Hollywood's Worst Production Nightmare - The Island of Dr Moreau

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serious serious bad shape there are cursed movies and then there is the island of dr moreau which is probably the most cursed movie that has ever been produced not so much the movie itself which is pretty unremarkable and might well have been forgotten entirely had it not become notorious for having one of the most difficult stressful and frankly nightmarish productions in the history of cinema it's a train wreck that was so bizarre and so awful that it's actually kind of funny it's a story of clashing egos stupid drama wasted talent and absolute insanity and how a dream can go from a reality to a nightmare you're gonna want to buckle up for this one because it is a wild ride the island of dr moreau is actually the third major film adaptation of the 1886 novel by h.g wells about a deranged scientist who creates a society of human animal hybrids through sick experiments and vivisection which was a hot bottom issue at the time as you can imagine the book explores themes such as human identity cruelty and man's metaphorical and literal sticking his dick in nature the 1996 film follows un negotiator edward douglas whose plane crashes in the java sea and is brought to the island by moreau's assistant montgomery where he is understandably horrified by the community of hybrids created by moreau in his perverse quest for perfection skimming over a lot of detail here some of the hybrids rise up and kill dr moreau before indulging in more destruction and degeneracy than your average furry convention i'm sorry the furry jokes are just too easy montgomery goes insane and tries to take his place but is also killed as is mero's daughter and original cat girl isa douglas tricks the rebel leaders into killing each other the peaceful faction takes over again and douglas leaves contemplating the savagery of man as the hybrids decide to quite literally return to monkey the film was a childhood passion project of director richard stanley who spent four years developing his vision for the movie before new line cinema gave him the thumbs up he wanted to deliver a dark and satirical take on the novel and on the back of directing weird low-budget sci-fi and horror films such as hard wire and dust devil he was seen as being suitably strange enough to deliver the goods it was exactly the kind of film new line was looking for and it was to be stanley's big break into the big leagues all great so far right well get your popcorn ready because we're about to spill some tea you see new line with some sneaky bastards and went behind stanley's back to offer the movie to roman polanski you know the director who was then in permanent exile from the us after admitting to sodomizing an underage girl when stanley discovered this betrayal he was beyond pissed you okay no man i'm pretty [ __ ] far from okay so he demanded to see marlon brando the legendary double oscar-winning actor who newline had managed to secure for the part of the titular doctor being rather quirky and eccentric stanley had even consulted with a warlock called skip who cut his arm and drew a magic sigil to help stanley convince brando of his case and no i did not make that up i told you this story was nuts new line had insisted that one of their executives tag along so brando being the absolute mad lad that he was turned up the air conditioning in his house until she fell asleep brando was then won over by stanley's vision for the film and his understanding of the material as well as its similarity to joseph conrad's novel heart of darkness and the film apocalypse now which brando also starred in and was still obsessed with so he told newline that he'd only do the film if stanley directed it now to say that brando was a legend in hollywood is a severe understatement most people in the business would have happily gargled the contents of a buffalo's nutsack for the chance to work with him and since his involvement was considered essential newline had no choice but to bring stanley back on board because he's marlon brando which is going to become a running theme brando also had a well-owned reputation for being more difficult to work with than a sandpaper fleshlight but we'll come back to that later for now let's just imagine how big the shit-eating grin on stanley's face must have been after brando was secured bruce willis was also cast as douglas with james woods playing montgomery having these three leads to draw in the audience allowed newline to increase the film's budget from an estimated eight to ten million dollars to a significantly more chunky forty million feruza bulk was given the female lead as isa while veteran of prosthetics ron perlman also had a supporting role on the film's location in cairns australia things were almost ready to go but then the [ __ ] really started to hit the fan in the most tragic way possible seriously this bit isn't funny it's just tragic brando's daughter cheyenne took her own life and the devastated brando retreated to his private atoll in tahiti leaving stanley a new line with no idea when or even if he would show up to film oh and just to rub it in even more on the first day of filming the french government detonated a nuclear bomb not far from brando's island when it rains it really [ __ ] pours doesn't it then bruce willis had to drop out of the film entirely to deal with his divorce from demi moore to replace him newline wanted to recruit val kilmer who had just starred in the massively successful batman forever and was at the peak of his fame and also of his ego he was a star but my god didn't he know it he accepted because he wanted to work with marlon brando that's going to be another running theme by the way but he was a big shot movie man now and his time was precious and so he demanded that his required workload be cut by 40 per cent having been told by new line that kilmer's involvement was the only way to save the movie at such short notice a flabbergasted stanley had to give in kilmer was also able to take advantage of the studio's panic over the movie's prospects to browbeat a new line executive into giving him the lesser role of montgomery one which required far less effort so that meant james woods was out and rob morrow was hastily brought in to play douglas but val kilmer being val kilmer before filming had even started he wanted to pull out due to creative differences over the film's direction but newline needed his star power to sell the movie and couldn't afford to lose him so they forced him to abide by his contract he wasn't going anywhere and thus began the infamy of val kilmer hollywood actor and total piece of [ __ ] kilmer would later say that he acted this way because his wife was suing for divorce which he only found out about when he saw it on tv that had to hurt but whatever the reason his behavior would make alec baldwin or shia labeouf look like keanu reeves in comparison he didn't want to be there and he made sure that no one else wanted him to be there either he showed up to set two days late having not learned his lines and knowing nothing about his character like a real professional as many of the cast and crew attest he was constantly rude abrasive and arrogant he also argued with undermined and belittled stanley richard went to give him some direction and val said uh richard directors stand behind the cameras actors are in front of the camera now go stand behind the camera he refused to read his lines as they were written and insisted on adding weird things to his costumes at one point he is said to have sat on the ground and then simply refused to stand up ron perlman who was only supposed to be there for three weeks ended up having to stay for over four months because his character was given some of the lazy kilmers lines but on the other hand german actor marco hofschnider i'm i'm really sorry if i [ __ ] that up had his role cut down significantly because kilmer didn't want to be upstaged by him yeah that's the level of pettiness we're talking about and stanley was so thrown for a loop by kilmer's obstinacy that the entire production suffered but everybody involved had no choice but to put up with his [ __ ] because the studio needed him hollywood everybody as if they needed more evidence that the movie was cursed other dark omens included stanley's personal assistant getting bitten by a venomous spider causing her flesh to melt skip the warlock getting infected with a flesh-eating parasite i guess he didn't have a spell for that one stanley's mother's house getting struck by lightning not once not twice but three times and almost immediately after filming began a hurricane came in and destroyed large parts of the set the ship that was bringing exotic animals to the set got caught in the hurricane and as stanley was trying to help keep the animals safe he got pissed on by a puma when it rains indeed by the second day of shooting rob morrow said [ __ ] this [ __ ] and was allowed to go home after tearfully pleading with the chairman of new line kilmer complained to producers that the film that he was doing his best to ruin was not going well shockingly and his complaints went up the chain new line blames stanley for not being able to control kilmer and were also fed up with his unwillingness to attend meetings suffering under an immense amount of pressure and stress and without his main ally brando to back him up he became increasingly paranoid and erratic something had to give a new line abruptly fired stanley over facts the cowards but executives were worried that he might try to sabotage the film and offered him his full salary if he would shut up and go quietly and they charged an assistant to personally escort him onto the plane back to la except stanley didn't get on the plane he'd gone full-on arthur fleck shredded a load of documents out of spite and then simply disappeared stanley had been a very amiable and passionate director and was greatly respected by the cast and crew except conti mcconface of course and his sudden firing came as a shock to them feyruza bulk argued furiously with executives even threatening to cut her own heart out with a sushi knife she then stormed off the set and got an assistant to drive her two and a half thousand miles from cairns to sydney in a rented limousine she wanted to kick up an even bigger foss but was worn by her agent in no uncertain terms that her career would be completely destroyed if she didn't go back to set i'm imagining that scene in bojack horseman where bojack threatens to quit to support his friend and then the executive is like don't be stupid and he's like oh okay but the crew were obviously in stanley's camp and after the production designer joked about burning down the set the studio took no chances and tightened security legitimately worried that stanley would conspire with the crew to sabotage the chute things were looking pretty [ __ ] so far but trust me we are nowhere near done new line had invested millions of dollars into this movie and they couldn't simply walk away so production was stalled for three weeks while a new director was found after a bunch of directors took one look at the project and went [ __ ] that noise veteran director john frankenheimer took the plunge he'd actually taken over from fire directors twice before and had a reputation for bringing difficult actors into line so he was exactly what newline needed he also wanted to work with brando because he's marlon brando but he was also able to leverage the studio's desperation to bag himself a three picture contract and a [ __ ] ton of money frankenheimer has been referred to as one of the last old school directors in hollywood for which you should read [ __ ] he soon alienated the cast and crew with his authoritarian approach he was said to have treated them little better than animals being dismissive domineering and verbally aggressive and holding the project and particularly the australian crew in contempt the latter showed that it was mutual in some rather creative ways he also asked an aboriginal actor to smash a didgeridoo over someone's head which yeah those things are considered sacred so no meanwhile david thulis had been cast to replace morrow who had refused to return thules also wanted to work with brando and fancied a free trip to australia and a fat ass paycheck but when he got there brando who had by then arrived on set told him go home david this is not a good film to work on it's cursed while he certainly wasn't wrong everything that was shot during stanley's tenure was deemed unusable and production was once again shut down for a week and a half frankenheimer brought in ron hutchison a screenwriter he had worked with previously to do rewrites that was so extensive that almost nothing of stanley's original script remained despite him still receiving credit whatever vision stanley had intended for the movie was lost and frankenheimer had nothing to replace it with and not only were the rewrites in thulis's words [ __ ] as well but they were delivered only a few days before they were shot and everyone else was kept in the dark during the process which led to several of the actors rewriting their characters or simply improvising their scenes and then finally marlon brando arrived on set which means that we can finally talk about him like i said brando was a legendary figure in hollywood but my god didn't he know it as well after earning an oscar for on the waterfront and helping to revolutionize the art of film acting itself he had long since stopped giving a [ __ ] what anyone thought of him and his outrageous diva-like antics and directorial interference during the production of mutiny on the bounty had caused the film to flop turned him into a laughing stock and destroyed his career for the next 10 years until he picked up another oscar for the godfather even after this revival he was still considered one of the most difficult actors to work with in the entire industry and was clearly bored with making movies so when he came in it wasn't so much like a wrecking ball and more like a snorlax rolling over and blocking the road like one day he just showed up to the set in a dress and no one was brave enough to tell him to take it off because he's marlon brando and because he's marlon brando he made many suggestions that resulted in many more changes and rewrites this ridiculous getup was all his idea he also wanted to wear a long hat so that he could have an ice bucket on his head which the crew had to then make out of a cooking pot when his character repeatedly complains about the heat he wasn't acting he also wanted his throne to have peacock feathers in it so the art director had to acquire some from an unfortunate peacock he found by the roadside he also became obsessed with nelson delarosa at that time the world's smallest man who was only intended for a small part no pun intended but brando saw him and he wanted him so the script was revised and hof schneider lost even more of his lines to delarosa because brando insisted they be in every scene together complete with matching costumes and in case you're wondering yes this was the inspiration for mini me in austin powers as well as dr mafesto in south park he also wanted to be wearing an elaborate hat which he would then take off at the end to reveal that he was a dolphin all along although apparently that one was a bit much for new line because he's marlon brando he refused to learn his lines instead wearing an earpiece so that his assistant could give them to him something he'd done on films previously the earpiece is actually visible in the movie problem was that the receiver would also pick up police radio signals and he once blurted out that's a robbery at woolworths he would spend hours in his air-conditioned trailer eating large quantities of pizza and talking with frankenheimer about the film all while everyone else was kept waiting around like idiots in his biography hutcheson claims that frankenheimer showed him 90 minutes of footage in which brando had delarosa on his lap while he sang a song to him saying this is all i can persuade brando to do it's one thing to be unprofessional but brando's [ __ ] very quickly started to piss everybody off again according to hutcheson the relationship between brando and most of the cast got so bad that one actor was even prohibited from handling any kind of gun but speaking of hated actors kilmer continued to act like a schoolyard bully even burning a camera operator's face with a cigarette while the camera was rolling and he proved as difficult for frankenheimer to handle as he had been for stanley frankenheimer would later state i don't like that kilmer i don't like his work ethic and i don't want to be associated with him ever again he was also reported to have said even if i was directing a film called the life of val kilmer i wouldn't have that prick in it and on the last day of shooting kilmer's scenes he allegedly said now get that bastard off my set it tends to be the people with the biggest egos that clash the hardest and although kilmer would later defend and praise brando on set they quickly grew to hate each other brando would tell kilmer your problem is you confuse the size of your paycheck with the size of your talent and to annoy kilmer brando would eat large amounts of cabbage before a scene and then produce numerous silent but deadly farts he really was just an old man wasn't he it got to the point where both actors would refuse to come out of their trailers until the other one had meaning that the cast and crew were left sitting around for hours in full makeup and costume in the australian heat waiting on the possibility that they might be able to shoot something i'm getting secondhand embarrassment from this the result of all this utter nonsense was that a shoot that was supposed to take six weeks dragged on for almost six months multiple days would pass where nothing usable was filmed and with overhead costs of roughly 150 000 a day new line was practically pissing its money down the drain sunk cost fallacy is a hell of a drug reality started to mimic the fiction with the cast and crew becoming increasingly alienated from the director no one really knowing what was happening events becoming more bizarre and everyone just wanting it to be over the actors who played the hybrids had to spend hours in makeup only to find that they wouldn't be needed and they couldn't be recast because the costumes have been designed for each of them specifically so they were contractually forced to continue they were still getting paid a lot though so they spent most of their down time drinking doing drugs shagging and basically living out the furry fantasy again life really did start to imitate art oh and on top of all this thulis fell off a horse and broke his leg while an extra had his leg broken after being mugged in sydney that's just the icing on the [ __ ] cake now you've probably been wondering amidst all this chaos where the [ __ ] was richard stanley i mean i'm hoping you didn't forget about him because that would be kind of awkward well by pure chance stanley was discovered nearby by some of the extras he'd run off into the rainforest and had been recovering on a plantation with some local hippies while doing large amounts of weed which which is fair enough wanting to show solidarity with the cast and crew he had roped into this mess and morbidly curious about what was being done to his film with the help of the extras and the makeup department he disguised himself in full costume as one of the hybrids and snuck back onto the set he even made it into several scenes in the movie he took part in the violent final act and later admitted that destroying the set was an appropriate end to his character arc he was also somewhat reassured that the shoot was even more shambolic without him stanley would not reveal himself until the rat party at which kilmer having reflected somewhat on his behavior apologized profusely for costing him his job stanley would tell him it was a little too late but somehow after what must have felt to everyone like crawling through the length of satan's digestive tract filming was eventually completed and after being plonked out of satan's [ __ ] and mushed into something screenable the movie was finally released but the result was well it was just very anticlimactic really it's been described as one of the worst movies ever made but it's really not it's not terrible but it's not exactly great either it does have plenty of issues like you'd expect and thulis kilmer and brando give performances that make it very clear that they didn't want to be there it doesn't quite manage to pull off anything it was attempting to do you can see what they were going for but they didn't quite manage to achieve it and aside from the absurdity of the mini-me moments there isn't really anything to laugh at either it's a bit of a cliche but dr moreau really is a fever dream it just feels off even if you didn't know about the film's troubled production you'd know that something was wrong but the film was a critical and commercial bomb losing new line money entering the halls of cinema infamy firmly establishing kilmer's reputation as an [ __ ] and once again making brando into a laughing stock stanley has since refused to watch the movie in full which i think is understandable he withdrew from hollywood to focus on making documentaries until making somewhat of a comeback with his 2019 hp lovecraft adaptation colour out of space he was slated to do two more lovecraft films and then um this happened which is disappointing no bueno my dude what the [ __ ] so yeah that is the story of the insanity that was the island of dr moreau i'm in the habit of covering bizarre cursed and frankly [ __ ] stuff on this channel but i don't think anything's ever gonna top this in terms of sheer chaos and secondhand anxiety and as fascinating as this [ __ ] has been i kinda hope it doesn't happen again because [ __ ] the turbulent production is more fully explored in the documentary lost soul the doomed journey of richard stanley's the island of dr moreau which i can't recommend highly enough so go check it out but the biggest lesson to be learned from all this is never meet your heroes because sometimes your heroes are just pricks hey folks i've been up all night getting this video ready for release today saturday because i needed to get it out by the end of the month in order to fulfill obligations and as i was sat here with it almost finished i got hit by a very powerful sense of irony because making this video has kind of been a dr moreau-like experience in and of itself i was actually planning on making this video about a year ago and while i was deep in the research for it somebody else made a video on it that did really well so i figured i needed to delay mine because the urgency just wasn't there anymore and also i didn't really want to be called a copycat and then when i actually did try and make the video both me and my editor fell ill while we were trying to make it and that caused further delays and then various other production and technical issues happened hence why i'm pulling an all-nighter to get it out for today and then on top of that a bunch of personal and health related stuff came up which made this month even worse you may have been able to hear it in the video but my voice wasn't exactly 100 this month it was really quite hit or miss and that's because i was pushing through because i wanted to get this made and much like dr moreau this video started off as a passion project but now i'm just kind of glad it's over having said that i am glad that i pushed myself through it and saw it through to completion i hope you enjoy it and now i can move on to other things i know this last month has been a bit barren in terms of content but things have been things have been a bit weird and honestly i've kind of been lacking inspiration because a lot of stuff that's come out over the last few months has just been so boring but so much stuff is coming out within the next like two months that i want to cover that i'm not even going to have time to get around to covering it all it's actually quite frustrating so yeah this movie is cursed just don't make a video on it if you were tempted to just just don't it's not worth it see you in the next one i need a [ __ ] coffee thanks for watching folks if you liked the video give it a like and a share and all that good stuff and of course subscribe for more thanks to raycon for sponsoring once again check them out to support the channel link in the description special shout out as well to my supporters on patreon and to my youtube channel members patrons and channel members get early access to uncensored versions of videos without ads or sponsorships as well as a mention here in the credits follow me on twitch for streams follow me on twitter for updates and join my public discord server if you want to hang out thanks again and i'll see you in the next one

Channel: Cynical Reviews

Views: 588,739

Keywords: The island of dr moreau, dr moreau, island of dr moreau, island of dr moreau movie, dr moreau movie, dr moreau film, dr moreau production, marlon brando, val kilmer, new line cinema, richard stanley, bruce willis, james woods, h g wells, the island of dr moreau review, the island of dr moreau movie review, doctor moreau, production hell, production nightmare, cynical review, cynical reviews dr moreau, cynical reviews island of dr moreau, ad, Movie, Film, Review, documentary

Id: yQBa4pnWOLc

Length: 28min 2sec (1682 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 31 2021