorts, avoiding all further military ambushes and frontal attacks while still feasting on the farmer’s crops. The government’s futile attempts were ridiculed and physical barrier methods to manage wildlife were preferred from then on. Sadly, they give no medals for having endured the Great Emu War.

Image: Hannah Skelly

In 1518, the town of Strasbourg, France, was gripped by a strange and inexplicable phenomenon - people suddenly began dancing uncontrollably in the streets. The dancing madness persisted for weeks, with some of the affected succumbing to exhaustion or even death. The authorities at the time did not know how to react, and some people even joined the dancers voluntarily, as they feared it was a punishment from Saint Vitus (and presumably wanted to stay on the safe side).

After many efforts to fight the strange epidemic, the dancing eventually subsided and people in the town could resume their normal lives. While theories range from mass hysteria to hallucinogenic substances and neurological disorders like Sydenham's chorea, the event remains a historical enigma that challenges our understanding of the human mind and collective behavior.

Image: Nima Sarram

In 1908, a massive explosion flattened over 80 million trees in the remote Tunguska region of Siberia. The cause? A mysterious airburst, likely caused by the explosion of a meteoroid or comet in Earth's atmosphere. It is now estimated that the event had an explosive energy of 3 to 5 megatons, equivalent to over a thousand Hiroshima bombs. The resulting shockwave broke windows, and knocked people down hundreds of miles away, reaching an equivalent of an earthquake of 5.0 on the Richter scale in some areas.

A bright glow was observed in night skies in Asia and Europe for days after the event due to high-altitude ice particles that formed as a result of the explosion. For all its magnitude, the explosion left no visible crater and minimal debris beside the devastated forest. The Tunguska Event serves as a stark reminder of the potential cosmic threats that lurk in the darkness of space.

Image: British Library

Miscommunication can often lead to chaos, but rarely on the scale witnessed in the Battle of Karánsebes in 1788. The Austrian army, at the time facing the Ottoman Empire, descended into total anarchy when two different scouting parties mistook one another for the enemy, fired on each other, and raised the alarm.

Making matters worse, the Austrian army was made of men of different nationalities who more often than not could not understand each other. All attempts to end confusion and the ensuing friendly fire on the part of the Austrian emperor himself were in vain, and after a while - deeply demoralized - he was forced to give the order of retreat. When the Ottoman army arrived two days later, they found an empty battlefield and were able to take the city of Karánsebes without any resistance.

Image: Aswathy N

In 1807, eight years before Waterloo, Napoleon Bonaparte had a humiliating defeat at the hands of a strange opponent - a horde of rabbits. During the celebrations that followed the Treaties of Tilsit - which effectively ended the war between the French and Imperial Russia - Napoleon’s chief of staff Alexandre Berthier had the idea of organizing a rabbit hunt to entertain its guests.

So far, nothing out of the ordinary for the time, but when the rabbits were simultaneously freed along the edges of a grassy field, instead of scattering as expected, all these fluffy beasts began running toward their amused hunters. But the fits of laughter didn’t last long, as the now-hunted hunters realized that there was nothing they could do to stop the relentless animals as they swarmed their positions and had no other choice than to flee. Some accounts state that Berthier had gathered around 3000 rabbits, so not even mighty Napoleon was a match for this unexpected army.

Apparently, the chief of staff's mistake was buying tame rabbits from local farmers, accustomed to being fed by humans, instead of trapping wild hares for the hunt. If we learned anything from the Great Emu War, the lesson is clear: never underestimate animals!

Image: Mitsuo Komoriya

In the aftermath of the eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia - the largest in at least 1,300 years - 1816 became known as the "Year Without a Summer." The volcanic ash floating in the atmosphere led to climate abnormalities worldwide, resulting in crop failures and widespread famine in the most affected areas.

In Europe and North America temperatures plummeted, and most crops suffered irreparable damage due to the persistent frost. In the United States, a "dry fog" was observed in the eastern regions, dimming sunlight so much that sunspots were visible to the naked eye. Also, the high level of volcanic particles present in the atmosphere caused strange optical effects in the following years, such as strong red hues during sunsets, which can be observed in many paintings produced at the time.

Image: Tiana Attride

It seems that wars against unusual adversaries are a fashionable trend in human history because the Roman Emperor Caligula declared war in the year 40 AD on no one other than the god Neptune himself, king of the raging seas.

Known for his eccentricity, Caligula allegedly ordered his legionnaires to "attack" the sea with swords and spears, after which he declared victory against the powerful god and told the men to gather seashells as trophies of war. One can only imagine that the soldiers had a fun -albeit puzzling- day.

Image: Tim Mossholder

In the late 1980s, Pepsi briefly possessed the sixth-largest navy in the world. In exchange for commercializing Pepsi products in the Soviet Union, the company received 17 submarines, a cruiser, a frigate, and a destroyer.

However, the fleet was composed of obsolete and unseaworthy vessels that were destined to be turned into scrap almost immediately. The payment was made in the only resources the USSR could gather easily at the time, and it provided a way to establish profitable international relations - and open up to the world.

Image: Garry T

The American Civil War started and concluded with a curious connection to Wilmer McLean, an American wholesale grocer from Virginia. The conflict's first major battle, the First Battle of Bull Run, took place in McLean's farm in 1861. A cannonball fell directly through the kitchen fireplace of the McLean’s house, which was being used as headquarters for the Confederate Army, destroying the dinner that was being prepared by the stationed officers - something that was noted not without humor by the Brigadier General P. G. T. Beauregard.

The McLean family moved to Appomattox, Virginia trying to escape the war, but just four years later, General Robert E. Lee surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant in McLean's parlor, marking the conclusion of the Civil War. Unintentionally, McLean was a prime witness of one of America’s most defining conflicts. Later, he said of this: "The war began in my front yard and ended in my front parlor."

Image: Snowscat

Genghis Khan's vast empire and brutal military campaigns had an unexpected impact on the Earth's climate. A recent study suggests that the Mongol invasions in the 13th century led to a significant reduction in global carbon dioxide levels, as large areas of cultivated land returned to forests.

This had the unintentional effect of scrubbing as much as 700 million tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere, roughly equivalent to the global annual consumption of gasoline today. This drastic ecological shift highlights the effect that land use, and particularly deforestation can have on our planet at a large scale.