The Most Expensive Things Ever Destroyed on Film

A film is about telling a story on screen. In many cases, that means creating people, things, and entire worlds that never actually existed, and sometimes destroying them. This is usually done with special effects, but sometimes it’s easier and more effective to destroy something for real. Other times, it just happens by accident. But the end result is the same — something truly precious is torn apart for our enjoyment.

10. Kurt Russell Destroyed a Vintage Guitar

"The Hateful Eight" Quentin Tarantino was released in 2015 and is a gallery of Tarantino's rogues featuring some of his favorite collaborators, including Sam Jackson, Michael Madsen, and Kurt Russell. Russell, who has been in the film longer than anyone else, is pretty much an old pro in front of the camera at this point, and you'd think he'd be able to navigate any scene with ease. And that's true 99% of the time. The only problem is when he doesn't know what he's holding.

In the movie, Russell gets into an argument with a character played by Jennifer Jason Leigh. She's holding an acoustic guitar, and he takes it from her and smashes it against a pole. It's not that bad, like in the movies, but it was. The guitar Leigh was holding was real, one of a kind acoustic guitar 1870s. Russell was supposed to take the fake version and smash it. But something went wrong, and Russell got the real thing instead.

There was a guitar insured for $40,000, So if it had monetary value, that was it. But from a historical perspective, it was something that simply could not be replaced again. The destruction ensured that the Martin Guitar Museum, which had loaned Tarantino the instrument, would never agree to lend anything to a film production again.

9. Attack of the Killer Tomatoes accidentally crashed a helicopter

Back in 1978, a movie about killer tomatoes was as strange an idea as it is today. It was a parody of horror films like The Birds or The Frogs, in which something that has nothing to do with horror goes on a murderous rampage against humanity. In this case, tomatoes. The film had a modest budget, with just $90,000 , but it became a cult classic and even spawned several sequels, including a 1988 sequel starring George Clooney.

There is a rather tense scene at the beginning of the film with helicopter crash . For a $90,000 movie in the '70s, that was really impressive. And that's because it was a total mistake. It was a $60,000 helicopter that they crashed by accident. It cost the production more budget , than anything else in the film.

On the other hand, they got the most real helicopter crash on film you've ever seen, and no one was seriously hurt as a result.

8. Producers Twister Destroyed Blocks of the Town of Wakita

In the 1990s, the tradition of big summer blockbusters really took off in theaters, with one of the biggest films of the decade being "Twister" 1996 The production used a lot of effects to bring to life the power and destructiveness of the tornado, but it wasn't all about movie magic as you might think.

For example, in the movie, the town of Wakita is destroyed by a passing tornado, and Helen Hunt and other characters in the movie survey the damage afterward. It appears that dozens of homes were destroyed, and all of this actually happened. The producers of the movie bought dozens of old homes in the town of Wakita, Oklahoma, for the sole purpose of tearing them apart.

Two years before filming, a real weather disaster happened in Wakita - a strong hail destroyed their downtown so badly that many homes were uninhabitable. Even the main street was destroyed. While the city had plans to gut everything and start over, for a small town this would be an expensive proposition.

When the producers offered to demolish all the buildings for them, including 30 more they had built themselves, they paid $7,000 to $10,000 for the house. But they also restored all the old buildings, fixed the road, and even donated a fire truck from the movie to the city.

In total, the company bought up eight blocks of homes and then rebuilt what was destroyed, at a cost likely in the hundreds of thousands.

7. Jessica Biel Destroyed $300,000 Camera Blade: Trinity

Movie " Blade: Trinity" is mostly known for the modern-day Wesley Snipes alleged insanity on set, so the story of Jessica Biel's archery skills gets lost in the mix. She had to learn how to shoot a bow for the film, and she learned it really well. So well, in fact, that the producers made the mistake of having her shoot one scene directly into the camera.

While an archer shooting straight at the camera makes for a great visual, it seems no one counted on Biel being such a prodigious shot. The camera, positioned forty feet away from where Biel was and fifty feet away from him, was protected by plexiglass to keep everyone safe. But to get the shot, they had to leave a two by two inch hole for the camera lens, and that's where Biel's arrow landed, destroying at the same time $300,000 camera .

6. Buster Keaton destroyed a locomotive in a silent film "General"

Most modern viewers don't think of the silent era as being chock-full of big-budget stunts, but that wasn't always the case. Buster Keaton was a man who wanted to make an impact on film, and he did so in "General" back in 1926.

In the film, director and actor Keaton wowed audiences with the most expensive stunt in silent film history: a locomotive crashing into a burning bridge and into the river below.

Today we can see train accidents in all kinds of movies, from "Wanted" to "The Fugitive" and others. In 1926, Keaton didn't have the special effects used in modern-era films, so he did the next best thing and simply smashed a real locomotive.

At that time, the train cost a pretty penny $42,000 . Adjust that for inflation and you're looking at a $682,000 trick. It's also something you can only do once, so it had to be done right. The only safety concession was when he agreed to his wife's demand. don't take the train myself.

5. K Foundation burns £1m

If you're a fan of '80s British electronic music, you may be familiar with The KLF. They've been known by several names over the years, including the K Foundation and the TimeLords. But their greatest claim to fame may be setting fire to 1 million pounds sterling .

The duo are known for going to extremes, like throwing a dead sheep at the aftershow. Back in 1994, they filmed themselves burn money in a remote cabin in Scotland. And why? No reason at all. To them, it was just a piece of art. To the rest of us, it might be crazy. Or brilliant. You decide.

4. Christopher Walken destroyed Banksy in "Outcasts"

Christopher Walken recently played an unforgettable role in the TV series "Outcasts" as an old criminal doing community service with a group of others. Their job is to clean up a broken down community center. At the very end of the series, Walken discovers a painting of a rat signed the famous artist Banksy He tries to point it out to his boss and she tells him to paint over it. Not knowing what it is, he does so.

It's a good joke, made even more shocking when you realize it's a real Banksy, created specifically to be destroyed in the series. The cost was estimated at around £10,000,000 .

3. Furious 7 destroyed nine Lykan Hypersport stunt cars worth millions

Franchise "Fast and Furious" consists of 10 films over more than 20 years. In that time, literally thousands of cars have been destroyed in front of cameras, and their value is almost impossible to calculate. But we can still try.

The cost of the destroyed cars was linked to 500 million dollars back in 2017, but it was done with the caveat "in real life." It's an important distinction because the cars we see in the film are almost are never real cars There is actually a whole team of mechanics and special effects people who take stunt cars, which are old junks, and then remake them to look like the insanely expensive classics or supercars you see in the movie.

So while Vin Diesel may be in a 1970 Dodge Charger when it goes off the road and gets shot up, it's just some crappy piece of junk that's been given a facelift. Does that mean movies don't destroy anything valuable? Not exactly.

TO Furious 7 they destroyed almost 1500 cars . They may not have been classics, but they were still cars. In that movie, they destroyed the insanely rare Lykan Hypersport. The company built ten stunt cars for the film, nine of which were destroyed. The tenth was sold at auction, the biddingstarted with $100,000 He rose to more than $500,000 and was expected to bring in over $2 million. So that means at least $1 million in stunt cars and potentially $20 million.

Today we can only guess at the “true” cost of all the destruction, but it is clear that it is in the millions.

2. Michael Bay blew up a real mansion for "Bad Boys 2"

Few directors love an explosion as much as Michael Bay. The man can create carnage the way Mozart composed music. Love him or hate him, you have to admit he knows a spectacle. Nowhere is that more evident than in the film "Bad Boys 2" and wonderful scene of the explosion of the mansion .

The scene was outstanding because it was real $16.5 million mansion The owner of the property paid $16.5 million with the intention of actually demolishing the building and then subdividing the site into three new properties. But instead of destroying it himself, he thought it would be funny to see if someone making a movie would want to destroy it, and Michael Bay absolutely did.

There was still some movie magic in the game; the house had been remodeled to make it lighter, with walls and fake parts that would blow up more easily, but in the end the result was the same.

1. Sands Casino at the end Con Air

It is quite possible that Nic Cage's film " "Air Prison" represents the most expensive destruction in movie history, although there is a caveat. In the film, you can see a huge prison transport plane crash on the Las Vegas strip and glides swiftly into the Sands Casino The Sands, one of the famous Rat Pack playgrounds back in the heyday of Las Vegas, was in no way a model or a knockoff. They completely destroyed the thing.

Although the Sands changed hands several times, they were sold in 1988 for 110 million dollars By 1996, Sands had become a relic of a bygone era, and the decision was made to demolish it to make way for a modern casino and resort. But that meant destroying what was already there.

Although much of the building was destroyed in the explosion, producers Con Air convinced the owners to postpone the demolition several weeks so they could actually do the stunt shown in the movie that destroys the real lobby. It all had to be done in one take because you can't put the toothpaste back in the tube, so was established 14 cameras, to capture all the destruction.

So technically it was a $110 million building that was torn down, but getting rid of it made room for the $1.5 billion Venetian that stands there today.