10 Times When Actors Were Blamed For A Movie’s Failure By the Filmmakers (3 of 3)

Jerry Lewis Blames None Other Than….Himself – The Day The Clown Cried

The Day The Clown Cried is perhaps the most infamous unreleased movie in the Hollywood industry that is even sought-after today. Written and directed by Jerry Lewis, who also stars in the movie, this 1972 flick tells the tale of a circus clown who is imprisoned at one of the Nazi concentration camps and is supposed to lure children into the horrific gas chambers by acting like a pied piper.

Jerry Lewis was very serious about the movie, and he took several tours of the concentration camps and also lost quite a bit of his body weight in order to play the part to perfection. Even though the shooting schedule completed on time, the movie couldn’t make it to the theatres because the makers couldn’t secure the rights of the movie from the original story’s writer, Joan O’Brien.

Even after a few decades, Lewis decided to let go of all attempts to secure the rights and made a vow that he wouldn’t let the movie release in his lifetime. He also admitted that he was embarrassed at his work as a writer, director, and actor in this movie.

While fans are still hopeful that a copy of the flick might still be screened someday, it still hasn’t happened even after five decades and the film continues to remain one of the industry’s biggest failures to date.

Joss Whedon Blamed The Actors For “Saying The Lines Wrong” – Alien Resurrection

Once Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) was killed for good in Aliens 3, it was quite obvious that there would be a sharp divide amongst the fans when Ripley would be back brought to life through a cloning process.

And it happened indeed, as Alien Resurrection got mixed reviews and a terrible box office collection figures, with the majority of fans calling it one of the worst installments of the Alien franchise.

A few years later, when screenwriter Joss Whedon was asked to talk about why the final installment failed, he said, “They said the lines…mostly…but they said them all wrong. And they cast it wrong. And they designed it wrong. And they scored it wrong. They did everything wrong that they could possibly do.”

It certainly is not at all surprising to hear a blockbuster writer complaining about his script being tinkered endlessly during the production stage, it would still be tough for that stellar ensemble cast to make all those creaky dialogues work. It definitely wasn’t Whedon’s best work as a scriptwriter.

Ron Hutchinson Blamed Marlon Brando For His Laziness – The Island Of Dr. Moreau

Released in 1996, The Island Of Dr. Moreau went through perhaps the most troubled movie production in the 20th century Hollywood, as the dueling egos of Marlon Brando and Val Kilmer had to be managed by a relatively young filmmaker Richard Stanley.

Stanley couldn’t even manage to work for three days before he was fired, and legendary director Frankenheimer was asked to helm the project, which he did while dealing with the clashes he had with Kilmer.

The movie that came out was a huge flop, and the only good thing anyone got from this movie was the documentary on the conception of this movie, Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley’s Island of Dr. Moreau.

Val Kilmer received most of the flak for the movie’s failure, especially because of his reputation of being “difficult”, but according to Ron Hutchinson (the movie’s screenwriter), it was Brando who was being tyrannical and should be blamed for the movie’s failure.

In fact, in a more recent interview, Hutchinson called Brando a “monster” who did his level best to sabotage the production, and even refused to read Hutchinson’s script and instead opted to do an improv, while he gorged on pizza by locking himself inside in his trailer quite routinely.

He even described his experience working on this movie as “awful.” After spending months working on a script, it would be a hellish scenario to see one’s hard work being butchered as a writer, and that is precisely what Hutchison faced.

Otto Preminger Blamed The Performance of Marilyn Monroe – River Of No Return

Directed by an Oscar-nominated director Otto Preminger, River Of No Return was a 1954 flick starring Marilyn Monroe, which was a western vehicle for her.

The movie’s lead actor was Kay Weston, and even though Preminger accepted Monroe as the female lead, he soon started having clashes with her on set, mainly because of her insistence that her acting coach is allowed to be there with her all the time.

This was quite a tricky situation, as the coach always gave contradictory advice to what Preminger asked Monroe to do, and when Preminger tried to get the coach fired, Monroe simply told the producers that she wouldn’t be able to work on the movie without her coach’s help.

Preminger took out his frustration on the actress herself, while he also had to deal with the sprained ankle she sustained because of an injury, and the male lead Robert Mitchum, who was always drunk but acted as a reference between the two clashing sides.

After the movie was released, Preminger often criticized Monroe whenever he got the chance to do so, and claimed that the actress couldn’t really act in a natural way and was merely a star. The movie didn’t really do well and was panned by the critics and the audiences.

In 1980, just a few years before the director passed away, he was a bit more charitable towards the actress, saying, “She tried very hard, and when people try hard, you can’t be mad at them.”