The filming of the TV miniseries Peter the Great ran over schedule, and the star, Maximilian Schell, had to move on because of a prior commitment. The series was completed using an obvious double whose face was always hidden or photographed in the dark. (This was satirized brilliantly on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show.)
Movies where significant scenes or entire plots had to be deleted and reshot due to offscreen events
They took out the pie fight for the same reasons, I think.
I saw that trailer in the theater, but wasn’t under the impression it was a full scene from the movie. I thought they filmed it exclusively for the trailer. Was it really in the movie?
Not quite what the OP is asking, but there’s an interesting continuity error in The Bonfire of the Vanities involving an “offscreen event”. The production started in New York City, shooting exterior scenes in the city. Then they took a break for a couple weeks while everyone relocated to Hollywood to shoot the interior scenes on soundstages. During that break, Melanie Griffith got breast implants.
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus was re-written, cast, and shot after the death of Heath Ledger. Multiple other actors stepped in to fill the role.
Chris Farley had completed approximately 80% of the voice work for the title role of Shrek, but it all had to be redone with Mike Myers after Farley’s death.
My understanding is that the scene with the helicopter strung up between the towers was just for the teaser trailer (considering there was no scene remotely similar in the movie), but there was a scene of him climbing the tower.
Anchorman originally had a terrorist/bombing subplot. That subplot didn’t test well, what with 9/11/2001 being too recent in memory, and the zoo/bear subplot was substituted, and shot months later. I was an extra for three weeks during the original shoot, and was surprised when I was called up months later for a week of re-shoots. Luckily I hadn’t cut my long hair or gotten rid of the personal wardrobe items I’d worn in the original shooting.
Not a movie, but an episode of Friends scheduled to air early in the 2001 fall season featured Monica and Chandler being detained at the airport after Chandler joked about having a bomb. It was pulled after 9/11 and replaced with a much lamer subplot.
Not sure if this is exactly what your looking for, but I read somewhere that an impersonator was hired after James Dean’s death to redo several lines of dialogue in his last movie.
I knew there was an old movie where that had been done; thanks for knowing who and what it was.
The “Spice Girls Movie”, which I realize is very forgettable (and no, I haven’t seen it) had to have its script revised 3 times due to references to Gianni Versace, Princess Diana, and Mother Teresa, who all died within about a month of each other during the movie’s shooting.
Oliver Reed died of a heart attack during the filming of Gladiator. They did some digital manipulation of pulling him out of one background and putting him into another so that they could kill off his character via careful editing and new shots with body doubles vs. having him simply disappear from the film with no explanation.
In the Curse of the Pink Panther, much of David Niven’s dialogue was unusable due to his advancing Lou Gehrig’s disease, so the producers hired impressionist Rich Little, who dubbed much of his dialogue.
The 1993 movie The Program originally contained a scene where some characters lay down on the center line of a busy street. Some people IRL tried the same thing; one died and others were injured, so new prints were released without that scene.
Funnily enough, the main characters in The Notebook do the same thing, and I don’t recall anyone trying it and getting killed or injured. Of course, that scene takes place late at night, with almost no traffic. And The Notebook wasn’t aimed at the same audience as The Program.
The hero on the TV show The Greatest American Hero originally had the name Ralph Hinckley. The pilot aired shortly after John Hinckley shot Ronald Reagan. In one of the opening scenes, Ralph Hinckley says his name, but they covered up the vocals with the sound of a jet flying overhead. They later changed his name to Ralph Hanley or Ralph H when it was said on air. After the first season, his last name reverted to Hinckley.
The scene in The Program was also shown in commercials and the trailer. A much wider audience saw it. On the other hand I didn’t know The Notebook had a similar scene because I’ve never seen it and the scene was not in its promotion.
In There Will Be Blood, the roles of brothers Paul and Eli Sunday were intended to be played by two different actors. Several weeks into filming, Kel O’Neill was fired and Paul Dano (who was already playing Paul) took on the role of Eli as well. Some scenes had to be reshot.
This change unfortunately left me completely confused through the whole movie and ruined it for me. I couldn’t figure out whether they were supposed to be identical twins or one guy pretending to be two identical twins.
Production on the 1983 film Brainstorm was put on hold, and some parts of the script had to be re-written, due to Natalie Wood’s death. A few scenes were shot using her sister as a double.
Scene in “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly,” as described in the trivia section of IMDB:
Sounds like lesbian erotica.
Actually, Fox had to film both the movie and the show at the same time. He’d film the show during the day, and the movie after shooting for his show wrapped for the day.
“Smokey and the Bandit 3” originally had Jackie Gleason playing both the sheriff and The Bandit. I don’t think they were supposed to be two different roles for Gleason, but the Sheriff was going to be “The Bandit” in that the Enos brothers made an offer to the retiring sheriff to make a special run. Apparently this confused audiences, so Jerry Reed was brought back this time to play The Bandit.