Brad Pitt’s Not-So-Handy Injury – Estimated $200K

On the set of Seven, Brad Pitt suffered a severe hand injury after slipping on a windshield during a chasing scene. The injury was reportedly so deep that you could already see Brad Pitt’s hand bone. It was a producer’s—and, of course, Brad’s—worst nightmare.

Seven director David Fincher was smart enough to add Pitt’s injury to the plot, but the major Hollywood mishap ended up costing thousands of dollars. With the movie having a total budget of $30 million and 55 days of shooting, Pitt’s hand injury is estimated to have made a dent of at least $200K on the production budget.

The Avengers Was On Fire—Literally! – $1.6 Million

Long before the super-hero movie heyday of today, actors Uma Thurman and Ralph Fiennes partnered up for the 1998 film The Avengers. The sci-fi production tanked completely in the box office, but the movie investors already had reasons to cry over their lost money even before The Avengers‘ release.

Reportedly, production was heavily affected by a supposedly well-planned explosion that blew out of proportion and caused the studio’s roof to burn. And while nobody got seriously hurt when the fire started on the set, the movie’s production cost ballooned with an additional $1.6 million.

Val Kilmer Steps In to “Save the Day” – $14 Million

The making of The Island of Dr. Moreau was filled with twists and turns and turned out being a disaster! The original director, Stanley Willis, stepped away from the movie and was replaced by Val Kilmer, an actor with no experience working behind the cameras.

Kilmer’s attitude caused actor Rob Morrow to later leave the production, and the costs ended up pilling more and more. In the end, The Island of Dr. Moreau took an extra 5 months to shoot and resulted in a negative balance of $14 million. In 2019, Kilmer went back to the director’s chair for the comedy movie Cinema Twain.

Burt Reynolds’ Faulty Memory – Estimated $150K

The Smokey and the Bandit film starring the late Burt Reynolds was a hit. It did so well in the box office that the studios decided to finance a sequel. But when Reynolds went back to his old character, he was unexpectedly struggling with the dialogue.

Was it a memory issue? We don’t know! All we do know is that Reynolds did such a bad job with his lines that he ended up stalling the movie’s production and costing them hundreds of thousands of dollars. According to the crew, it was possible to make a full movie using only Reynolds’ messed-up dialogue.

Production Costs Trail Away in Men in Black 3 – $2 Million

Men in Black 3 wouldn’t be possible without the presence of a worldwide star like Will Smith, but he may have taken his demands a little bit too far. To even set a foot on set, Smith asked for a $2 million trailer fully equipped with 2 bedrooms and a private screening room!

Smith was all about enjoying his breaks in style, and this $2 million trailer had nothing short of it. In the end, it was a small price to pay to have a highly-popular actor like Smith helping the movie to cash in over $600 million in the box office.

A “Sinking” Boat in Battlestar Galactica – $200K

Actors who love improvising and extremely pricey historical props are not the safest combination. For a Battlestar Galactica scene, actor Edward James Olmos was supposed to work on a model ship and then get extremely angry. Well, you can see how an inventive actor would combine these two, right?

In a completely improvised moment, Olmos decided to showcase his fake rage with real acting skills by smashing the model ship you see above. Little did he know that this valuable prop was loaned to the production by a museum and was evaluated at about $200K!

007 Gets Kicked in the Face – Estimated $250K

Quantum of Solace was the most expensive 007 production yet. Filmed in 3 different continents, the film included scenes with over 1,000 hired extras and had a total production cost of $220 million. When this sort of money is involved, every little accident and mishap can be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars!

Quantum of Solace‘s producers were, for that reason, left crying back when their star, Daniel Craig, suffered a blow to the face. He was accidentally kicked by an overexcited stuntman and was left with a black eye and in need of medical attention. Fortunately, they fixed Craig’s black eye in post-production to save some money.

History Gets Smashed in The Hateful Eight – $40K

The Hateful Eight director Quentin Tarantino had it all planned out: actress Jennifer Jason Leigh’s pricey 19th-century guitar was going to be quickly replaced by a cheap alternate before Kurt Russell smashes it to the ground. However, Russell got carried away and ended up ruining the wrong guitar during the filming of a scene in the movie.

The cost of the mishap? A whopping $40K! It turns out that the guitar you saw getting ruined in a The Hateful Eight cabin shot was loaned by the Martin Guitar Museum to the production. A piece of music history was forever lost that day and Russell admitted feeling bad about the whole situation.

Superman Needs a Shave – $25 Million

The Justice League film was already a pricey blockbuster, but the movie’s production ended up costing an extra $25 million because of… facial hair? In 2017, Justice League actors were unexpectedly called back to perform in some important reshoots, and Henry Cavill, who played Superman, showed up wearing a not-so-heroic mustache.

It turns out that Cavill was already shooting another movie, Mission: Impossible – Fallout, and was contractually obliged to keep his mustache. Removing the mustache in post-production cost a whopping $25 million in CGI services, and the studios were additionally forced to pay a $3 million fine for damages to the Mission: Impossible – Fallout production.

A Maserati Meets a Fire Hydrant – $12K

Actress Taraji P. Henson was ready to perform her action stunts in the 2018 movie Proud Mary, and this included recklessly driving a Maserati across town. Taraji did a great job during the first 4 takes, but the director wanted to shoot one final additional scene.

He probably regrets that decision now, since Taraji ended up smashing the beautiful grey Maserati against a fire hydrant. Compared to other movie bloopers on our list, the accident was not so expensive. Fixing the Maserati cost about $12K, and, most importantly, Taraji was able to walk away without a scratch.

License to Wear Gloves – Estimated $500K

Making a Hollywood movie is not rocket science, but it gets close. Before shooting a Skyfall scene, 007 star Daniel Craig asked director Sam Mendes if he could use a pair of gloves. Mendes agreed because he saw no problem with it, but this apparently insignificant decision ended up costing hundreds of thousands of dollars to the production.

James Bond wouldn’t be able to shoot his fingerprint-activated gun while wearing gloves, so Mendes was forced to pay CGI engineers to carefully remove the gloves from the action scenes. Since 10 minutes of professional Hollywood-level CGI cost about $800K, we estimate producers lost at least half a million with this blooper.

Iron Man’s Soft Ankle – Estimated $1.1 Million

Actor Robert Downey Jr. is a great part of the reason why the Iron Man movies are incredibly popular amongst the audiences. But unlike his super-hero persona, he is not fully armored from head to toe. The entire production of Iron Man 3 was forced to halt after he injured his ankle while filming an action sequence.

Considering that shooting the said movie cost $1.1 million per minute, Downey’s six-week recovery time was too much for the studio to handle. Once again, CGI was the answer to fix the pricy blooper and the movie’s final action sequence ended up featuring a fully digital Iron Man.

A No-Jokes Scarring Blooper – About $1-2 Million

While filming the horror movie Ghostland, promising actress Taylor Hickson was left scarred for life after being thrown through a faulty glass door. The movie’s crew did not use the appropriate fake glass. As a result, poor Taylor was hospitalized and had to get over 70 stitches!

This horrific blooper is scarier than any scary movie out there, and Taylor is now rightfully suing the movie executives. She was left with a deep scar on her chin that can seriously damage her future career. A settlement is yet to be reached, but there’s a chance that Taylor will get at least a couple of millions for this life-changing on-set injury.

A Meme-Prone Blooper in American Sniper – Estimated $100K

Using a fake baby for a scene is not the kind of practice that’s associated with great Hollywood movies. Still, legendary director Clint Eastwood decided to go with the baby doll for an American Sniper scene, and the moment was quickly immortalized online by multiple meme-making communities.

The terrible decision spawned a lot of jokes, ironic comments, and public backlash. It cost the production an additional hundreds of thousands of dollars in CGI repairing, which didn’t turn out great. According to some likely exaggerated sources, it could have cost American Snipper the Oscar. Even the great Clint Eastwood has some lessons yet to learn…

A Wild Typhoon Appears – $1.5 Million

Making an all-time Hollywood classic is about inspiration, hard work, and authenticity. But it also demands a large budget that’s able to support even the most unexpected incidents. When shooting the classic war movie Apocalypse Now, director Francis Ford Coppola took the brave decision to move the entire production to the Philippines.

Shooting right in the middle of the jungle was a crucial aspect to make the movie look real but proved extremely costly for the studio executives. Following the passage of an unexpected jungle typhoon, Apocalypse Now‘s fake jungle village was destroyed. Repairing it cost them about $1.5 million.

Leaving the Octopus Out – Estimated $350K

The unforgettable ’80s classic adventure movie The Goonies cost about $158K per minute, but there’s a chance one particular scene added up hundreds of thousands of dollars to the budget for no reason at all. The Goonies was supposed to feature a giant octopus near the end, but the expensive mechanical monster looked so fake that it was eventually left out.

Long before CGI became the industry standard, directors faced the challenge of having to deal with their own expensive mistakes. Luckily, The Goonies was massively profitable. Production cost was $19 million, but the picture grossed $124 million in the box office worldwide and is still making money.

Keeping the Star Happy – Estimated $1.6 Million

This one isn’t exactly a blooper, but it’s surely counted as a major Hollywood fail. In the first Resident Evil movie, the main actress, Mila Jovovich, wasn’t happy with the fact that co-star Michelle Rodríguez had as many lines as her. For that reason, she demanded that the script be changed under threats of leaving the movie.

Looking for the cheapest way out, the filmmakers decided to re-write the entire script as a way of accommodating Jovovich’s demands. Since a major Hollywood script usually takes 2-5% of the total movie budget, we estimate this incident to have cost about $1.6 million.

Tom Cruise’s Overconfidence Proves Costly – Estimated $70 Million

Jumping between buildings isn’t the sort of thing you expect your movie star to be doing. But Mission: Impossible – Fallout star Tom Cruise was determined to perform his stunts. He ended up hurting his ankle badly during a jumping scene, causing the production to stop for 8 whole weeks!

Eight weeks is an eternity for a major Hollywood blockbuster like Mission: Impossible, and Cruise’s overconfidence proved extremely costly. The entire budget was supposed to stay under the $180 million line, but the movie turned out costing a whopping total of $250 million—much due to the 8-week delay.

Angelina Jolie Got Herself in a “Salty” Situation – Estimated $3 Million

There’s nothing more precious to a movie than the safety of its main star, especially if that star is the one-and-only Angelina Jolie. While shooting an action scene for the spy movie Salt, Jolie took a hard hit to the head and was forced to stop working for at least two weeks.

The accident weighed heavily on Salt‘s production costs. For each day without filming, the studios reportedly lost $250K. After 2 or 3 weeks, the production ended up with an additional cost of around $3 million. In the future, it may be better if Jolie sticks to her less physically demanding roles in movies like Maleficent.

High-Quality Wigs to the Rescue – $10K

Hollywood re-shoots are extremely necessary but can often become logistical nightmares. Thor: Ragnarok actress Tessa Thompson was called back on set to perform in a final couple of scenes when she surprised the producers by appearing with orange-dyed hair. She was forced to sport that hair color for the movie Sorry to Bother You.

The situation was troubling, since Tessa’s character in Thor: Ragnarok was the brunette goddess Valkyrie. Production ended up fixing the situation by getting Tessa a more-than-decent black wig that reportedly cost $10K! A ridiculously expensive wig, yes, but still a cheaper option than CGI.

Cinema’s Most Tragic Blooper – $8 Million

As we’ve seen so far, bloopers aren’t always funny. But no other movie blunder can be compared to the one that caused Brandon Lee’s tragic death. The then-28-year-old actor was filming The Crow when he was accidentally shot due to a faulty prop gun. Cameras were on at the moment, and Brandon wasn’t able to survive the wound.

This fatal accident ended up costing something more precious than any sum of money: a young man’s life. Naturally, The Crow‘s budget was heavily affected by the event, which resulted in additional charges of over $8 million.

Changing the Star Completely – $3 Million

The Back to the Future movie is an ’80s classic and an all-time science-fiction favorite. But, unbelievably, Michael J. Fox wasn’t the first choice to play the one-and-only Marty McFly. Before Fox’s heroic arrival, the part belonged to Eric Stoltz.

It took director Robert Zemeckis five whole weeks of filming to realize that Stoltz wasn’t suited for the role of the main character. The whole production was shut down for a re-casting, and Michael J. Fox ended up famously starring in the iconic movie franchise. The whole mishap resulted in about $3 million going down the drain.

Getting the Right Actor For the Right Job – Estimated $2 Million

With Paul Thomas Anderson sitting on the director’s chair and award-winning actor Daniel Day-Lewis taking the main part, There Will Be Blood had everything to be the best movie of the year. However, the need to replace Kel O’Neill for Paul Dano cost production 3 weeks of re-shootings and an estimated $2 million.

While it was first reported that O’Neill wasn’t happy with Day-Lewis’ extravagant acting methods, his exclusion was motivated by a poor relationship with the director. The decision to change O’Neill for Dano was expensive for the studio, but it was worth it! There Will Be Blood collected multiple awards and Dano’s performance was highly praised.

Reaching For the Groin – Estimated $500K

Filming a blockbuster movie is so expensive that every on-set mishap can end up costing hundreds of thousands of dollars. In Jack Reacher, shooting was interrupted after Tom Cruise found himself with a swollen foot. The cause? Hitting a fellow stuntman in the groin for more than 50 times!

Yes, Cruise was forced to deliver the ultimate male blow to a stuntman over 50 times! For some reason, the take just wasn’t getting right and an unlucky crew member was forced to be kicked where it hurts the most way longer than it’s advisable.

Honoring a Late Friend – $5 Million

The final performance of the late actor Heath Ledger could have been forever lost if it wasn’t for the support of three old friends: Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell, and Jude Law. To ensure that Ledger’s final movie, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, would not be left hanging, Depp, Farrell, and Law accepted to work for a daily nominal fee and complete his job.

The hiring of the three A-listers ended up costing production an extra $5 million, but that’s a ridiculously low amount of money to pay for having some of the best actors in Hollywood joining your movie.

Tom Cruise’s Constant Demands – $95 Million

Actor Tom Cruise is one of the world’s biggest stars. But while his popularity helps bring tons of money in the box office, his constant demands cost millions to production. While shooting the latest The Mummy movie, Cruise didn’t like to have less screening time than the story’s mummy and forced several changes to the script.

Cruise’s demands weren’t the only reason that ended up costing The Mummy a negative balance of $95 million, but he was surely not helping the lastest reboot of the classic adventure franchise. With its $300 million budget, The Mummy turned out becoming one of the biggest film-flops of the decade.

Replacing Scarlett Johansson’s Pregnant Body – Estimated $10 Million

Portraying the Marvel heroine Black Widow, a pregnant Scarlett Johansson forced the Avengers: Age of Ultron filmmakers to get creative. Scarlett’s pregnancy had to be concealed by several body doubles wearing Black Widow’s tight black uniform, and her face was later added to many scenes through CGI post-production.

Considering the whopping cost of a professional CGI team, replacing Johansson’s pregnant body may have cost Avengers: Age of Ultron executives at least $10 million. Fortunately, the CGI worked great, and it’s almost impossible to notice that Scarlett’s face was just digitally added to many of the movie’s scenes.

Tragedy Hits The Matrix – Estimated $2 Million

The Wachowski sisters were under a lot of pressure while making Matrix Reloaded, the long-awaited sequel to one of science fiction’s best-known movies—The Matrix. Following the tragic death of the then-22-year-old R&B singer/actress Aaliyah, they were forced to find a replacement as quickly as possible.

While the cast was still grieving for Aaliyah’s untimely passing, actress and Marvin Gaye’s daughter, Nona Gaye, was called in as a replacement. Luckily, Aalyiah’s original part was a relatively minor one, but the change ended up costing production an estimated amount of at least $2 million.

My Name is Lazenby, George Lazenby – $30 Million

In case you have never heard the name George Lazenby, please don’t worry. After all, that’s the whole point. Lazenby was cast to play the demanding James Bond role in the On Her Majesty’s Secret Service 007 movie, and his forgettable performance ended up costing the studios about $30 million in box office profits.

Lazenby was unfortunate enough to be selected to play the Bond character right after Sean Connery’s departure. Known as the original 007, Connery was a tough act to follow with his last James Bond movie, You Only Live Twice, collecting $111 million in the box office. After only one stint as 007, Roger Moore replaced Lazenby.

Bleeding for The Role in Django Unchained – About $20

To complete our bloopers list with a positive note, we have to highlight Leonardo DiCaprio’s already classic improvisational acting in Django Unchained. After accidentally cutting his hand with a glass cup, he decided to stay on character and deliver about 5 outstanding minutes of world-class acting.

The cost of this blooper was ridiculously low; it took nothing but a broken glass cup and a band-aid for DiCaprio’s hand. The scene was purposely included in Django Unchained‘s final edit and turned out being one of the most intense and impressive moments in the 2012 movie.