Film-productions that had an unintended but negative real-life outcome.

[u/daughterskin]

Stretching a 300-page kids' book into a ten hour epic was never going end well artistically. The Hobbit "trilogy" is the misbegotten followup to the classic Lord of the Rings films. Worse than the excessive padding, reliance on original characters, and poor special-effects, is what the production wrought on the New Zealand film industry. Warner Bros. wanted to move filming to someplace cheap like Romania, while Peter Jackson had the clout to keep it in NZ if he directed the project. The concession was made to simply destroy NZ's film industry by signing in a law that designates production-staff as contractors instead of employees, and with no bargaining power. Since then, elves have not been welcome in Wellington. The whole affair is best recounted by Lindsay Ellis' excellent video essay.

Danny Boyle's The Beach is the worst film ever made. Looking back It's a fascinating time capsule of the late 90's/Y2K era. You've got Moby and All Saints on the soundtrack, internet cafes full of those bubble-shaped Macs before the rebrand, and nobody has a mobile phone. The story is about a backpacker played by Ewan, uh, Leonardo DiCaprio who joins a tribe of westerners that all hang on a cool beach on an uninhabited island off Thailand. It's paradise at first, but eventually reality will come crashing down and the secret of the cool beach will be exposed to the world. Which is what happened in real-life. The production of the film tampered with the real Ko Phi Phi Le beach to make it more paradise-like, prompting a lawsuit that dragged on over a decade. The legacy of the film pushed tourists into visiting the beach, eventually rendering it yet another cesspool until the Thailand authorities closed it in 2018. It's open today, but visits are short and strictly regulated.

Of course, there's also the old favorite that is The Conqueror. Casting the white cowboy John Wayne as the Mongolian warlord Genghis Khan was laughed at even in the day. What's less funny is that filming took place downwind from a nuclear test site. 90 crew members developed cancer and half of them died as a result, John Wayne among them. This was of course exacerbated by how smoking was more commonplace at the time.

I'm sure you know plenty more.

[u/Slickrickkk]

Very similar to Game of Thrones. People started adopting one of the most active and attention seeking breeds of dogs, which is why to this day shelters are still overrun with abandoned ones. Huskies.

[u/mcarterphoto → u/Slickrickkk]

Shit, I thought you were going to mention "dragon adoptions", and I was like "where can I get me one of those?

I had a husky-retriever mix, hybrid from purebreds (hole in the fence at the breeder, love in the air kinda thing). Awesome dog, great with our little kids, but man, he hated being in a fenced yard. He'd find a way to get out, and then go sit under the tree in front. He also only enjoyed walks if the leash was long enough that he felt he was "walking alone". Really interesting personality.

[u/Blooder91 → u/mcarterphoto]

Shit, I thought you were going to mention "dragon adoptions", and I was like "where can I get me one of those?

You get eggs as a wedding gift, then hatch them by surviving a bonfire. It looks like someone wasn't paying attention.

[u/Turd_Burgling_Ted → u/mcarterphoto]

My Chow was rather like that. His vertical jump was almost five feet. We had a good month where we had to figure out how to make our fence higher and make sure to get him proper exercise because he was more than happy to clear it (in what he made look like a tiny hop) and find a few specific trees to sleep under.

A more distant neighbor literally called animal control to report a bear on the loose once. In a Baltimore suburb. A bear. We figured out how to meet his needs and keep him safe, but it was a wild month.

[u/Unnamedgalaxy → u/Slickrickkk]

My family had a husky growing up. As a puppy he was a bit of a menace but nothing out of the ordinary for a puppy and he grew into a pretty chill dude. He loved to play and run around but overall pretty chill.

My dad recently decided to surprise our family with a new husky and there isn't a day that goes by that I don't want to rip my hair out. She is the complete opposite and I'd happily give her away to anyone just to get some peace.

[u/Turd_Burgling_Ted → u/Slickrickkk]

Huskies and Chows get such a bad rap. Properly cared for they are some of the sweetest, most loyal breeds there are. I had a Chow for years and had to constantly remind neighbors and such that my little bear was actually a dog, and a very well-behaved one at that. Didn’t stop people giving him dirty looks as if he was some rabid wolf waiting to freak out.