Most Anticipated of 2023 and a Troubled Production
2023 is our year and sometimes adversity makes us better.
This year has everything… A triple X pun, sentient toy, colorful western… Drew and I get into it all in an hour conversation about what we are excited about this year. While you’re listening to that conversation mark your calendar for the evening of January 24th. That morning is when The Academy announces the nominees for the 95th Academy Awards and that evening we will be reacting to everything on Spotify Live. If you haven’t already, follow us on Spotify Live so that you get alerts when we go live and if you missed our conversation listen to us below.
Earlier this week reports came out that Francis Ford Coppola’s new movie, Megalopolis, has become a troubled production. His response to those reports was, “Ha, ha, just wait and see.” Absolute king shit. This should be no surprise to anyone that is aware of Coppola’s career. Apocalypse Now being the most notorious of his troubled productions. Luckily for him and many other productions that chaos does not mean their movie will be a failure critically or commercially. Let me quickly recap some of the films that have become infamous but the finish product still highly regarded.
Jaws
Spielberg’s The Fablemans hints at the resilience of himself as a filmmaker, but that hubris is needed for such a young filmmaker that is credited with creating the “blockbuster” experience. During the filming of Jaws the robotic shark hardly ever worked and the already projected rough days filming at sea ran longer than expected. Stressing the technology creating the shark and the actors responding to the ever changing script in response to the technological issues. The production was running long and over budget, but turns out the lack of shark enhanced the intensity that made people want to come back again and again.
Mad Max: Fury Road
When I became a film enthusiast this was the first production I remember being reported on because of the struggles. George Miller of Happy Feet and Babe: Pig in the City fame (and also the three other previous Mad Max movies) was finally taking on a Mad Max movie again. Still not quite sure if it was his style or the actor dynamics on set that made this chaotic. Miller was committed to the practical way of making movies all while his two main stars Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron were feuding on set. This almost for sure box office bomb made its money back, had 10 Oscar nominations, and probably should have won Best Picture.
World War Z
This is one of the stranger ones because it was a troubled production that ended up better than expected but is still forgotten overall. A zombie action epic with a 200 million budget that starred Brad Pitt and Marc Forster directing. World War Z went through massive reshoots when the layman film fan wasn’t aware of how it is standard practice for big movies like this to have reshoots scheduled in, so the rumors of the troubled set maybe helped its box office. We all expected an absolute catastrophe, but what we got was some really tense moments in a mediocre movie that left us wanting more. So much so that David Fincher was rumored to direct the sequel. That follow up is all but dead and this movie will fade into obscurity, but what was thought to be a huge bomb ended up being a fun time at the movies and a financial success.
Three Kings
George Clooney punched David O. Russell. That is all I really wanted to report on. Director David O. Russell has been notorious for having troubled sets every time he is helming a film. More people need to hit him it seems. Three Kings is a really good movie and like most of his movies that is the conflict for the viewer. Luckily his 2022 movie Amsterdam was largely unseen so hopefully the punching finally knocked him down.
The Wizard of Oz
The Wizard of Oz is the marquee event for a mass audience that transitions black and white filmmaking to color. It is only fitting that violent transition of style has its crazy production. 5 filmmakers brought in to finish this movie. Multiple actors as Tin Man sent to the hospital for the toxic makeup being used. And Judy Garland “too old” at 16 for the character of Dorothy and then being physically abused by the main director Victor Fleming on set. This is definitely the film production I wish I never knew the history of. Having the blinders on his nice at times.
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