The Isle Of Dr Moreau (1996): A Disaster For The Ages. By Simon Thompson.
It takes a lot for a movie to acquire the level of infamy that the mere mention of its title causes traumatic flashbacks to those who have viewed it. Title as diverse as Plan Nine From Outer Space, Super Mario Bros (1993), Ishtar, North ,Waterworld, The Room, Batman And Robin, Gigli, Cats, and Battlefield Earth are all prime examples of unmitigated disasters that are so poorly executed that they have to be seen to be believed.
The 1990s adaptation of H.G. Wells’s novel The Isle Of Dr Moreau (1896), is more than worthy of joining the ranks of the infamous company discussed earlier. It has everything from a horrifically tortuous production, to insane behind the scenes stories, and finally a laughable end result – all of which makes it a suitable candidate for a closer look.
The Novel
H.G. Wells’s novel tells the story of Edward Prendick, a British scientist caught in a shipwreck in the Pacific Ocean. After being rescued by a passing boat, Pendrick ends up on a mysterious island run by a mad scientist, Dr Moreau, who via vivisection is creating grotesque half human/half animal lifeforms that populate his island dictatorship. The book is a fascinating thematic exploration of scientific ethics, human beings vs nature, playing god, and the effects of physical trauma.
Numerous musicians, directors, video game designers, novelists, and artists have been inspired by the book and it is rightfully considered one of the greatest and most influential works of science fiction ever written.
The Best Intentions Of Richard Stanley
In the 1990s South African filmmaker Richard Stanley thought he had finally hit the motherlode. Like Peter Jackson, James Cameron, and Sam Raimi, Stanley had made his name directing two no holds barred, low budget cult hits, Hardware (1990) and Dust Devil (1992), both of which had a distinctive visual style and interesting ideas that marked them out from the rest of the pack. The success that these movies had on the indie/midnight movie circuit, allowed Stanley his first big opportunity in Hollywood, a crack at bringing HG Wells’s The Isle Of Dr Moreau to the screen for a new generation (the book had been previously adapted in the 1930s with Bela Lugosi and Charles Laughton and in the 1970s by Don Taylor and Eddie Romero respectively).
Stanley was a huge fan of Wells’s original book, having first read it during his childhood, and had long wanted to direct a film version of it. Little did he know, however, just what was in store for him once production began. With his script Stanley wanted both to be faithful to the original book, but also to produce a movie as dark, sexually charged, and violently horrific as possible.
After a four year period of development, New Line Cinema finally gave Stanley the greenlight to start production for The Isle Of Dr Moreau. In the role of Dr Moreau Stanley wanted German actor Jurgen Prochnow (best known for playing Der Alte in Das Boot), but New Line undercut him by casting Marlon Brando instead. To add insult to injury, Stanley caught word that New Line were in the process of canning him from the project and replacing him with Roman Polanski.
Justifiably angry and betrayed, Stanley went to meet Marlon Brando, who to Stanley’s surprise, wanted him to stay on as director due to his understanding of Wells’s original book, mainly its connections with Joseph Conrad’s Heart Of Darkness (the inspiration for Apocalypse Now) and because of Stanley’s ancestor Sir Henry Morton Stanley, one of the historical inspirations for Heart Of Darkness’ antagonist Colonel Kurtz ,whom Brando famously portrayed. Brando, in one of his characteristic flights of eccentricity, was still fascinated by Kurtz over a decade after originally playing him.
For the roles of Edward Douglas ( changed from Prendick in the script for some reason) and Moreau’s chief assistant Montgomrey, Stanley was able to secure the involvement of two major stars in Bruce Willis and James Woods respectively. With an all star cast on board, Stanley launched himself into the special effects process, working with legendary make up artist Stan Winston to prepare the costumes and makeup for Moreau’s hybrid creatures and scouting out sets to film in Australia.
Just as things were beginning to look-up, they immediately came crashing down as Bruce Willis was forced to leave production to deal with his divorce proceedings from Demi Moore. In dire need of a replacement lead, New Line bought in Val Kilmer to play Douglas instead, who, despite being an excellent actor, at this point was notorious throughout Hollywood for his stubbornly awkward personality. As soon as he was cast Kilmer demanded a sizeable 40% reduction in total shooting days and time spent on set. Wanting to keep the train on the track, Stanley came to a compromise with Kilmer by having him switch to the supporting role of Montgomery.
This meant that James Woods had to leave the production as well, with Northern Exposure star Rob Morrow being hastily hired to play Douglas instead. Just as it seemed that things couldn’t become any more dire for Stanley, Marlon Brando left the shoot due to the tragic death of his daughter Cheyenne. Brando was understandably grief stricken, and went to his private island, leaving both Stanley and New Line wondering whether he would return or not.
The Shoot Itself
Shooting in the rainforest outside Cairns, Australia, tensions between Stanley and New Line reached fever pitch just as production started. New Line found Stanley’s withdrawn and eccentric personality hard to deal with, with his unwillingness to attend studio meetings becoming a particular sticking point. Without Brando on set to back him up, Stanley was losing his battle of attrition with the studio higher ups, not to mention that Val Kilmer was a whole two days late to Australia.
When Kilmer finally did show up however, all hell broke loose. Before his arrival, he discovered that his wife, British actress Joanne Whalley, was divorcing him after a seven year marriage, exacerbating his difficult personality tenfold. The crew were often forced to deal with Kilmer’s hostilities and bullying, with the actor flat out refusing to stick to Stanley’s script and arguing constantly with his ideas.
From New Line’s perspective the final straw in their working relationship with Stanley, was what they deemed to be his inability to bring Val Kilmer under control and his absolute refusal to take any of their calls/ show up to meetings. The Isle Of Dr Moreau wasn’t even two weeks into shooting when, Rob Morrow, at the end of his tether due to Stanley and Kilmer’s arguing and a long delay in filming due to severe bad weather, successfully convinced New Line boss Rob Shaye over the phone to let him out of his contract.
After Morrow’s departure New Line abruptly dismissed Stanley as director via fax machine. Although rumours have abounded in the years since as to the specific reason why he was fired, the consensus largely is his falling out with both New Line’s executives and Val Kilmer, whose reputation as the biggest pain in the arse in Hollywood was set in stone due to his on set antics.
Stanley was given back his full director’s fee on the condition that he leave without a fuss and never return to the set. The cast and crew were justifiably shocked and indignant at Stanley’s dismissal. Actress Fairuza Balk left the set after an argument with some New Line higher ups and found a production assistant who was willing to drive her all the way from Cairns to Sydney in a rented limo. By the time she got to Sydney she had a meeting with her agent who told her in no uncertain terms that New Line would sue her for god knows how much money and get her blacklisted if she broke the terms of her contract, forcing her back onto set.
When Stanley was fired he shredded countless important materials, including the script and his elaborate production notes, before disappearing into the Australian wilderness having been brought to a psychological breaking point.
The Hiring of John Frankenheimer
With the production in Wily E Coyote style freefall, New Line turned to veteran director John Frankenheimer to try and stabilise the mess. Frankenheimer took the gig for two reasons, firstly because he wanted an opportunity to work with a screen legend of the calibre of Marlon Brando, and secondly because he had intelligently taken advantage of New Line’s desperate situation and negotiated a hefty directors fee and a three picture deal consisting of projects of his own choosing. Frankenheimer was a decidedly old school and terse director, in stark contrast to Richard Stanley’s demeanour and approach to which the cast and crew had become accustomed. He did however manage to bring Brando back into the fold, and quickly found a replacement for Rob Morrow in David Thewlis, who was an indie sensation thanks to his star making role in Mike Leigh’s Naked. Upon Thewlis’s arrival to the set, Marlon Brando told him “ …go home David, this is not a good film to work on it’s cursed”, advice that Thewlis probably wishes he’d taken.
After a week’s delay shooting finally resumed, only for Brando to antagonise the rest of the cast and crew by staying in his air conditioned trailer for hours on end when he was supposed to be filming his scenes. To make matters worse Brando and Kilmer hit it off about as well as a dog and an automatic Dyson hoover, accusing Kilmer of “ confusing the size of his pay check with the size of his talent” . This beef stemmed from the combination of Kilmer desperately wanting to get out of his contract after the news of his divorce became public, and Brando’s refusal to do anything but the bare minimum because he was guaranteed to get paid no matter what. Their dynamic became so strained that each of them refused to leave their trailer before the other one did, leaving everybody else waiting around in the baking Australian heat for hours on end.
Frankenheimer found Kilmer absolutely impossible to direct, with the two engaging in a bad tempered argument on set and Frankenheimer proclaiming “I don’t like Val Kilmer, I don’t like his work ethic, and I don’t want to be associated with him ever again” and that “ if I made a movie about Val Kilmer’s life, I wouldn’t hire Val Kilmer. “
Without Stanley’s material, rewrites and arguments over story direction were a consistent fixture on set, with David Thewlis writing additional material for his character on his own. The rewrites began to gnaw at Marlon Brando, which was more than a bit rich coming from him, given that he wouldn’t learn his lines to begin with.
To make sure that he didn’t have to read the script and to cope with the tropical heat, Brando came up with a solution involving placing a cold bucket on his head, which hid a radio transmitter for someone to feed him his dialogue. Brando justified said bucket to Frankenheimer by saying that Moreau had secretly mutated himself into a dolphin man and that the character was wearing the bucket to hide a blow hole in the middle of his head.
The issue is that the radio happened to pick up police communications e.g. “ there’s been a robbery at Woolworths”, so scenes would be interrupted by police messages which Brando would repeat verbatim as if they were a part of the script. No one challenged him at all, because they were scared he’d walk out if they did.
Brando then formed a friendship with supporting actor Nelson De La Rosa, known for being one of the shortest men in the world, standing at 2 feet 4 inches due to Seckel syndrome. Brando took to him so much he demanded that additional scenes were shot that featured him as much possible, including ones where he could hug him in his arms, throwing more time and money into the wind. Further complications arose because of De La Rosa getting into a fight with co-star Marco Hofschneider and constantly propositioning various female extras, through his interpreter who just so happened to be his sister. You really can’t make something like that up, frankly.
As the shoot grew longer and longer, various crew members started to leave in droves with the ones who stayed until the bitter end engaging in all night drug and alcohol fuelled orgies to pass the time.
As the chaos of the shoot was going on, Richard Stanley reemerged from exile like Kenshiro wandering into some lawless town to restore order. This isn’t to say Stanley came back as director, but rather that he disguised himself as one of the creature extras in full make up to watch the rapidly burning three ring circus unfold in front of him. With production six months over schedule, and a budget ballooning to $40 million, New Line realised they had a colossal turkey on their hands.
Shooting Wraps up
Once shooting finally finished, Frankenheimer closed it with a simple “ cut, now get that bastard off of my set” in reference to Kilmer, bringing in security guards especially to escort him off the set, telling the actor both to “ fuck off” and to “ never come near him again”. As the long overdue wrap party commenced, Stanley somehow managed to blag his way into the celebration, where to his credit Kilmer did apologise for what a nightmare he’d been on set.
Ron Hutchinson the film’s screenwriter described everybody involved as behaving “ monstrously” towards each other, and as difficult Kilmer could be at times, he was far from the only unreasonable person on set. In the years since Kilmer accused Frankenheimer of blaming him for his failure to make an entertaining movie, as well as denying his feud with Marlon Brando – the latter of which is more likely than not on some pretty flimsy ground.
Most of the cast and crew understandably didn’t attend the premiere, and even to this very day David Thewlis has refused to watch this movie ever again simply because of how painful the shoot was. The film debuted to a mediocre box office, grossing $49 million from a $40 million budget (marketing costs etc notwithstanding), and a poor critical reception with Roger Ebert calling it “ perhaps Brando’s worst film” and was nominated for six Razzies including worst picture and worst director, with Brando taking home the ceremony’s worst supporting actor trophy.
After toiling for two decades in obscurity after The Isle Of Dr Moreau, Richard Stanley’s career has been on the up since directing an excellent adaptation of the HP Lovecraft short story Colour Out Of Space, starring Nicolas Cage, with Stanley hoping for the film to be the first part in a trilogy of Lovecraft adaptations. Free from the ignominy of being involved in a cinematic train wreck, Stanley’s career is now deservedly in the strongest place it has been since the early 1990s.
The Isle Of Dr Moreau stands as a monument to the worst excesses of big budget Hollywood filmmaking. Everything from the hellish shooting conditions, to the size of the egos of almost everyone behind/ in front of the camera, are straight out of an absurd Terry Southern or Nathaniel West style satire. Even more disturbing is that according to David Thewlis there are events which happened on set that are even more bizarre and damaging than the ones that are public knowledge – with Thewlis saying if he went into specifics he would never work again.
Overall, this is a movie fully worthy of its place in so bad it’s good infamy. Unlike Heaven’s Gate or Waterworld, two other films with famously troubled productions that have received a certain level of public reappraisal thanks to director’s cuts becoming widely available, The Isle Of Dr Moreau probably isn’t going to be afforded the same level of grace.
