Movies That Were Over-Shadowed By Real-Life Scandals

Of all the releases so far in 2022, one has stood out thanks to its seemingly endless controversy: Olivia Wilde's sophomore directorial effort, "Don't Worry Darling." The behind-the-scenes drama of the film came to light not long before its premiere at the Venice Film Festival in September 2022 and some of the cast's strange behavior during the premiere and press junket only sparked more speculation as to what really happened while this movie was being filmed. While "Don't Worry Darling" may be the movie most plagued by backstage rumors in recent memory, it is far from the only Hollywood production that has been overshadowed by the real-life drama of making it.

We are taking a look back at some of the most memorable behind-the-scenes scandals in movie history and boy, is it a big barrel of extramarital affairs, erratic on-set directors and actors, and straight-up bizarre behavior. In fact, the controversies of many of these movies make that of "Don't Worry Darling" seem vanilla in comparison. We'll explore the facts behind "Don't Worry Darling" and its press tour, as well as many other notoriously dramatic Hollywood productions.

Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston announced their separation in 2005 but both parties insisted that the split had nothing to do with the tabloid reports of his relationship with Angelina Jolie (via People). When he and Jolie were photographed on vacation together just a month after his divorce was finalized, Pitt found himself at the heart of one of the biggest Hollywood scandals of the 2000s.

It all started with 2005's "Mr. and Mrs Smith," a decent action flick that stars Pitt and Jolie as two undercover spies tasked with killing each other. Pitt and Jolie met on set and the rumors immediately started that they were having an affair. Jolie spoke to Vogue in 2006, claiming that she and Pitt didn't consider a relationship until the end of the shoot in 2004, but the damage of the rumors was already done (via People).

Every celebrity tabloid on the news stands was covered in paparazzi photos of Jolie and Pitt, and the public obsession with the Pitt-Aniston-Jolie love triangle became so rampant that Doug Liman, the director of "Mr. and Mrs. Smith," needed to have units on set just to block the paparazzi from interrupting the shoot (via Entertainment Weekly). 

Despite Pitt's efforts of denying that his relationship with Jolie led to his divorce from Aniston, tabloids spent the better part of the next ten years looking for ways to resurrect the drama. The actual film of "Mr. and Mrs. Smith," however, hasn't had the same lasting impact except for its role in the scandal.

There's probably no Hollywood feud more notorious than that between actresses Joan Crawford and Bette Davis. After all, it did inspire the first season of Ryan Murphy's anthology show, aptly titled "Feud."

The tension between them began in 1933 when Crawford announced her divorce from Douglas Fairbanks Jr. on the same day that Warner Brothers had planned a ton of press coverage for Davis' first headlining film (via Harper's Bazaar). Davis' film was immediately overshadowed by Crawford's personal life. This began a decades-long rivalry between the two that included numerous altercations, which escalated when Crawford and Davis starred together in 1962's "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?"

According to Charlotte Chandler's "Not the Girl Next Door: Joan Crawford: A Personal Biography," Crawford was the one who convinced Davis to sign up for the movie. Davis only agreed after director Robert Aldrich promised her that he and Crawford weren't romantically involved because she "didn't want him favoring [Crawford] with more close-ups."

Not surprisingly, Davis and Crawford remained barely civil while shooting the film. "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane" plays off their well-known animosity, as it's a psychological thriller about a power struggle between two damaged sisters. 

According to Harpers Bazaar, the rumors ran wild: Crawford requested a body double for the scene where Davis beats her character up, because she didn't trust that Davis wouldn't actually hurt her, while Crawford filled her pockets with rocks for a scene where Davis had to drag her body around. Bette Davis got an Oscar nom for it, but "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?" will always be most remembered as a symbol of Hollywood's greatest feud.

Ah, "Fifty Shades of Grey." Originally written as "Twilight" fan-fiction, the book was a sweeping sensation and turned author E.L. James into the highest-paid writer in the world in 2013 (via Forbes). So, it was hardly a surprise when the rights were optioned for a screen adaptation. 

For months, the rumors swirled about who would play the leads of Anastasia and Christian, until it was finally announced that it would be Dakota Johnson and Charlie Hunnam, who backed out soon thereafter due to scheduling conflicts (via People). Hunnam was replaced by Jamie Dornan but once the movie's press tour began, it became clear that Johnson and Dornan had no sexual chemistry and or even much affection for each other, as detailed by Defamer. 

Any film would suffer if its two leads didn't have on-screen chemistry, but it was a special kind of disaster for a movie that completely centered (and depended) on the relationship between its actors. After all, "Fifty Shades of Grey" is about an intense, sexual relationship involving BDSM and a love so strong it supposedly convinces Christian to go "vanilla" so that he can stay with the woman he loves. 

The film was critically panned, but Johnson and Dornan stuck it out to make two more sequels based on the books. Johnson told Vanity Fair in 2022 that she "signed up to do a very different version of the film we ended up making" and wouldn't do it again if she could go back in time. However, she doesn't regret doing "those big naked movies" and claims she always got along with Dornan, whom she loves like a brother.

Marlon Brando might be one of the most famous Hollywood actors of all time, mostly due to his incredible work in films like "A Streetcar Named Desire" and "The Godfather," but also in part due to his bizarre on-set behavior towards the end of his life. That's not to say that he wasn't also difficult to work with when he was younger, but it became more of an issue the older he got.

According to The Independent, Brando was one of Francis Ford Coppola's biggest problems during the famously troubled production of "Apocalypse Now." But luckily for Brando, it's still remembered first and foremost as a triumph of film. 

The 1996 screen adaptation of "The Island of Doctor Moreau," however, had no such luck. Only a little before filming began, Marlon Brando's daughter died, which understandably exacerbated his already difficult work conduct. Brando refused to learn his lines, spent a lot of time conceiving a bizarre backstory for his character, and insisted on both doing his own make-up (via FX Guide).

The worst part of production, though, was the volatile combination of Brando and the film's other star, Val Kilmer — an actor fairly well-known at that point for being hot-headed and demanding on set (via Inverse). It's already difficult to make a simple movie with ONE diva, let alone trying to adapt a philosophically complex and unsettling sci-fi story with TWO extremely difficult actors, and "The Island of Doctor Moreau" never surpassed the drama of its production.

It's difficult to understand what Fox executives were thinking when they signed off on Bryan Singer as the director for their Freddy Mercury biopic, "Bohemian Rhapsody" back in 2016 (via Deadline). By the time the movie began shooting, Singer had been accused of not only knowing about and facilitating Kevin Spacey's sex crimes but also of committing sexual assault against several minors himself, according to IndieWire.

Despite Spacey's public accusations and subsequent exile from Hollywood's elite, Bryan Singer managed to avoid the same level of scrutiny, despite being implicated in and accused of many similar crimes.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, on the set of "Bohemian Rhapsody," Singer's attendance was erratic at best, and he allegedly was in frequent conflict with the star of the film, Rami Malek. Fox decided to fire Singer with just two weeks left of filming, but "Bohemian Rhapsody" will forever be tainted by his involvement.

Malek won an Oscar for his work as Freddy Mercury and the film enjoyed massive financial success, but for many, "Bohemian Rhapsody" will go down in history as having been mostly directed by an unreliable, unprofessional director, who had been accused of sexual assault by a number of men long before he was hired. 

If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available. Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN's National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).

1993's film adaptation of "Super Mario Brothers" should have been a fun, colorful movie but instead, the directors tried to give audiences a dark interpretation of one of the most G-rated video games ever made. 

The problem was that no one — neither the producers, directors, or writers — could agree on what that dark interpretation would be. So, the production of "Super Mario Brothers" turned into a disaster. Producer Roland Joffé brought in the husband-and-wife team of Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel to direct, whose lack of feature experience was made up for with their pioneering work with computer graphics (via The Guardian).

Morton and Jankel trashed the first finalized draft of the script and then hired and fired at least three different writing teams before landing on something workable. Except they still weren't satisfied, so the rewrites continued throughout filming and frustrated both cast and crew to no end. 

Stars John Leguizamo, Bob Hoskins, and Dennis Hopper all expressed their anger to The LA Times, with Leguizamo putting it most poetically, "Every day's a new page. It's like waiting for the news."

The notoriously hot-headed Hopper finally lost his patience and according to The Guardian, screamed at the directing duo for at least 45 minutes after being handed new rewrites just before a scene. By the time Morton and Jankel were done with principal photography, the studio was so fed up that they tried to keep them from entering the editing room in post-production. In the end, "Super Mario Brothers" became a massive flop, taking in just half of its $42 million budget.