Movie bloopers that actually cost the filmmakers a ton of money

So bloopers in big budget films are actually a lot of fun and costly. Whilst it may be nice to see movie stars fluff their lines in deleted scenes, it seems that besides the fame and fortune, Hollywood big shots are just like the rest of us.

Movie fans love to watch actors flub, and with the way they make themselves and their co-stars laugh when it happens, actors clearly love them too.

Filmmakers, on the other hand, may not love bloopers quite as much. Every time an actor makes a mistake, it delays the shoot just a little, and time is money.

Every so often, they’re forced to deal with a truly world-class mess-up—a mistake that costs the production big money, sometimes due to property damage and personal injury. We’ve rounded up a collection of mistakes that rank among Hollywood’s most expensive goofs.

Here’s a look at some bloopers that actually cost the filmmakers a tonne of cash.

Quantum of Solace

Daniel Craig’s second James Bond film, 2008’s Quantum of Solace, left the star with a couple of unwanted souvenirs from time on the set: injury and pain. While filming a fight scene, a stuntman went in for a kick close to Craig’s face and accidentally landed the blow. Filming had to stop so Craig could seek out medical treatment, which included eight stitches for his wounds. He was also left with a black eye, which just isn’t something a debonair super-spy is supposed to sport. In post-production, editors had to use digital effects technology to painstakingly remove the big circle of discoloration around Craig’s eye.

Justice League
Sometimes it’s not the actor who goofs up, it’s the studio responsible for the movie—and then they have to fork out the cash to make things right. Warner Bros. had to reassemble the cast of Justice in the summer of 2017 for some crucial reshoots. Henry Cavill, a.k.a. Superman, was among those summoned, but there was a problem: He’d grown a mustache for his next role, in the sixth Mission: Impossible movie, and was contractually obliged to keep it until M:I was finished filming.

The facial hair scheduling snafu left Justice League’s visual effects technicians responsible for digitally removing Superman’s mustache. An effects expert told Business Insider it could cost millions: “You typically have to 3D motion track a new face patch on the actor to remove the ‘stache and all its shadows. This involves matching both their head/body position and facial expressions. It must sync with all their dialog. Then you have to light that face patch and composite it in and make it look seamless.”

Seven

Brad Pitt suffered a nasty injury on the set of Seven. He played a police detective, and during one scene that called for him to chase his suspect in the rain, he slipped and smashed his hand into a windshield, severing a tendon. Director David Fincher mentions on the film’s DVD commentary that Pitt showed him his wound, which was so severe he could see the white of the bone.

Fincher managed to incorporate Pitt’s injury into the story of Seven by having the script rewritten to have Mills suffer an injury in the line of duty. It added time and expense to the production schedule.

Seven was shot out of sequence, so any scene filmed after Pitt’s injury required the actor to hold his bad hand in his pocket or behind his back.

The Avengers

Marvel’s superhero team isn’t the only Avengers in pop culture. There’s also The Avengers, a 1960s British spy TV series. The 1998 film adaptation starring Ralph Fiennes and Uma Thurman was a critical and commercial bomb, but the movie made headlines for another type of detonation. While the crew filmed an explosion for the movie, a few rogue sparks drifted away and hit the roof of the studio, starting a fire that was definitely not part of the plan. A set worth a reported £1 million (about $1.6 million) was destroyed.

Battlestar Galactica

The cheesy ’70s sci-fi show Battlestar Galactica was completely reinvented in the 21st century as a serious drama with very high production values. The 2007 episode “Malestrom” shows off the production’s commitment to quality with a sequence in which Admiral Adama (Edward James Olmos) works on a beautiful model ship; overcome with rage and grief, he destroys the model. It was a completely improvised moment—otherwise, Olmos probably wouldn’t have torn the ship apart. As he told an audience at the 2012 Planet Comicon, Olmos had no idea that the model was a museum-quality piece on loan to the production—or that it was worth around $200,000.