Everyone expects some props to be destroyed during a film shoot. Every once in a while,
though, something breaks that no one expected, or budgeted for. These are the costliest things
destroyed while making movies, historic toilets and all.
When Jennifer Jason Leigh watched in horror as Kurt Russell smashes a replica of an authentic
1870s Martin guitar in The Hateful Eight, her reaction was entirely real, because Russell
unknowingly destroyed the actual Martin, and not the replica.
Someone forgot to swap the real guitar for the prop.
Leigh told Billboard:
"Kurt felt terrible. He had no idea. When he found out, his eyes literally welled up."
Leigh was heartbroken: She'd just learned to play guitar on that Martin, and had even
been allowed to take it home to practice. Before she learned it was a museum piece,
Leigh had even inquired about the price, she was interested in taking it home once production
was done.
Martin Guitar Museum director Dick Boak told Reverb that the Museum, quote,
"will no longer loan guitars to movies under any circumstances."
Skyfall, the third James Bond movie to be filmed in Istanbul, might be the last filmed
there after a stuntman crashed a motorcycle into a 330-year-old jewelry shop.
This opening chase sees Bond pursuing the villainous Patrice across the rooftops of
Istanbul. It culminates in a dramatic crash through a breakable prop window into the tight,
vibrant corridors of the Grand Bazaar. What you don't see is the immediate aftermath:
Swerving to avoid packed throngs of extras, the stuntman lost control of his bike and
smashed right through the real crystal glass window of a historic jewelry shop.
It's incredible how much preparation went into this scene, and how things went awry
anyway. Production manager Menderes Demir described the process to The Guide: Istanbul:
"Before shooting, we had to negotiate and convince 1,650 shop owners in the area of
Grand Bazaar, the Spice Bazaar, and in between."
The crew also had to secure countless permits from Turkey's Ministry of Culture, Transportation
Commission, and Istanbul's police department. Finally, the stunt was rehearsed several times
to ensure it would go off without a hitch.
Mete Boybeyi, the shop's owner, said repairs were costly, complicated, and resulted in
lost revenue.
He explained to Reuters:
"This place is regulated by the Council of Monuments. We can't even change our window
without their permission."
He also revealed the response from Skyfall's production:
"No one from the movie crew came to ask 'what are your losses?' We filed a complaint at
the police station."
In a thrilling scene in Christopher Nolan's legendary 2008 movie The Dark Knight, the
Joker and his gang divert and trap a S.W.A.T. escort in a tight underpass. They manage to
destroy several vans and even a police helicopter. Batman enters the fray in his Batmobile, having
just taken out a few parked cars himself. It's a chaotic, exciting sequence, captured
with close, kinetic camera movements. Unfortunately, according to Short List, those camera movements
also resulted in the destruction of an IMAX camera.
Breaking a camera during production happens. IMAX cameras are in another league, though.
The manufacturer typically just rents out their cameras, they're so expensive, most
movie productions wouldn't be able to afford them otherwise. How expensive are they? A
single IMAX camera costs $500,000, according to Premium Beat. That's right, half a million
dollars for one camera.
Half a million is nothing to sneeze at, but given how profitable the movie was, that's
a cost easily written off. But there was another wrinkle: In 2008, IMAX cameras were very rare.
We're talking "count on one hand and have a finger left over" rare. Yep, Nolan broke
one of just four IMAX cameras in the world at the time.
Christopher Nolan doesn't just have one destroyed IMAX camera to his name, during production
on 2012's The Dark Knight Rises, another IMAX camera was destroyed.
The movie centers around a conflict between Batman and Bane, a criminal mastermind who
imposes martial law on Gotham City. This culminates in a massive fight on the steps of Gotham
City Hall. Catwoman rides the Batpod motorcycle out of the building, down the steps...and
directly into an IMAX camera.
The motorcycle isn't moving particularly fast, but the stuntwoman and the cameraman didn't
realize they were on a collision course, and the IMAX camera was knocked right out of his
hands. Another $500,000 down the drain. At least this time the number of IMAX cameras
in the world had finally climbed to double digits.
Andrei Tarkovsky's 1986 film The Sacrifice takes the cake for accidental destruction:
That film burned down a whole house. Twice.
To be fair, burning down the house was intentional. Less intentional was the camera jamming.
The crew was filming from a distance as flames ripped viciously through the house. People
hustled about shouting orders before it became abundantly clear what happened. Tarkovsky
was filmed covering his face with both hands and moaning. As the house burned uselessly,
Tarkovsky said:
"The last thing I expected was for the camera crew to screw up."
The house was rebuilt, albeit at great expense, and the scene re-filmed. The movie went on
to be a classic. But it's unlikely anyone forgot the moment the awful truth of the first
house's destruction was revealed.
Joaquin Phoenix has never been afraid to go well beyond what's written in the script.
Sometimes that results in an injury to himself, as in Joker, where the actor so embodied his
role he dislocated his knee while filming a scene, as reported by ComicBook.com.
In The Master, Phoenix's character Freddie Quell is thrown into a jail cell adjacent
to Philip Seymour Hoffman's Lancaster Dodd, sending Quell into a rage. Hands cuffed behind
his back, Phoenix thrashes wildly in his cell. He violently throws himself repeatedly into
the top bunk bed, kicks at the door and finally stomps the toilet. The first stomp dislodges
it, but the second sends it into the ground where it shatters instantly.
Director Paul Thomas Anderson told IndieWire:
"That unfortunately was a real porcelain toilet, a historic toilet. We could only do it once."
Phoenix told the New York Times he drew inspiration from wild animals in captivity that react
so viscerally they often end up hurting themselves. He said:
"I didn't intend to break the thing. I didn't know that was possible."
In an episode from the third season of Battlestar Galactica, star Edward James Olmos broke a
model ship in an emotionally charged fit of improvisation. Unfortunately, they forgot
to tell Olmos that the model ship wasn't a prop, but instead was an original borrowed
from a museum.
Olmos told the crowd at the 2012 Planet Comicon,
"I said, 'What did you put it in the scene for? I mean, God Almighty, I've just been
told that my daughter's dead! What are you, nuts?'"
That original he reduced to kindling? It was reportedly worth a cool $200,000.
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