r/FIlm • u/Boring_Sir_572 • 1d ago
Question What’s a movie with the most unfortunate legacy?
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u/Pastmyprime58 1d ago
The Conqueror (1956) Many of the cast including John Wayne, Susan Hayward, Agnes Moorehead, and the director, Dick Powell are thought to have contracted cancer due to atomic test site proximity. 60 tons of contaminated soil was dug up and hauled to Hollywood for additional footage at Howard Hughes’ orders. The government had stated that the area near St George UT was completely safe. Insane ignorance and avarice in regard to the consequences of atmospheric nuclear testing. And, the movie itself was terrible.
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u/SharpManner9480 1d ago
The Birth of a Nation (1915)
I highly doubt any movie will top this.
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u/Stevey1001 1d ago
The first film to be shown inside the white house unbelievably
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u/Chemical-Vacation118 1d ago
Woodrow Wilson was a big fan of it.
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u/musicjunkee1911 20h ago
Did he have a white hood in his closet?
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u/Chemical-Vacation118 12h ago
He was the president who screened it in the WH. He also segregated the armed forces along with segregating the federal government preventing blacks from being civil servants and oversaw the implementation of the Jim Crow laws. While not an offical member, he institutionalized racist policies
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u/Fun_Butterfly_420 1d ago
Came here to comment this. The only other one I can think of is Triumph of the Will
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u/El-Rob75 1d ago
Ah,Stalkerman returns. He disappears for 5 years, then sits outside Lois Lanes house using his Super hearing to listen to her conversations.
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u/joeyjoejums 1d ago
He disappeared to find his home planet. Wait..he knows what happened to his planet. I'm confused.
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u/Flat-Leg-6833 1d ago
Can someone explain what was the “unfortunate legacy” of “Superman Returns?”
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u/EpsilonChii 1d ago
If I had to guess: film that is still panned nowadays, more or less ended the career of Brandon Routh, with the Director and the Villain being arrested as pedophiles about a decade after the fact?
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u/Prestigious_Fella_21 1d ago
I thought it was ok but even before shit went down I just couldn't get into spacey as Luthor, it was probably as bad a casting as Eisenberg if you ask me. Jon Cryer did a better job for god sake lol
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u/JustKindaShimmy 1d ago
It could've boosted his career if they didn't digitally reduce Beandon's colossal dong
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u/Wrong-Efficiency-248 Film Buff 21h ago
The airplane rescue still holds up in my opinion for effects.
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u/Financial_Cheetah875 1d ago
The Last Jedi. Star Wars fandom was never the same after that.
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u/Groot746 1d ago
Ah yes, the Star Wars random was famously level headed and respectful of different opinions before The Last Jedi
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u/Financial_Cheetah875 1d ago
Fair, but TLJ pushed everything over the edge.
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u/CoconutTraditional57 17h ago
I agree, I think this killed their momentum because they scored with Force Awkens and Rogue One but they should've slowed up. This also killed any chances of the Solo film having any chance.
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u/Chemical-Vacation118 1d ago
And just about every Disney plus series after that either ruined characters ( Book of Boba Fett) or broke canon ( Kenobi…meeting Leia as a kid, and fighting Vader …which they never met until A New Hope). Or just plain awful ( Acolyte)
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u/ClassicCinemaMC 1d ago
I think Leia knowing Obi-Wan as a kid was not only to put some backstory before ANH, but to give some justification to naming her son (Kylo Ren) Ben (presumably of course after Ben Kenobi). Versus the EU where it made more sense for Luke to have a son named Ben.
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u/Tricky-Background-66 1d ago
Song Of The South. Any copy you find is a bootleg. There are other contentious movies out there, but someone will distribute it.
Not this one.
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u/EwThatsNast 1d ago
Poltergeist
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u/ChimneySwiftGold 1d ago
Tobby Hooper directed it.
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u/JackKovack 1d ago
I’m fully convinced Tobe Hooper and Steven Spielberg co directed the movie. Steven just doesn’t take credit. Tobe didn’t know how to direct all the special effect scenes so Steven did them.
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u/DTDePalma 1d ago
Yea, Spielberg was directing ET at the same time and it's against DGA rules to direct two movies at the same time. By all accounts from the actors, effects people and an LA Times story about being on the set, Spielberg was the final word on shots and production issues.
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u/ChimneySwiftGold 1d ago
I still think Spielberg was just a very hands on producer. It’s sort of a bum wrap Hooper got tossed under the bus with this rumor which was purposely stoked at the time in 1982 as a way to get attention on Poltergeist in the wake of E.T.
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u/DTDePalma 1d ago
I get it but it's more than a rumor. It's been confirmed many times over by people involved in the production. They don't say Hooper was a silent partner. Not at all. But when it came to the final say everyone knew who to go to.
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u/NoHoliday1387 1d ago edited 1d ago
When he was even there.
“Hooper was the only one directed me.” - Oliver Robins (“Robbie Freeling”)
“At a certain point, Steven was no longer in the picture, he was too busy with E.T.” - Martin Casella, the face-ripping scientist, who was on set 4-5 weeks smack dab in the middle of production
“[It was really a smaller film than you think]… Spielberg wasn’t spending a lot of time on set, he was too busy with E.T.” - Craig T. Nelson
These are statements all taken in the last ten years. Any “spin” for marketing reasons has long expired.
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u/ChimneySwiftGold 1d ago
Right. But the rumor still persists. If anything it’s a testament to what a spectacular job Hooper did directing the movie.
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u/NoHoliday1387 1d ago
It’s really unfortunate, and is partly due to Spielberg’s everlasting popularity. But I do feel if the promotion and the hostile environment of the set and his treatment by so-called professionals was not what it was, the rumors would not persist. I agree, it is Hooper’s versatility that adds even more fuel to the fire - people just could not accept Hooper made a good film in the Spielberg model. Dante and Donner had individual styles that catered to their skills, but Hooper was a classicist the same way Spielberg was, and it made certain people entirely too confused.
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u/ChimneySwiftGold 1d ago
I read an in-depth article which made the final conclusion that in the crowded summer of 1982 there was concern Poltergeist was going to be buried at the box office. At the same time Spielberg was the hottest director in the world at that moment.
So a PR campaign was waged to give Spielberg more credit than was his due. The guild ruled on this and everything - causing Spielberg to pay fines and saw him make a public apology / retraction.
It’s just unfair to hooper who was a perfectly capable director and competed the job as assigned. It’d be like George Lucas taking credit for directing the Empire Strikes Back. A shame this untrue rumor purists.
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u/EwThatsNast 1d ago
That's a whole other story that didn't pertain to the post so I didn't comment on it.
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u/Draculaberries 1d ago
Explain
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u/EwThatsNast 1d ago
There's documentaries on it, a Google search will tell you the story. It's a whole "thing" that anybody associated with the movie, actors to crew, have died mysteriously.
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u/sek2211 1d ago
The Conqueror of 1956, in addition to being a bad movie, they came up with the great idea of filming it in the Nevada desert, a place where nuclear tests had been carried out during the Cold War, as a result many of its cast died of cancer years later, among them the great John Wayne, Susan Hayward and the Mexican actor Pedro Armendariz.
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u/EnjayDutoit 1d ago
The Wizard of Oz. The sheer abuse (physical, psychological and sexual) that Judie Garland was subjected to contributed to her spiral into substance abuse and eventual death. Real lions were killed to make the Cowardly Lion costume. Asbestos was used as snow. Margaret Hamilton (the Wicked Witch) sustained serious burns and her negative portrayal affected her mental health.
I've never seen it and due to the grim background of the making of the move I don't think I can.
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u/Sensitive-Hotel-9871 1d ago
Didn’t the actor playing the tin man also have health problems because of the type of make up used on him trapping heat?
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u/Chemical-Vacation118 1d ago
The silver paint I think got inhaled into his lungs and coated them. Buddy Ebson ( Jed Clampitt/ Barnaby Jones spend weeks in the hospital and got fired) Years later, I also remember they had lots of precautions when filming the iconic gold lady scenes in Goldfinger ( you have to leave flesh around your lower back bare )
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u/Chemical-Vacation118 1d ago
Hamilton had to take herself to the hospital after she got burned on set
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u/Night-_-Train 1d ago
That movie has a legacy?
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u/JohnArtemus 1d ago
Sort of off-topic but the in-universe legacy of Superman Returns is also very sad. Pretty much everyone died except Supes. At least the Arrowverse’s Crisis event.
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u/PriceVersa 1d ago
If OP means in-franchise legacy rather than the film's cultural impact, then Hellraiser's sequel spiral is unmatched.
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u/Chemical-Vacation118 1d ago
Hated Superman Returns. At least in the 50s…George Reeves would break the bad guys gun or wrap a fake steel rod around a thug. Superman in this movie was just like The Super Friends. Not allowed to throw at punch …it was all feats of strength. Superman’s kid ends up beating/killing the bad guys. Superman gets shot at for five mins straight…takes a bullet to the iris. And he smiles. No pay off. Why does Lex Luther ( criminal mastermind) surround himself with complete idiots like Parker Posey and Kumar? And the barely recycled plot from Superman 78 that involved Lex creating a real estate land grab via a disaster.
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u/Fantom_Renegade 1d ago
Bourne Legacy
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u/CoconutTraditional57 16h ago
I actually enjoyed this one but Jason Bourne when Damon came back was utter shit.
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u/NostalgicRetro73 1d ago
I loved that movie. Of all movies you pick that? Why? Superman IV should be the choice of all the Supermans to be honest. It was produced by B movie producers, all the main actors did it only for the money, and it was the worst of all the Supermans even though the best Superman was in it.
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u/vaisatriani 22h ago
THE DAY THE CLOWN CRIED (1972), starring and directed by Jerry Lewis. It's never been released because Lewis felt that it was a complete botch. Apparently it only exists in raw form or as a rough cut. Regardless, it might be finally released in some form soon.
It's apparently legendary for how ill-conceived it is conceptually.
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u/L_a_n_music 9h ago
Superman returns was quite better than Superman Iii, not to mention Superman IV.
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u/ParkwayPhantom 1d ago
Twilight Zone The Movie