Their plan was to find another director and start up shooting again, right away. They'd only been shooting for two weeks, but Richard had run into problems with some of the actors and the studio, and so he was fired. 'After a 20-hour flight, I got there, only to hear that Richard Stanley, the director, had been fired that day. In fact, trouble started the very day Shane arrived in Australia.

But, even with all of that, I left for Australia feeling good about the characters we'd created and the upcoming shoot.' That feeling wouldn't last long. Perhaps, like me, you’re a fan of the podcast How Did This Get Made, which means you’ve likely listened to the latest ep where they discussed the insane production problems the film ran into. One of our small children still had nightmares about his clawed hand when he shook it. I was also worried about the fact that I was only going to have 14 makeup artists on the production with me, which was a small crew to take care of 42 characters. Dr Morrow had spent his entire life hiding under a tatty monks habit, He had addressed the federation of planet earth’s climate conference, with a potato sack over his head, he was a bitter and twisted genius. 'There hadn't been any time to test these makeups,' Mahan said, 'which made me a little nervous. Moreau's shoot are so infamous that there's even a terrific documentary about the whole sordid disaster.Despite the short schedule, all of the requisite silicone makeups and masks had been built and shipped by the time Shane Mahan and a crew of makeup artists left for Australia, where the film was being shot.

Making matters worse, Val Kilmer was two days late to set after learning on day one that he was being divorced by his wife, further straining relations between Stanley and New Line, with the studio feeling that the director lacked the backbone to keep the production running smoothly.īy day two, co-star Rob Morrow quit the film amid rewrites (eventually replaced by David Thewlis) and inclement weather prevented filming from continuing.īy day three, New Line fired Stanley by fax, replacing him with veteran director John Frankenheimer, who despite his skill couldn't rescue the obviously doomed production. Their relationship with the director began to crumble as Stanley's main ally, star Marlon Brando, was absent from the start of shooting due to the suicide of his daughter. The movie was a major passion project for Stanley, whose eccentric personality nevertheless made New Line Cinema nervous.

The island of doctor morrow