These Movies Were Shot So Out Of Order, Even The Actors Got Whiplash

A Literal Fire Blew Up The Empire Strikes Back Schedule

Right before filming was set to begin, a fire destroyed the soundstage at Elstree Studios that had been reserved for Empire's sets, forcing the production to give up two stages and reshuffle everything. Sixty-four sets ended up getting shuffled through nine different stages, throwing the shooting order into chaos before a single frame was in the can. And the film's now-iconic final shot? Mark Hamill has said it was filmed four months after the rest of the movie had already wrapped.

The Wizard Of Oz Started Filming In The Middle Of The Story

Production on Oz didn't begin with Dorothy's Kansas farewell — it kicked off on the Scarecrow's cornfield set, meaning the crew was filming the story's midpoint before shooting a single frame of the beginning. Things got even more scrambled after Margaret Hamilton suffered second- and third-degree burns during a botched smoke effect; she returned to work six weeks later on the condition of "no more fireworks," which meant reworking which fire-heavy scenes could even be scheduled next.

Jaws Got Shuffled Around Because The Shark Kept Sinking

The mechanical shark nicknamed "Bruce" broke down so constantly in the salt water that repairs regularly replaced filming altogether, leaving Steven Spielberg to shoot whatever scenes didn't need the shark whenever it inevitably failed. On top of that, the screenplay itself was still being rewritten during the shoot, with scenes written the night before they were filmed rather than in any planned sequence — turning the entire 159-day shoot into one long game of narrative Tetris.

Titanic's Opening Footage Was Shot Before The Rest Of The Movie Even Existed

James Cameron and his crew dove down to the actual RMS Titanic wreck and filmed the modern-day footage of divers discovering Rose's sketch back in 1995 — before the 1912-set dramatic scenes with Jack and Rose had even begun shooting. Those wreck-diving shots ended up appearing near the start of the finished film, meaning audiences see footage that was filmed dead last chronologically in production but placed first on screen.

Little Women's Cast Time-Traveled Between Scenes All Day, Every Day

Over the three-month shoot, the March sisters actors bounced back and forth between the story's two timelines scene to scene, playing their teenage and adult selves out of any linear order and relying on lighting and costume changes to keep track of which era they were in. Greta Gerwig even pushed the entire shooting schedule back just to accommodate Florence Pugh's availability, meaning the whole nonlinear puzzle had to be replanned around one actress's calendar.