13 Movies That Started Filming Without A Script Posted by Amy Glover Last Updated: January 9, 2024 13 Movies That Started Filming Without A Script 1. Jurassic Park III was meant to be written by Michael Crichton and directed by Steven Spielberg. But Spielberg was busy and Craig Rosenberg ended up writing the first script. This got rejected, so Peter Buchman wrote the second script — that was the film’s working script until a month before production, when Spielberg rejected THAT script, too. “The joke on the set was it was going to be the wrap gift, everybody got a script. We had a script for the day we were shooting and maybe the next day and sometimes a week ahead of time, but we never had a story that had a beginning, middle and end while we were making the film. We had to go back to Hawaii to shoot the ending because when we were there the first time, we didn’t know what the ending was going to be,” Johnston added. 2. Pretty Woman was almost a completely different film called 3000. The title of this incredibly dark movie referred to the amount of money Julia Roberts’ character was paid for her time — and she died at the end of the original. “I was like, ‘oh, of course, this makes perfect sense to me,’” Julia sarcastically said. “I went in to meet Garry [the director], and he told me all the ways he was gonna change this and make it funny.” She revealed some changes were so last-minute that they were, in Graham’s words, “kind of writing [the movie] as they were filming.” 3. According to Iron Monger actor Jeff Bridges, Iron Man started filming without a script in 2007. “They had no script, man. They had an outline,” he told In Contention back in 2009. 4. Edge of Tomorrow, based on the Japanese novel All You Need Is Kill, started filming without a firm script, producer Erwin Stoff told The LA Times. “It definitely is not the most calm-inducing experience to be facing the start date without a script. You have to have a cast-iron stomach,” he said. 5. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End didn’t have a script, according to director Gore Verbinksi. In fact, they shot the end of the third movie while filming the second one, with no idea how it’d slot into the story. “After (the first movie) was successful, Pirates 2 and 3 started to fall into the ‘release date-driven experience’. There’s a calendar and dates and ‘we need two more of these babies. How soon can you do it?’ So you don’t have scripts and you’re making a movie to a release date,” Verbinksi said. 7. Director Gareth Edwards said of his movie Monsters “We shot it without a script, and we did this scene-by-scene outline. It was a risky thing to do.” 8. Alfred Hitchcock’s film Topaz was based on Leon Uris’ novel Topaz, and the writer was helping Hitchcock write the script. However, the author and the director didn’t get on — so Leon left the project before the script was done, just days before the movie went into production. 9. Development of Alien 3 was stalled during the Writers Guild of America strike in 1987, and in the end, the two-film plan for Alien 3 and Alien 4 was ditched by the time writers started working again. But set designers had already built elaborate sets, props, and backdrops for the films — and they were too expensive to drop. Plus, the movie already had a release date. “We have had to make a lot of changes in the script as we’ve gone along,” Sigourney Weaver told Empire Magazine. “We were building the sets before we had a script and having to cast it quickly, because of time concerns. That was not the way that Fincher wanted to do his first film.” 10. “We started the film without a script, without a cast and without a shark,” Richard Dreyfus said of making Jaws. The movie went through multiple rewrites and plot changes — in fact, it ended up taking more than 100 days (and more than three times the budget) to film the iconic movie. 11. The writers of the original Transformers movie didn’t want to come back for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. But even when director Michael Bay coaxed them into the project, the 2007 writer’s strike was on — so Michael ended up writing his own “scriptment” from the two weeks’ worth of work his writers had put in before the strike began. 12. Men In Black 3 was shot without a second or third act — for tax reasons. The film started shooting in November, scheduled a break from December until mid-Feb, and then finished the movie and the script after that; there was a tax incentive to take this winding route in New York at the time. “We knew starting the movie that we didn’t have a finished second or third act. Was it responsible? The answer is, if this movie does as well as I think it will, it was genius. If it’s a total failure, then it was a really stupid idea,” Men In Black 3 director Barry Sonnenfeld added. 13. Gladiator‘s script was so far from ready that Russell Crowe almost dropped out of the project. “It had 21 pages when we started shooting,” Crowe said. “Your average script is about 110.” Can you think of any other examples? Let us know in the comments below! Source link
1. Jurassic Park III was meant to be written by Michael Crichton and directed by Steven Spielberg. But Spielberg was busy and Craig Rosenberg ended up writing the first script. This got rejected, so Peter Buchman wrote the second script — that was the film’s working script until a month before production, when Spielberg rejected THAT script, too. “The joke on the set was it was going to be the wrap gift, everybody got a script. We had a script for the day we were shooting and maybe the next day and sometimes a week ahead of time, but we never had a story that had a beginning, middle and end while we were making the film. We had to go back to Hawaii to shoot the ending because when we were there the first time, we didn’t know what the ending was going to be,” Johnston added. 2. Pretty Woman was almost a completely different film called 3000. The title of this incredibly dark movie referred to the amount of money Julia Roberts’ character was paid for her time — and she died at the end of the original. “I was like, ‘oh, of course, this makes perfect sense to me,’” Julia sarcastically said. “I went in to meet Garry [the director], and he told me all the ways he was gonna change this and make it funny.” She revealed some changes were so last-minute that they were, in Graham’s words, “kind of writing [the movie] as they were filming.” 3. According to Iron Monger actor Jeff Bridges, Iron Man started filming without a script in 2007. “They had no script, man. They had an outline,” he told In Contention back in 2009. 4. Edge of Tomorrow, based on the Japanese novel All You Need Is Kill, started filming without a firm script, producer Erwin Stoff told The LA Times. “It definitely is not the most calm-inducing experience to be facing the start date without a script. You have to have a cast-iron stomach,” he said. 5. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End didn’t have a script, according to director Gore Verbinksi. In fact, they shot the end of the third movie while filming the second one, with no idea how it’d slot into the story. “After (the first movie) was successful, Pirates 2 and 3 started to fall into the ‘release date-driven experience’. There’s a calendar and dates and ‘we need two more of these babies. How soon can you do it?’ So you don’t have scripts and you’re making a movie to a release date,” Verbinksi said. 7. Director Gareth Edwards said of his movie Monsters “We shot it without a script, and we did this scene-by-scene outline. It was a risky thing to do.” 8. Alfred Hitchcock’s film Topaz was based on Leon Uris’ novel Topaz, and the writer was helping Hitchcock write the script. However, the author and the director didn’t get on — so Leon left the project before the script was done, just days before the movie went into production. 9. Development of Alien 3 was stalled during the Writers Guild of America strike in 1987, and in the end, the two-film plan for Alien 3 and Alien 4 was ditched by the time writers started working again. But set designers had already built elaborate sets, props, and backdrops for the films — and they were too expensive to drop. Plus, the movie already had a release date. “We have had to make a lot of changes in the script as we’ve gone along,” Sigourney Weaver told Empire Magazine. “We were building the sets before we had a script and having to cast it quickly, because of time concerns. That was not the way that Fincher wanted to do his first film.” 10. “We started the film without a script, without a cast and without a shark,” Richard Dreyfus said of making Jaws. The movie went through multiple rewrites and plot changes — in fact, it ended up taking more than 100 days (and more than three times the budget) to film the iconic movie. 11. The writers of the original Transformers movie didn’t want to come back for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. But even when director Michael Bay coaxed them into the project, the 2007 writer’s strike was on — so Michael ended up writing his own “scriptment” from the two weeks’ worth of work his writers had put in before the strike began. 12. Men In Black 3 was shot without a second or third act — for tax reasons. The film started shooting in November, scheduled a break from December until mid-Feb, and then finished the movie and the script after that; there was a tax incentive to take this winding route in New York at the time. “We knew starting the movie that we didn’t have a finished second or third act. Was it responsible? The answer is, if this movie does as well as I think it will, it was genius. If it’s a total failure, then it was a really stupid idea,” Men In Black 3 director Barry Sonnenfeld added. 13. Gladiator‘s script was so far from ready that Russell Crowe almost dropped out of the project. “It had 21 pages when we started shooting,” Crowe said. “Your average script is about 110.” Can you think of any other examples? Let us know in the comments below!
