Boyhood and 3 Other Movies That Took Several Years to Shoot
These are projects that have been stuck in production for years, even decades.
It usually takes the team about 12-18 months to make a film for wide international release. During this time, they shoot scenes on location and in the studio, do additional filming, create special effects, edit the movie, and make final adjustments.
The crew manages to fit all of this into a year and a half, but this is not the case for everyone.
1. Eraserhead, 1977
A lack of financing is one of the most common reasons for cinematic long-term development. The filming of Eraserhead is perhaps the best example of how this obstacle can be overcome, even with little directing experience.
David Lynch began working on Eraserhead in 1971 when he enrolled in the Los Angeles AFI School. His student grant covered only a couple of shifts, so Lynch and his friends spent the next few years earning money to continue filming the story they had started. David himself delivered newspapers.
As a result, filming dragged on for five years, but it was worth it – Eraserhead is a film worth watching at least once in your lifetime.
2. Boyhood, 2014
Director Richard Linklater's idea was as simple as it was impossible: shoot the same actors for 12 years, a couple of days each year, and try to build a story out of it.
The result is a three-hour drama in which the actor playing the central character ages from boyhood to adolescence, condensing years into days, hours, and seconds. The film did not have a final script. From year to year, Linklater rewrote the script, advanced the plot, and motivated the actors and their characters.
3. The Lego Movie, 2014
Animated films are not the fastest to produce, but the creation of directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller exceeded even the generally accepted production timeline for full-length animated movies.
Warner Studios received the idea for the film in 2008, and by the end of 2009, the animation team had finished the script. However, filming LEGO scenes proved difficult, mainly because the script required additional work.
The reworking of the plot and additional filming cooled the studio's enthusiasm, as they believed the project would not be successful. However, Lord and his team overcame the studio's doubts. As a result, filming took four years.
4. Avatar, 2009
James Cameron has said many times that his ideas often outpace technology. Therefore, he has to slow down his imagination and wait for the means to implement his ideas on screen.
This is what happened with his most notable creation to date, the sci-fi action film Avatar. Cameron conceived the story of a journey to Pandora in 1997, but imagining a space opera is quite different from bringing it to life on screen.
The next few years were spent developing new 3D filming technologies, creating the Na'vi language, and improving methods of capturing actors' movements.