Making a big budget feature film is never an easy job, but some shoots are worse than others. And none of those involved really know whether the finished product will be worth it until months later when it’s ready for an audience. Just imagine that every six months or so you find yourself working for a completely different company with a new boss and new co-workers. Your job may be the same as ever, but the environment is strange and different, and there’s bound to be personality clashes between some people. Take The Blues Brothers. John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd were at the peak of their popularity, and the movie turns on their comedic talents. That doesn’t mean making it was a cakewalk. Belushi was high all the time, but there were other problems.
The story behind Aykroyd's original Ghostbusters script has become the stuff of legend, but even that may not have anything on his first draft of Blues Brothers. The typical script generally clocks in somewhere between 90 and 120 pages. Aykroyd's script was 324 pages long. If someone tossed it at you, you would die. The studio people had no idea what to make of it, other than recognizing there was some outstanding comedy hidden in those rambling, generally pointless pages written by Aykroyd in between stealing cars from the Universal motor pool and getting high at the Leave It To Beaver house. And yes, those were things that actually happened.
There’s more to that story, plus those of five other wildly successful films at Cracked. Don’t miss the story behind The African Queen, even if you haven’t seen the movie.