Blind Items Revealed #1 - Anniversary Month
January 25, 2016
If there is anyone in this world who probably wishes that Aloysius Pendergast was a real person it would be this foreign born director. Our direct was the next it director back in the day. He worked his way up from shorts to music videos to one of the best feature length movies incorporating music ever. It put him on the fast track to fame and fortune and big box office productions. Then, he went over the edge so to speak and it all went away.
While researching and writing what was supposed to be his first big box office production he was introduced to voodoo. From the second he learned about the religion, he was enraptured. He turned in the script he was writing to the studio and started to direct the big box office movie and then he was replaced.
It was just a few days into shooting but he was freaking everyone out. The movie was being filmed on a remote island occupied by an aboriginal tribe. They practiced something akin to voodoo and our director was fascinated. He had the tribe perform all types of rituals on the set and they were not just dancing and singing.
There were sacrifices and painting with blood and a parade of animal skulls the actors had to walk through to perform their scenes. Panic calls went out by satellite phone. There was no internet service on that island and it would have been spotty in most places at that time period. Crew members barricaded themselves together because they were so terrified about what the director would try next.
As soon as the studio got someone to the set, our director was replaced. Instead of heading back home in disgrace, our director began living with the tribe. He lived with them for well over a year and stalked the production of the film. It is said he cursed the movie and if you look at the results on film and at the box office, I would agree.
It gets deeper than that though. It is said he cursed every star in the movie too. No one from the movie has ever had the career they had before the movie. The lead actress in the movie was so convinced she was cursed that she has spent her entire life since trying to figure out a way to reverse the curse and practices all types of witchcraft and other religions to break the spell. Two of the actors had been A list coming in to the movie. One was probably always going to be because of past work, but that movie shook him. He was never the same and only made a couple of crap movies before he died. Most of the time he kept himself locked in his home with armed guards standing outside his house and bedroom while he slept. Another lead actor has worked steadily but his chance at A+ listerdom crashed and burned the next year which he blamed on the curse.
Our actor also has spent the past years trying to lift the curse through a variety of religious practices. He went to Native Americans for help and did every kind of spiritual drug or ceremony they could think of but it didn't work. he spent a fortune trying to lift the curse. He switched religions but now is close to death and blames it on the director.
Our director? He is convinced there are zombies or at least people who can become zombies and he has traveled the world looking. He has been to the darkest parts of Africa and scoured South American tribes looking. He films it all and is convinced he will capture a zombie on film.
Director: Richard Stanley
Movie: "The Island of Dr. Moreau"
Replacement Director: John Frankenheimer
Lead actress: Fairuza Balk
Dead A list actor: Marlon Brando
Other lead actor: Val Kilmer
If there is anyone in this world who probably wishes that Aloysius Pendergast was a real person it would be this foreign born director. Our direct was the next it director back in the day. He worked his way up from shorts to music videos to one of the best feature length movies incorporating music ever. It put him on the fast track to fame and fortune and big box office productions. Then, he went over the edge so to speak and it all went away.
While researching and writing what was supposed to be his first big box office production he was introduced to voodoo. From the second he learned about the religion, he was enraptured. He turned in the script he was writing to the studio and started to direct the big box office movie and then he was replaced.
It was just a few days into shooting but he was freaking everyone out. The movie was being filmed on a remote island occupied by an aboriginal tribe. They practiced something akin to voodoo and our director was fascinated. He had the tribe perform all types of rituals on the set and they were not just dancing and singing.
There were sacrifices and painting with blood and a parade of animal skulls the actors had to walk through to perform their scenes. Panic calls went out by satellite phone. There was no internet service on that island and it would have been spotty in most places at that time period. Crew members barricaded themselves together because they were so terrified about what the director would try next.
As soon as the studio got someone to the set, our director was replaced. Instead of heading back home in disgrace, our director began living with the tribe. He lived with them for well over a year and stalked the production of the film. It is said he cursed the movie and if you look at the results on film and at the box office, I would agree.
It gets deeper than that though. It is said he cursed every star in the movie too. No one from the movie has ever had the career they had before the movie. The lead actress in the movie was so convinced she was cursed that she has spent her entire life since trying to figure out a way to reverse the curse and practices all types of witchcraft and other religions to break the spell. Two of the actors had been A list coming in to the movie. One was probably always going to be because of past work, but that movie shook him. He was never the same and only made a couple of crap movies before he died. Most of the time he kept himself locked in his home with armed guards standing outside his house and bedroom while he slept. Another lead actor has worked steadily but his chance at A+ listerdom crashed and burned the next year which he blamed on the curse.
Our actor also has spent the past years trying to lift the curse through a variety of religious practices. He went to Native Americans for help and did every kind of spiritual drug or ceremony they could think of but it didn't work. he spent a fortune trying to lift the curse. He switched religions but now is close to death and blames it on the director.
Our director? He is convinced there are zombies or at least people who can become zombies and he has traveled the world looking. He has been to the darkest parts of Africa and scoured South American tribes looking. He films it all and is convinced he will capture a zombie on film.
Director: Richard Stanley
Movie: "The Island of Dr. Moreau"
Replacement Director: John Frankenheimer
Lead actress: Fairuza Balk
Dead A list actor: Marlon Brando
Other lead actor: Val Kilmer
Man, I remember seeing that in the theaters. It was such a mess.
ReplyDeleteLOL @ witchcraft and curses.
ReplyDeleteFairuza had a decent career after this for awhile. She was supposedly big box office overseas, so she was in demand.Meantime Val has cancer and refused conventional treatment.
ReplyDeleteAnd Brando was coming off The Freshman, a Dry White Season and Don Juan DeMarco when he did Moreau. So much for that career resurgence.
ReplyDeleteJesus who writes this crap? Stanley was fired because he couldn’t control his two stars. They hired the only guy in the world who could: Frankenheimer.
ReplyDeleteStanley is now doing Color out of Night with Nicholas Cage
ReplyDeleteLemon Swizzle "nailed it".
ReplyDeleteBrandos sloth lifestyle did him in. The curse must extend to some of his kids but not all. They are making a bundle off of The Brando in Teirotroa.
ReplyDeleteThe darkest part of Africa?? In 2019,seriously...
ReplyDeleteI know, right? In 2019 the darkest parts of Chicago are scarier than the darkest parts of Africa.
DeleteDarkest parts as in the areas where people are most superstitious and most prone to sacrifices and that ilk.
ReplyDeleteNew Guinea was a scary place in the 60s after they ate a Rockefeller. And those native off of Sri Lanka!! Beautiful place but hey its their land.
ReplyDeleteCall an exorcist.
ReplyDeleteNorth Sentinel Island in the Indian Ocean is inhabited by an extremely insular tribe who will kill ANYONE who attempts to visit the idland.
ReplyDelete*island
ReplyDeleteI can remove that curse for a small fee.
ReplyDeleteThey filmed it in Queensland Australia, not exactly darkest Africa. Queensland is more redneck than voodoo.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure any Aborigines - if there were indeed any still around the area- practiced anything like voodoo.
They had hotels and shit.
He did go doo lally but that was more doing drugs with Brando than infatuation with zombies. I call complete bullshit on this.
He now lives in a lovely area in the Pyranees in France. Old Cathar country.
The docu on Stanley and this movie is really good though.
SD & Yummyboogers - I wonder if he tasted rather rich.
ReplyDeleteI was in a 2-person play that was on before the main play, which was The Island of Dr. Moreau.
Actors: That is the law, are we not men?
Audience (whispers): We are Devo.
Those actors treated us like crap, and everyone in the audience liked us better. Sweet revenge.
As for this blind - David Thewlis seems to be doing well.
Apparently, director Richard Stanley was into the occult and "secret knowledge" a few years before his failed stint as writer and director of the 1996 version of HG Wells novel, "The Island of Dr. Moreau".(Ironically, HG Wells was an occultist himself)
ReplyDeleteRichard Stanley's IMDB credits include 1993, "Fields of the Nephilim: Revelations", and 1992's, "Dust Devil" about a shape shifting Devil that prays upon the lonely and unloved.
Back in the early 90's, the belief in ancient alien races and Devil spirits living among us were still largely disbelieved. Now you can simply Google it or watch many video's about the subject on YouTube.
I preferred the 80s when loons were into channeling. Ramtha on Oprah was when i realized broads would believe anything. Think i was 10-12yrs old.
DeleteLmao man oh man, humans are funny. All that BS doesn’t exist, but sure. I mean it really is hilarious, but then again, look at the absurd things ppl believe in the name of religion. We’re not special, all of this is humans being stupid and thinking there’s ‘something else’. Fairuza was already into ‘white magic’ when she did The Craft, she even ran her herbal/witchcraft store in LA afterwards in a pretty normal way. also she has a look that isn’t easily cast. Val Kilmer never dies after he finally gave into getting a blood transfusion (theJesuit religion or whatever BS doesn’t ‘allow’ them.
ReplyDeleteBig sigh to all the stupid everywhere. The truth is most humans can’t handle that there’s nothing else out there.
Christian Science. Jesuits are part of the Catholic Church, and usually educators. My great uncle had to write a letter at 13 to pledge to the order. Fordham, Georgetown, Boston College, all examples of Jesuit schools.
DeleteThis isn’t entirely true, but it’s a little truer than you’d think? He talks about it openly —- the film was taken away from him and he did a bunch of spells and got it back — then everything started going very wrong from there, because he got it “the wrong way.” Balk was also heavily into witchcraft in real life and has a reputation among Hollywood witches. So not quite so extreme, but the bullshit isn’t the witchcraft and voodoo part. It likely did curse all of them, in someway.
ReplyDeleteVal Kilmer 'switched' religions because he realized cancer can't be prayed away. Brando had been on the downswing for years and was a mess without "voodoo". Fairuza I did wonder about though.
ReplyDeleteI've had conversations with Richard Stanley. He's an intense dude. It's probably all harmless weirdo paganism, but something like this tracks. I don't think its why he got fired, but I'd believe it based on my interactions with him.
ReplyDelete.... Geez, I don't know where to begin.
ReplyDeleteI lived where it was filmed, not exactly around it, but close enough where I should know at least one person who worked on it. I'll try to contact them.
I was going to start a huge ranty comment here with the misinformation this blind seems to have, but I'm running late and also couldn't be bothered typing it all out, so if anyone really wants to hear it, I might later
Yes, Sekrit. I'd like to read your information. This remake I haven't seen, but did see the Bela Lugosi version.
ReplyDeleteidk why enty's choosing to "reveal" this blind, as it's so chock-full of horseshit that if i were him i'd want to distance myself from ever having posted it in the first place. it just serves as a reminder that this site is 90% fiction
ReplyDeleteThen go the f*** away and never come back to this site. We don't care about your complaining
DeleteI blame The Balkan Curse, not the original director.
ReplyDeleteactress practices witchcraft to break the spell = Fairuza Balk
ReplyDeleteA list because of past work = streetcar waterfront godfather
he kept himself at home = Marlon Brando
A+ listerdom crashed and burned = The Saint
actor went to Native Americans for help = Thunderheart
if you watch the documentary you'll find Richard Stanley extremely creepy
when Val Kilmer encountered Richard Stanley during the wrap-party, he apologized for costing the director his job, Stanley refused the apology
ReplyDeleteMarlon Brando even offered to financially compensate Stanley but he refused
David Thewlis has stated that he would like to give a real account of the film's production, but fears that if he did he would never work again
ReplyDeletewhen Thewlis arrived on set, Brando said to him, "Go home David this film is cursed"
ReplyDelete