Doomed to Fail - Ep 189: The worst/best time making a movie - The Island of Dr. Moreau

Episode Date: April 10, 2025

Farz started this episode with, "I don't know if people are going to be interested in this!" and then proceeded to tell the most hilarious and interesting story! In loving memory of Val Kilmer, Farz walks us through the insane 1996 production of "The Island of Dr. Moreau." From Val being the worst to the director disguising himself as an extra to whatever the hell Marlon Brandon was doing --- it's a wild ride!  Join our Founders Club on Patreon to get ad-free episodes for life! patreon.com/DoomedtoFailPodWe would love to hear from you! Please follow along! Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/doomedtofailpod/  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/doomedtofailpod  Youtube:  https://www.youtube.com/@doomedtofailpod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@doomed.to.fail.pod Email: [e-mail] 

It's a matter of the people of the state of California versus Hortonthal James Simpson, case number B.A.019. And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country. And we are alive, Taylor. Hi, how are you? Good. How are you? I am very, very well.

I'm excited to go to yoga in a little bit. It'll be a, and it's beautiful here. It is absolutely beautiful. The wildflowers were out in bloom. It's gorgeous time. I am very hot. What time? What is the temperature here?

It is 85 where you are. It's 83 here. I mean, it's just going to get hotter. We also have a decent amount of wind, which breaks up. So there's that. That's good for you. Good for you. Thank you.

So would you like to introduce who we are, what we're doing? why people are here listening to this. I would love to you. Thank you for listening, everyone. Welcome to Dume's to Fail. We bring you history's most notorious disasters and epic failures twice a week. And I am Taylor, joined by Fars.

And today is Fars's turn. To tell a story. And honestly, like, nobody's going to care about this. Like, I just know, so I shouldn't have said that. I'm sorry. Why on earth would you say that? I don't know. Oh, my God.

You're going to love this story. What a time-consuming hobby we've discovered. you're all going to adore this but I'm going to cover a topic that or like a subject matter that I don't typically cover it's going to have to do with movies a movie in particular and it all came about because of Val Kilmer's death so I don't really follow celebrities very much I don't really care about celebrities very much and I ran out of like every podcast I had to listen to

and the last one on the list was a story about Val Kilmer's life and his death and it reminded me of a movie that he was in that fascinating when I was a kid because I had and still have horrible taste in movies I just don't like good movies I like bad movies. Like I thought the Congo

was one of the best movies ever saw and I still don't know. Oh my God. You have bad taste too. I say the last city of Zinge all the time. Do you remember our conversation about what absolute dog shit Benjamin Button was and how everybody told us that every told us we have to love it I was like it's impossible to watch it was infuriating I was like this honestly could not be worse yeah it was like a torture session and everybody's like best storyline best script best it's like what do you talk what do you what did you guys watch

Congo was better um yeah congo so good thank you but there was yes It was, remember the eyeball scene? God, I love Jim Curry. I'm like, yeah, like, oh, my God. And then I think I watched it recently. I love when she gets mad at the dad and she's like, you said this was about him. And he's like, it's about the diamond.

And I'm like, why can't you have both? But take both. Yeah. Never throw away the diamond, everyone. It actually holds up. Like, it does. I watched it recently. I want to watch with the kids.

They're going to make fun of the CGI, but they're going to like it. I don't even think that was CGI. I think those were real humans dresses like gorillas. oh good that's even better yeah so um we're off topic here but so there was another movie around the same time that was super fascinated by that i never saw i actually didn't even see it for this because the movie itself is kind of irrelevant i'm gonna get into the production of the movie the movie itself is called the island of dr monroe dr moreau cool i think we talked about this before what they say about it no we talked about it because we talked about marlon brando and how fucking

weird this is right yes i'm excited um also did you know that conga was written about michael who wrote Jurassic Park and ER, the TV show. Oh, my God. And you know why I know that? Actually, it's because I think it comes up on my author clock. You know, I have this cool clock that does the time from a book. Oh, wow. No.

So every minute of the day, it does a different quote from a book where that minute is referenced, you know. That's incredible. And Congo's in here every once in a while when it gets back in and I'll let you know. Fun. What is that called? it's called an author clock author wow they also have one

like an author weather clock as well that gives you the weather depending on and it gives you like a quote from a book I've never heard of this it's awesome

one got it for me a Kickstarter it took two years to arrive and it's awesome I love it um wow Congo my client did not know that okay

um anyway makes sense why it was great actually even more so yeah um so we did talk about this and you kind of touched on us already

we kind of talked about what a nightmare the making of the movie was and I got super fascinated by it as it's just so interesting there's something so human when you learn about like celebrities and I fundamentally think that there's something within humans that once you reach a certain level of like wealth and success I think we all just become assholes I I don't even think there's a choice I think I think it has to happen like it's too consistent like what yeah what do you what what what do you do what what do you do yeah yeah so okay go ahead please see this I'm very interested in this and you haven't even started um I also just want to mention how handsome marlon brando was sure that's all just like remember

remember a street car named desire oh my god even though he was a very bagged man in that movie gorgeous I never I never I only knew Marlon Brando from the godfather and back then he would like play it a very old decrepit man so I know well that well okay then also the reason we brought him up the first place was for Mutiny and the bounty which is also you should watch which is also yeah it kind of it is okay I'll let you talk I'm not gonna let you talk that's actually where it came from that was the thing I was talking about was Mutiny on the path okay anyway so so anyways the movie itself was super interesting because there's a lot of like interesting themes baked into it that we're going to get into. If you don't know what the story is, do you know the story, Taylor? I feel like is it about hunting humans on an island?

That's the running man. No. That is the, yes and no. That's the dangerous game or something. Okay, but then no, I don't know. This is going to be the longest episode ever. I can't stop talking.

I feel like my mom watching a movie. Whenever I watch a movie with my mom, she's like, cannot stop talking during it. You're like, why can't you stop talking? and she can't and that's where I am right now. All good. All good. It's a good banter.

So the gist of the story, the parts that are relevant here, is that there's this guy. He's like a UN investigator in the movie. He is in a plane crash. He's rescued by some passerby on a boat who is supposed to take him to this one island and decides to take him that he's going to have to take a detour to this other island. And that island is owned by a guy named Dr. Moreau. Dr. Moreau is a former physician or something who's experiment. drove him out of civil society and he sought refuge on this island to continue doing his experiments

and his experiment was in creating human animal hybrids so that he did you watch this movie for this or didn't no you just learn about it no it looks really really bad like I so I watched another movie that's based on the making of this movie called the loss um what is it called the lost so yeah the lost soul of Richard Stanley um but but anyway so dr. Moreau he's doing these hybrid experiments on creating animal human hybrids and this guy discovers it and there's a rebellion and whatever it's it's a it's an hg wells book and reading through kind of the synopsis from hg well the entire point of the movie or the entire point of the show movie story whatever it's that it's trying to create like a nihilistic society in a world where

being a nihilist will get you destroyed and that's kind of like the overall theme of the show is so or the movie anyways the movie itself who gives a shit that's not the important part the important part is the production of the movie that's actually where the fun of this comes in and how this became listed as the worst production in history of hollywood and it all starts with a guy named richard stanley so his official title for this role was that of director but he really was a lot more than just a director. He seems more like a producer and just like a general fanboy

who got his wish come true. He was a fan of the H.G. Wells book when he was a kid and it sounds like that book left a huge mark on him. He references a lot about what it meant to him in terms of human's relationship with nature and God and what God is and what being a human is. It sounds like it was a very defining book for him. So this wasn't like a director

who's like, hey, here's 10 scripts, pick one that you want to do. It was like, this is it. Like, this is the, my story that I have to tell. He was also not a fan of any other earlier film adaptations that had been made to date. So there's one called, in 1932 called the Island of Lost Souls. There was a movie called Terror is a Man. There's a 1977 movie called the Island of Dr. Moreau. He had a lot of choice words about this because he felt like they weren't being true to the H.G. Wells book.

And that was his biggest beef because he was like, such a fan of that book. Totally. So he got to start in filming in filmmaking with short films. His first feature film was made in 1990 and called Hardware. And that actually turned a profit

and helped him lock in his next film which sounds like it was a total disaster to finish. Then his third was basically like a rock album. It was like this band called Marillion who released an album and they wanted a movie to play over that touched on the themes of each song as it happened. It was like an art thing.

It was very artsy-fartsy, right? Totally. So I'm sending all this up to say that, one, this was a super passionate person about the things that he really cared about. And two, he didn't have a lot of background or experience running major productions. That's kind of like the theme here being. It was like his first big one. Yeah, also he's 29 years old. Oh, wow.

So while finishing his second movie, he started touring around with the idea of creating a film adaptation of Dr. Moreau. And basically fulfilling the vision he thought that a. she walls always had for this to come to come to life um as a way to kind of i learned a lot about like what you did to get a film made throughout this process it really just starts what's creating just you got to start creating things start talking to people start building a vision start selling the vision all that he started doing that by creating these really like acid punk looking pictures of like what he envisioned the scenes from the movie would look like it's actually really cool. And a lot of them

showed Dr. Moreau as like a Jesus-like figure. Like he's like the creator of these animal hybrids and whatever. He definitely had a picture in his mind of what this should be. Yeah. And then he spent four years trying to shop this idea around to producers and studios to build up interest. From his

telling of it, he was basically living on fumes. Like he was essentially completely penniless just going from side hustle to side hustle to try and pitch this to someone. Like I said, he wasn't working as a movie director. This was not a guy that you would just hire out of a stack of movie director saying, all right, Joel Schumacher's

busy, go to the next one. Stillberg busy, go to the next. He wasn't like. Very specific. Very specific. This guy wanted to make this movie. Exactly. Yeah. He had one modestly successful movie. I think the budget was $5 million. I think he made $5 million

off a budget of $1 million, which like, it's good. But by comparison, the year he did that movie, the top grossing directors made 22 to 33X their budget in the top movies where ghost home alone and pretty woman so like i mean those are top movies i know but that's where you hire a top director yeah no i mean those are some of the best movies ever also i i never really thought of it this way but like if you're a movie director you're like the CEO of

like a huge organization like you got all these people beneath you and all those people beneath them like it's like a huge it's like a real challenging job well so my husband you know directed a couple films and like obviously they were like small but like it was lonely and hard everyone was mad at him you know like it's not easy it sounds like it takes a certain grizzledness to do this

and um and we're gonna learn that here in a bit so eventually Richard Stanley was able to get a hold of a producer named Edward Pressman who liked his idea liked his vision like the guy himself and most importantly he liked the fact that Richard Stanley's agent

was also the representative of H.E. Wells a state because that meant that they could straight line securing the rights to actually making this movie, which they actually did. Do you do that on purpose? I don't know if Richard Stanley did that on purpose, but that would be really deliberate. It feels like, how could that be a coincidence?

That does sound very deliberate. Yeah. Yeah. So Ed and Richard approached New Line Cinema, who was undergoing kind of like an identity crisis at the time. In the early 90s, there were more of an art house film studio. They made movies like Texas Chainsawmaston

Or Lawnmore Man, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, things like that. Remember when we watched Lawmower Man? Yes, that's a great movie, too. It does not hold up because the graphics are pretty bad now. And it's like, yeah, it doesn't hold up. But I was actually talking about it today because, or thinking about it today because Pierce Brasman's wife posed a picture of someone smoking a cigarette.

And just remember how many times in that movie he's smoking a cigarette and doing like a video diary on the TV. Oh, my God. Yeah. He's smoking cigarettes the entire time. It's so good. Pierce Broson plays big in this. not this

Richard Stanley did color out of space which I really like and that's also you can talk about that I'm going to talk about that I'm going to talk about that okay it's pretty good

we'll know in about 20 minutes sorry I thought God can continue I like Richard Stanley's look FYI he has a great look

he definitely looks like he should have filmed Jurassic Park so long story short is like they were New Line Cinema this time was known as a

studio that produced profitable movies, but not good movies. Like it wasn't known for like good respectable movies essentially. But they were in a transition period around the mid-90s. So shortly around the time that they had also brought on to do the island of Dr. Moreau, they had just produced seven and boogie nights. Like movies that would go on in history as like classics and stuff like that. And the reason I'm bringing that up is because there was a dichotomy happening within New Line Center, within the leadership team, which was like, some of them were like, hey, we just want to

want to make cool movies. And someone were like, no, we need to be like the, I guess at that time, the Weinstein Company was like the biggest brand in terms of like good movie. Like, do you know what I'm trying to like have this internal battle essentially? Yeah. And learning how this all kind of came together. Like I said, it's just so relationship driven. Like the connection between the agent and Wells Estate and the producer relationship with

New Line Cinema. That's the reason all this came together in the first place. And that's why New Line Cinema started to. actually entertained the idea of producing this movie and this producer was also the reason why Marlon Brando got involved because he was directly connected to Marlon Brando and

eventually this gets floated to Brando that this movie is there's interest in New Line Cinema and producing this and that potentially he might be of interest to play the lead in Dr. Moreau eventually what started out is like this grind house movie

of like a budget maybe $5 million now with Brando it's attached. It's like a movie. It's like a real thing because now Brando's involved, basically. For context at this time, Brando had been nominated for more Academy Awards than movies that Richard Stanley had made.

Richard Stanley made one more movie than Brando had Oscars. I am like, I'm nervous and excited because I'm looking at pictures of this and I'm like, what is happening? So I just can't, I'm just looking at pictures of this production and I just can't wait to hear more. So at this point, like I said earlier, Stanley was 29 years old.

The studio obviously didn't want him being responsible for making a movie that now had a huge budget because of this celebrity being attached to it. They ended up hiring Roman Polanski and when Richard Stanley heard this, he like went apeshit and he basically demanded to meet with Brando

because he was like, I have zero clout. I have zero juice. I have nothing that I can do to get around this movie being handed off to Ron Polanski. But maybe if Brando loves being left, likes me. Maybe he can throw his heft around, you know? Yeah. And that's what he did. He met with

Brando at his house and Brando loved him for some reason and was like, he called New Line saying, I'm not going to do the movie unless this kid is directing. And so he got on the movie. This really reminded me of this one quote. I think it was Oscar Wilde that was like there are two tragedies in life. One is getting what you, one is not getting what you want, others getting it. and this is like such a great example of that totally totally i was thinking not i'm not related but like Tina fay one time was like when i first met with lord michaels i was like i would do anything to work with this man and then like a year later she was like in his office at midnight being like i would do anything to get out of this office you know that's actually not that uncommon for us in all

actually um so next up was casting some of the other prominent roles um and bruce willis and James Woods were the two that were kind of added to really round out like the pack of lead actors that you want on the on the movie. So they started doing smaller shoots off location in L.A. as sets were being built in Carnes, Australia for the main production.

And during this time, Stanley says that basically Bruce, this is all Stanley's interpretation. He said that Bruce Willis and Demi Moore decided to like separate and eventually move to divorce. And that's why Bruce Willis would eventually withdraw from doing the movie. Um, we don't know that's true. He was going to play Val Kilmer's character.

Yes. Um, and, um, and so now they're missing like their biggest box office draw. Like Brando was a big deal, but he wasn't as big of a deal as he wasn't like the 70s. At this point, this is 1996. And, um, so Stanley, Richard Stanley seemingly ran into Val Kilmer. And at this point, Val Kilmer was a pretty big star. He'd already done Batman forever.

and the the assumption was that he would be as big of a draw to the movie as Bruce Willis would have been if he was still involved in the film. So not to speak ill of the dead, but it does sound like Val Kilmer was an absolute nightmare to be around and deal with.

So Joel Schumacher, who directed him in Batman forever, the movie he'd just finished before he would have joined this project, would later say, quote, Val is the most psychologically troubled human being I've ever worked with. And it's like, and that was his reputation since the top gun days. I didn't ever knew this about Val Kilner because that wasn't either. He's probably just like some good looking guy and he just like feed him some scripts or whatever. But apparently he's like a hardcore method actor.

Like he's like a Juilliard like I'm an artist type, you know. Oh God, method actors sound like the worst. I know. And when Stanley met with him about kind of discussing this project, he lived up to his reputation immediately off the bat he goes I value my alone time I value my me time I will only do this movie if you cut my time

on the set by 40%. So that was his stipulation the sense I got from watching Stanley's interview about this moment was that this was like a panic moment for him because by all accounts he knew that New Line cinema didn't want him to direct this movie

they'd made that clear losing Bruce Wilson was bad enough but if he had failed to secure Val Kilmer then they would have just shelved the movie totally

so he agreed to the demands essentially he did this by basically giving him James Woods character so he replaced him as not being the lead which was what Bruce Wilson was supposed to be but to do James Woods character

which had fewer scenes he had them hiring a guy named Rob Morrow as the lead and apparently this kind of satisfied everybody. So the production team heads to Carnes Australia to finish casting for the background actors, finishing

obsessed, getting situated, doing all that good stuff. And then the news comes that Marlon Brando's 25-year-old daughter committed suicide by hanging herself at her mom's house. Right. This family, when you read what's going on with, it is, it could

you could make 15 movies about the people in this family. think we talked about this during during the it was that woman it was the munion the bounty woman that he married that yeah and then their daughter yeah yeah and then like didn't like a boyfriend beat her up and then the brother killed the boyfriend or something christian brando yeah dude it's crazy wild yeah it was what was that guy blakely the actor that died he he he killed his wife and then he went to jail.

This happened when we were living in L.A. I forgot his name. He was like a famous actor named Blakely. Anyways, the rumors were also that Marlon Brando's other kid, Christian Brando, might have also been the one

that killed that woman. It's like their stories are unbelievable. Anyways, so yeah, a lot could be said about the Brando family and the chaos involved in their lives. But anyways, so the daughter kills herself. and the production team particularly were like we got to give this guy more time like he needs time he's got to deal with this he's got to cope with this um and so the they scheduled to basically film like re-sequence where they were going to film from not having brando there essentially so he started off filming kilmer scenes and this is when he probably had the when richard stanley had the realization that this would have been a huge mistake to cast him he would question the script he would ask for rewrites he would question the chronology of the film question filming techniques he would tell he would tell him so when stanley would try to go

give him direction on what to be doing and how to be feeling doing all that stuff um he valcimo would tell the director of the movie quote only actors stand in front of the camera and like tell him to go back behind the camera like he was a real big jerk and i think this is a combination of also like valcimore just being an asshole which is like generally accepted mixed with stanley being super green on like an unusually high budget production for someone with his background. I think that's kind of what was going on here. It was like an alpha clash of like I'm the boss. So I'm the boss kind of a thing. Right. They're like maybe trying to take advantage of the situation. Yeah. Yeah. To be like, oh, I can I can be in charge here, you know. Yeah. That's essentially

it. Because this guy's like coming from a perspective like, hey, I have this vision. And Kilmer's like, look how great I am, guys. Everybody knows I'm great. So let's just make, let me do the rewrite. fuck these people so the middle of all this um there's growing tension between the main stakeholders um a tropical cyclone also hits the region and floods out or washes out the outdoor sets and the general tone amongst the people who were there and had the option to leave was please let me leave let me out my contract i don't want to be around this production of disaster everybody's mean to everybody the tension is palpable that how much everybody hates everybody and a lot of them started calling out to the studio

asking to get released from their contracts except Val Kilmer apparently which is like the only problem on the set so most important to the people that were complaining was Valcimler actually did call the head of the studio and basically said this guy doesn't know what he's doing he's too green just like shit talking him he wasn't asking to get taken off the movie

he was just like this guy sucks essentially and that was the final straw for New Line Cinema and Richard Stanley. He was fired via facts from the movie and was given his entire fee for it right to the movie in exchange for immediately getting on a flight back to L.A. and not disparaging the movie, New Line, or the production. Wow.

So some of the production people drove Stanley to the airport and he was supposed to... And that's supposed to be the end of the story. He was supposed to catch a flight back to L.A., move on to the next project. Everybody's good. none of that happened which is like

so fun it's so funny to be like you have to leave now I will get to this is so fun this is such a fun story the production story is so much better than the actual movie story yeah so moving on to New Line Cinema's dilemma now

because the flooding production was fully shut down so they can rebuild it and so they had time to find a new director which they did in a guy named John Frankenheimer. Again, this was like a stack of papers, here's the director, what's he worked on, nothing. Like, they just picked this guy out of the box. Apparently, John talked to his wife about whether to do this movie or not, because it sounds like he didn't want to do this movie.

And I'm paraphrasing this. I'm going off memory, but it was something of the effect of his wife said, either ask them for so much money that they're going to say no, or whatever they give you, we're going to be super happy with. And apparently, he asked for a ton of money. and for a three-picture deal immediately after this and they gave it to him.

Amazing. He also didn't want to be a part of this. Everybody in Hollywood knew that this was a shit show. But they were like too far in. Too far in. So John was kind of on the last leg of his career.

He did do the follow-ups like I mentioned earlier with two additional bangers before passing away in 2002. He did Ronan and he did reindeer games which were like great movies, I think. Yeah, that's cool.

But he was a veteran and he was quite the opposite of Richard Stanley. He was not a person. pushover. He was like an old military guy. He served in World War 2. He looks, his face looks like he chews cigars.

It does. He's a very gruff-looking person. And he also had a ton of commercial success in the 60s. Again, this is an older dude. He did the Man of Alcatraz and a bunch of other movies that I don't know, but looked like they got a lot of awards. So, kudos to him. He knew what he was doing. And he

mostly did this because he wanted to work with Brando. Everybody in this era wanted to work with Brando, which is so inexplicable to me because everything you read about him is like he's a fucking nightmare to work with. He's like a hundred years old and he's like weird as shit. Yeah. Yeah. Super, super weird. Which we're

going to talk about a decent length here. I can't wait. So they decided because the outdoor sets were being rebuilt that they would film the internal shots, which was the ones that Brando was involved in. And enough time seemingly had passed and rebuilding

the set, finding for John. that Brando could kind of come to the set. He shows up a week late. So he's scheduled to be there. He shows up a week late. Brando towards the back half of his career famously, famously detested the film industry and acting in general.

He once was quoted as saying, the only reason I'm in this business is to make money. If you want to know the truth, I actually hate acting. Like, he really, really didn't like his craft. And he wouldn't be angry if anybody called it a craft. it also sounds like he deliberately tried to fuck with the industry

and anybody who would be stupid enough to hire him knowing that they would have no choice but to deal with him given his name and who he was I'd call him mostly mischievous rather than just outright cruel but he did a lot of crazy shit on the set and it sounds like he just did it to mess with people yeah if you ever see an image of Brando from the film he's in white face like it makes no sense

do you see it insane it looks like he's wearing like Well, it looks like when he's like, wait too much sunscreen. Like, why is he doing that? So here's why he did that. He told people it's because he's trying to protect his skin from the sun. But the prevailing theory is that he had a body double. Again, he did not want to work. He did not want to work.

He had a body double. And he was like, if I cover myself with enough of this stuff, you can't make out my features enough so that my body double because it's like double as me and nobody's going to know. I feel like they would know. Taylor, there's one story I read that blew my mind. so he again he just like wanted to like fuck with you this is like 1970s it was like 1976 or 78

when they made the Superman movie where he was supposed to play draw and he was supposed to work for three days no sorry I think it's 13 days for 3.7 million dollars what's quoted 13 days for 3.7 million dollars in the 1970s that's like probably 20 million dollars today for two weeks of work he gets to set and he tells the director you know what i'd actually think you'd need me on camera what if jorrell was a suitcase why don't we just like film a suitcase and they the my voice

was come out of the suitcase instead of me being on camera even that amount of work he didn't want to do totally crazy it's pretty incredible so he would be just as annoying as valcimal but again not maliciously so valcimer was a malicious like he was a mean dude um but Brandon would also try to rewrite the script. He'd not show up to the set when he was supposed to. There's a story about how he insisted that his character had to have an ice bucket on its head to convey how hot the jungle is. So they had to go cut out the top and a bottom of an ice bucket or like a tin bucket and then turn it into like clothing looking. It looks so stupid if you see the picture.

There's a picture of Faruza Balc, killing it up with ice as it's sitting on Brando's head. It looks like a joke. It looks like a comedy. Oh, my God. That's so funny. She's in it, too. Yeah, he insists. He's like, I have to wear an ice bucket on my head.

That's like part of the theme here. To show his decline about caring about his career at this point, in the early days of his career, he was known as like I said earlier, like a Bethan actor. So he wouldn't just memorize lines. Memorizing lines is like a given, right? For any actor, he would like become that person and literally be that person throughout like the whole shoot. That's how we did his stuff. That's how Streetcard name Desire and all those good stuff.

Yeah. That's what he did for those. By the 1970s and when the Godfather came around, Francis Ford Coppola resorted to taping cue cards of his lines to the other actor's chestering scenes. So you can read the lines off the chest. Is that amazing? They're just like, please do anything. Anything.

So by the late 70s, he actually couldn't even be bothered to read the cue cards because by then, What he did was he had been a earpiece in on set. And then his assistant would be in his trailer reading the lines into his ear. And then he just recite them. Oh, my God, that's so many. There's one story about how the signal of his radio connection got, like, mixed up with, like, a radio transmission. And he just started talking about, like, a robbery at Woolworth's department store. So it was, like, the police thing?

He didn't even notice. He didn't even notice. that's so funny so yeah obviously given his disdain and hatred for Hollywood and Hollywood culture it's still surprised that he also hated Val Kilmer because he showed up with this I'm a god mentality yeah

and yeah like I said to be fair to Brando literally everybody hated Val Kilmer the director John Frankenheimer the one who was doing this movie he was once quoted as saying quote if I was filming a movie titled The Life of Val Kilmer I wouldn't have that prick in it

I love the drama, the petty drama. It's so fun. That's so funny. So meanwhile, the Australian and the indigenous crew that were there as extras and helping out on set, they were like having the time of their lives,

apparently. They were put up in these really nice hotels way above their normal living situations or paid a ton of money to basically do nothing. That's what a lot of them said was like, we didn't do anything. We just drank, did drugs and had sex. That's basically all we did when we were at this movie.

And, yeah, It was cute. They kind of formed their own little community. And one member of that community, one day, this extra, he made money part-time by making ditch reviews. And he left the set because, again, they were doing nothing most of the time. And he's traveling through the rainforest to the next closest town. And he stumbles on this, like, super disheveled Englishman, living in a tent in the middle of this rainforest. Amazing. Do you see where this is going?

Mm-hmm. So the extra explained like what he did. He was like, yeah, I'm here doing this movie. They exchanged some words and the extra went back to the hotel. And some of the people that were there in the early days of when the filming kind of started, they were like, oh shit, that's Richard. He's still here. So a couple of them, they go to this campsite and talk to Richard.

And Richard says that he wants to come back to this set to see what's going on. A lot of talk was made about the fact that he wants to, like, sabotage. just set and destroy it and like just destroy new line he actually took some vengeful actions when he was initially fired by destroying like big chunks of those scripts they have to they're forced to rewrite it which is probably a good thing anyways but anyways they smuggle richard back onto the set back to the hotel and that was against his separation of realign cinema because of all the threats of sabotage new line cinema is a stipulation of him getting his full payout he wasn't allowed within 25 miles of production.

So he was being smuggled in and doing all this like behind on the radar. Yeah. And to go even further, he decided that he really wanted to actually see the production and what was going on with it. And so one day, he borrows the costume of an extra.

And it's like this full body mask thing of a band dog hybrid. And he goes in. I'm sorry, I'm definitely looking. I just watched the trailer, just kind of in the background. And yeah,

I feel like they have totally skipped over genetics yeah yeah that part is just ridiculous it's just people with like animal faces yeah yeah it's all it is it's all it is and so he goes back to this set and he's actually

in the movie like he's he's an extra in the movie and in one scene where they weren't supposed to destroy part of the set to show kind of like the hybrid revolt against Moreau he is like just the most enthusiast just destroying the set and the directors

and other people who didn't understand who he was. They're like, wow, this guy's really good. He's, like, super into it. Like, he really gets what we're going for here. Not realizing that it was literally the former director trying to sabotage and destroy it says. Who did his makeup? Did they know?

We don't know. I hope they knew. Yeah. I hope he didn't. I don't know. I can't side. Well, so here's the thing. Later on in the documentary,

the one I mentioned earlier, the Lost Soul of Richard Stanley, that's the one I actually watched and I watched the movie itself. In the documentary about the making of the movie, one of the production assistants mentioned how between takes, extras would always take their mask off because it was super hot except one guy would not take

his mask off and they were like it was kind of weird they're like it's kind of weird this guy's not taking his mask off um I think largely so funny I think largely like the extras who are like who cares they're like hippies doing drugs like whatever this guy's cool we like him they spoke to join and like come on join this thing they all knew and nobody who was actually high up enough to do anything about it knew or cared to pay attention so ultimately the film was completed and was instantly like panned it made it made it's it didn't make its money back it made a 49 million off a budget of 40 million but that doesn't include marketing and everything else that went into it but the uh president of due line when he was interviewed

was like we made at least we made we lost less money than we would have if we didn't produce anything so there's that um that's that year val Kilmer marlon brando and the director John Frankenheimer were all nominated for Razzie of the year. Amazing. Good for them. And Richard Stanley basically just retreated. In the documentary, he said he basically wandered around England penniless

and committed to never begin a movie again. It looks like it took him six years or so to get back into filmmaking with some random Indian film that he made in 2002. He did have a good movie, though. He did do his only feature

film since 2019 was in 2019. It was the film you mentioned filming Nick Cage called Color Out of Space, which received pretty good reviews actually. I liked it. I thought it was good. Yeah. So. So yeah, that's kind of

where the story ends. Nobody's tried to do another remake of this movie and we'll go down as the most hilarious, disastrous production in history. You didn't even mention the small man that Marlon Brando insisted to have. Okay, so mini me that

the mini me that Mike Myers is based off of this? It's based off of this. Oh, that's so funny. Because he like insists on having him around. So here's what happened. So that guy was the smallest man in the world. He was 17 inches tall. Okay. I forgot where he's from. Dominican Republic or something.

And he was on set as an extra. And Marlon Brando apparently would like just start talking to people and just like shooting the shit with them. And he started talking to this one guy whose character was m ling or something and he was this very

German dude and Marlon Brando was like hey I speak German too and he started saying a bunch of gibberish to him and the German guy goes you're not saying anything it's just gibberish makes no sense and he's like you're not understanding me and he keeps repeating himself eventually the director's like oh no I think he's trying to say this

and he's like okay cool it's fine Marlon Brando is off of that then he turns to this small guy and he starts saying gibberish to him too but the guy doesn't understand english like he's he's he only speak spanish he had a translator his sister was his translator he just said see see mr brando and malin brander's like i love this guy he's in every scene kid the german guy your your scenes are out we're taking

this guy from now on and that's why that that guy is like constantly around him because he just like agreed with him even though he didn't know what the hell he was saying and then malon brander just like adopted him as like you're the main guy that is so funny and There's a scene with like a grand piano with Marlon Brando like playing the piano and then another grand piano on top of the other grand piano with the little guy playing the piano. All of this is how mini me from Mike Myers and Austin Powers came about. That's so ridiculous. You like couldn't imagine someone doing that. It's so crazy.

I can't. That's so funny. The pretending to speak another language and not actually speaking it to someone and being like. you don't understand me is so funny like I can't I think you think he thought that he was speaking German or whatever no I think he's a crazy person I think he just likes to fuck with you I think that he pegs you as like hey you're a part of the industry so fuck you I'm gonna I'm gonna fuck with you and use my my name to mess with you versus you're not and you're gonna go I think that's what Richard Stanley did when he talks about like how he went up to his mansion it was like

it was the most intimidating moment of my life I'm going to Marlon Brando's house I never met this guy everybody told me he's going to yell at me and tell me to get the fuck out of this house and he shows up and he's like dude i don't know anybody i don't know anything i don't know holly was like i love you you're you're the director uh take roman polanski off this like i think that's what happened oh my god that's so funny it is a very very interesting and like learning how much everybody hated valcum like unanimously across the board everybody that worked with him hated him that's a bummer

which like I kind you know what I was actually thinking was like my probably like my favorite favorite actor is like Daniel Day Lewis although he hasn't done anything in a very long time but

I kind of think he's probably more of a Val Kilmer ilk yeah I mean anyone who's like it's super serious he's like this is my craft it's my art it's like there's an intensity there I sense yeah I think so too

like I feel whenever I hear about it everyone else on set is always like oh my god that guy's such a jackass like when like Jim Carrey like wouldn't stop being the Grinch you know I didn't know that oh my god can he please stop to oh it wasn't he he I think he's like I think it was mostly the Andy Kaufman movie where Jim Carrey wouldn't stop being Andy Kaufman oh yeah that that are off the set and people were like oh my god yeah yeah yeah I did hear that we're going to tell you yeah yeah it is it is the fact that the fire director lived in a tent for like probably five

months in the rainforest, alone. Just like right outside. It's so it's so crazy. It's so funny that he's in the movie. I wish that I could see the person that Marlon Brando thought he was

fooling us with with the white paint on his face. Like the other fat guy that he had with his white pan on his face and being like, it's me. Dude, he just gave up. It's so funny. This is 1972. when he did the godfather and like he just picturing Francis Ford Coppola running around from extra to extras like taping lines on their chest like it's like there wasn't like he

I guess he was already super famous then but like yeah I don't know I love it so that's my fun story um I found like these other crazy production stories but none of them were as bad as this one so or as entertaining I should say as this one yeah totally water world was also apparently a nightmare to film heard that too yeah there's like there's like a lot of those out there but oh my gosh

well I kind of want to see it now I mean it might be worth it yeah I mean why not so let me see rotten tomatoes you can actually

so if anyone wants to see the lost solar brochures Stanley it's actually free on Amazon Prime video so that was very entertaining to watch. And a lot of the stuff that I pulled for this episode, I got out of that movie. So worth a watch.

If for nothing else, I'm to see, like, Richard Stanley as a human, because the more you see him interacting with the world, the more you realize what a ludicrous person he is. Like, I can, it makes sense that he did what he did. Once you see how he, like, when he went to meet with Brando, he had some buddy who was like his drug dealer

in England, and he called his buddy and was like, I'm going to be at his house at this time. I need you to put a magic spell out there, and that's how I'm going to get him to make me the director and like he firmly believes that that happened and so he's he's a cook he's definitely a cook but he's a passionate cook and we need those in the world so yeah yeah it makes sense he did the color one what's called again color of out of space because that's an HP lovecraft and nicholas cage is also crazy so like that kind of checks out that he would

choose to work with those with those parameters as well oh my god I love it um one of the reviews says on Rotten Tomatoes says that the director where I go the director functioned John Frankenheimer functioned more like a bemused traffic cop than a director yeah I got that sense too

I think he was also he realized that his dream of work and the brando was kind of a nightmare and dealing with those personalities Val Kilmer and this guy also his production assistant who was with him when they first went out to the set was like

this makes no sense why did you build a film set 50 miles away from the closest town? He was like, well, we wanted it to look tropics, but it's 50 miles of jungle. You could have done it at mile 48. You could have done it at 40. You could have done it at 32. Mile 2. Yeah.

And then also, they apparently, the original director had them plant an entire banana farm there to make it look as like real as possible. It was crazy ideas. Oh my God. So good. So. So, anywho, that's what I'll get. Awesome. I can't wait to see it. That was really fun and really funny. I just look at, I mean, just look at the pictures of it are hilarious.

The pictures are amazing. I just like, like, brother just looks ridiculous. He has this, like, he has his face is white, but then he has, like, a white penny hose around his face also. And then he's wearing a hat. Yeah, one, one extra set, I think he was wearing, like, a cheese cloth as clothes. Yeah. I want to, I would like to also. read the story and be like what happened here yeah there's there's well hopefully we also got

another remake of the movie so they can actually do it justice but this was a it was it was it was an amazing debacle um so awesome well thank you for sharing yeah do you have any listener mail for us um i do real quickly just want to let you know that morgan lives by that like 10 million dollar toilet or whatever you said it costs the san francisco toilet oh yeah yeah cost like a billion dollars and like a whole example of how hard it is to do things i think it was one point seven yeah so that's my that was my one update fun um do you want to shout out patreon or anything else yeah please find us our patreon i'm yawning as i say this find us on all social media at doom to fail pod if you have any ideas for us

any questions anything you want to learn about let us know we'd love to dig into it and please tell your friends and leave us reviews if they're good or bad it will take anything um i guess i guess i guess i i would take constructive feedback i do not take the man i'm assuming it's a man on youtube who told me that my voice sounds like i have ground glass in my throat which i don't think it's true so that's not constructive if you think Taylor has ground glass

in her throat can you please write to us at duneffal pod at g1.com I was just thinking like I have so many kid activities after school that I'm unable to day drink and I just wish that softball would end I'm taking a breather from the booze and I would like to stop that

which I might soon put TBD. Good for you. Cool. Thank you, everyone. Thank you, First. Thank you, Caleb. We'll go ahead and cut it off.