Heaven's Gate

Top 10 Fun Facts

1. John Locke, meet Doc Ock: Heaven's Gate marked the film debuts of both Terry O'Quinn and Willem Dafoe.
2. A name that will live in infamy: at the time, Heaven's Gate was the most expensive Hollywood flop ever, prompting many to call it the film that brought down an entire movie studio. (United Artists was sold to MGM after not long after the Heaven's Gate box office fiasco.)
3. Legend has it that director Michael Cimino demanded so many takes per shot that by the fifth day of filming, the project was already four days behind schedule. Put away your calculator; that's bad math no matter how you look at it.
4. Okay, here's another way to look at it: Cimino shot 200 hours worth of film. That's equivalent to over eight days of viewing time. Or the first six seasons of Bonanza watched back-to-back.
5. One more figure for you: over 1.5 million feet of film were used, and 2/3 of it was actually processed in labs. Sort of like your family vacation photos before the digital camera came along.
6. The original cut of the film clocked in at 5 hours, 25 minutes. The soda cup sizes were probably a lot smaller back then, but that's still a heck of a long time to wait for a bathroom break.
7. Even though the film's budget had ballooned from $7.5 million to $40 million, not a single studio exec took a look at the footage until after filming had already wrapped. Don't you wish your boss had that kind of "laissez-faire" approach?
8. Babe, Seabiscuit and Free Willy owe a debt of gratitude to Heaven's Gate; the reported mistreatment of animals during production caused such an outcry that the American Humane Society now monitors all filmed media that employs the use of our furry, feathered or otherwise non-human friends.
9. Composer John Williams was supposed to provide the film's score, but had to back out because of his commitments to The Empire Strikes Back. The Rebel Alliance is forever grateful, Mr. Williams.
10. At various stages in the film's development, both John Wayne and Jane Fonda turned down the lead roles. Now that would have been box office gold.

Cast

Crew