Into the Minds of Madness: The Production of The Island of Dr. Moreau.
When diving into the deep behind the scenes stories that take place on the set of movies, you find that many films have their share of problems. Sometimes these problems are minor in a relatively smooth production; others are so massive that at best they threaten to interfere with the overall quality of the film, or can shut the production down entirely at worst.
Sometimes, a film production reaches mythical proportions in terms of how mad and ridiculous the production was that it’s a miracle that a movie ever made it to screens.
Marlon Brando is part of two infamous movie productions that have since become legendary, that of Apocalypse Now and The Island of Dr. Moreau. While Brando was notorious for being a pain in the ass on the set of a majority of his movies, his actions on the sets of said two films were not the main problems the productions were facing.
Sure they didn’t help, but these films were plagued with issues such as studio interference, acts of nature, production delays, equipment problems, drug problems, health scares, and numerous other problems that were common on the sets of these two films.
On the set of Apocalypse Now, Francis Ford Coppola was now a famous director with two of the greatest films of all time under his belt. Coppola took the money made from The Godfather Part I & II and invested in Apocalypse Now, which gave the director full creative control over the movie with a minor financial contribution from United Artists.
Richard Stanley, sadly, did not have that luxury when he set out to make what could have been a unique and memorable take on The Island of Dr. Moreau.
When Richard Stanley started writing the script and looking for investors for his take on the H.G. Wells classic, he had directed two very unique horror films called Hardware and Dust Devil. Both films received mixed reviews but instantly became cult films and were financial successes.
Richard Stanley took The Island of Dr. Moreau to New Line Cinema, the famous studio of the ‘80s, ‘90s, and early ‘00s that released A Nightmare on Elm Street, Dumb & Dumber, The Mask, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and numerous others. New Line agreed to finance the project, and almost from the beginning, the studio seemed to interfere with the production by suggesting actors that Richard Stanley wasn’t too keen on, such as Marlon Brando as Dr. Moreau. It also seemed that New Line Cinema didn’t have faith in Richard Stanley as the director either by attempting to replace Stanley with Roman Polanski.
New Line ultimately decided to give Richard Stanley the director’s job after receiving Marlon Brando’s support. However, the studio was still unsure of Stanley, even going so far as to allocate a certain amount of money within the budget of the film for a replacement director.
After losing Bruce Willis and James Woods, Val Kilmer was chosen to play Montgomery, Dr. Moreau’s drug-addicted assistant. David Thewlis was picked to portray Edward Douglas, a UN negotiator who survived a plane crash and is stranded on the island.
When the production team went on location to Australia, things started getting progressively worse. Members of the crew described Val Kilmer as a Prep school bully, doing things that ultimately made the jobs of the crew harder, especially Richard Stanley’s. Such as telling Stanley that Director’s stand behind the camera, and criticizing Stanley’s ideas for how he would edit the scene together, even calling New Line President Robert Shaye to complain about the young director.
On top of Val Kilmer causing problems, there was a massive hurricane that halted the production for weeks and destroyed a majority of the sets that would have to be rebuilt. Since Marlon Brando wasn’t due to be on the set yet, the film crew couldn’t shoot the indoor scenes to save time.
Worst of all, shortly before he was due to arrive, Marlon Brando’s daughter Chyanne committed suicide, the distraught Marlon went to his home in Tahiti so he could grieve his daughter. Still, this tragedy caused Richard Stanely to lose his most prominent supporter on The Island of Dr. Moreau, which ultimately caused Richard Stanley to lose his job as the director.
Eventually, Stanley began missing production meetings and couldn’t deal with the immense pressure he was under from the bullying from Val Kilmer and the lack of faith from the studio. After being fired, Richard Stanley disappeared without a trace, causing New Line to worry if he would do something to sabotage the production.
Veteran director John Frankenheimer was brought in to replace Richard Stanely, but things didn’t get better. Production was shut down again to allow for script rewrites, Brando eventually showed up, but almost immediately began clashing with Kilmer, Frankenheimer, and other higher-ups in the production.
These conflicts caused many production delays that stretched the filming time from six to eight weeks into six months. Many of the crew members and cast extras would party at night and ingest numerous amounts of drugs, and there are even stories of orgies taking place among crew members; it was an instance where art began to imitate life.
Richard Stanley was eventually found living on the land of a farmer not far from the set by a production assistant, the assistant, and a few extras were able to sneak Stanley back on the set and disguise him as a dog-man with a latex mask. Stanley was the only extra who never took off his mask, and even appears on camera in the final version of the movie. Thus, completing a cycle from creator to beast during his time on The Island of Dr. Moreau.
The film, of course, flopped at the box-office but did manage to carve somewhat of a cult status, influencing South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker to create Dr. Mephisto and the little monkey guy based off of the movie.
The experience understandably was very heartbreaking, discouraging, and emotionally scarring to Stanley; he didn’t step behind the camera again until he directed a documentary in 2001 called The Secret Glory. Stanley would keep a low profile, shooting music videos, short films, and documentaries. In 2014 the documentary Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley’s Island of Dr. Moreau was released where many of the cast and crew members, including Stanley, were interviewed about their experiences with the production. The documentary ended with Stanley claiming that he would probably never direct another feature film ever again; thankfully, that wasn’t the case.
So, what was Richard Stanley’s first feature film since being fired from The Island of Dr. Moreau? Check back later in the week, where I’ll review Richard Stanley’s first feature film in over 20 years. 2019’s Color out of Space, based on the short story by H.P. Lovecraft.
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