The movie Val Kilmer called an “awful” experience
Few actors have had the same quick trajectory to fame that Val Kilmer enjoyed back in 1984, making his feature film debut in the spoof comedy Top Secret before he set the decade alight with his effortless charm and dramatic chops. A versatile star who worked with the likes of Tony Scott, Ron Howard, Oliver Stone and Michael Mann throughout the tail-end of the 20th century, Kilmer grew to become one of Hollywood’s greatest assets by the end of the 1990s.
After the success of Top Gun back in 1986, where he thrived alongside Tom Cruise, Kilmer elegantly took to the ‘90s with style, appearing as musician Jim Morrison in Stone’s The Doors before appearing in the western flick Tombstone, which remains beloved by genre fans. Yet, despite pretty consistent success, Kilmer’s career was undoubtedly just like anybody else’s in Hollywood, with a box office flop being just around the corner.
For Kilmer, this flop was the bizarre Island of Dr. Moreau, released just one year after Mann’s insane crime drama Heat. Notoriously riddled with endless production issues, The Island of Dr. Moreau, which was based on the novel of the same name by H.G. Wells, told the story of a man who comes across a visionary doctor looking to turn animals into humanoid workers.
Making a measly $49.6million at the box office while being given a beating by critics, The Island of Dr. Moreau comfortably goes down as one of Kilmer’s worst movies, even if the production gave him the chance to work with the legendary Marlon Brando.
Speaking about his time working with the Oscar-winning star of The Godfather, Kilmer recalled during a Reddit AMA, “Brando was everything you want the major icon in your world to be, a genius and a gentleman. I was getting divorced at the time and he was so gracious about offering me time and considered thought. He offered to call my ex on behalf of the children. He was one of the funniest men on earth. I still laugh out loud about some of the things he said and did”.
Moving on to the production itself, Kilmer added: “Much has been said about how awful the experience was. There were several embarrassed execs who made it seem worse than it was to do because the film was so poorly received, and the replacement director was desperate for a comeback and blamed me for the film’s failure which doesn’t hold water when you watch it because I die in the film and the whole last half is just as bad as when I was alive so how could I have made stuff I wasn’t in not work? Doesn’t make any sense”.
Just like every movie production nightmare, often the story behind the scenes is more interesting than the eventual film, with Kilmer admitting to having “begged the studio to film a documentary” akin to Hearts of Darkness, which told of the madness behind Brando’s 1979 film Apocalypse Now, but, alas, nothing ever came of the actor’s plea.
