Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley's Island of Dr. Moreau

1 Review

This Hollywood disaster story shows how easy it is for a movie to spin out of control. Richard Stanley’s passion project to make THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU appears doomed from the start, with APOCALYPSE NOW looming large in its story, from its tropical location shoot to its casting of Marlon Brando. More than just a gossipy Hollywood tell-all, LOST SOUL follows the production’s surreal descent into madness, including Brando’s outrageous antics, poisonous spiders, and the total dissolution of confidence or control to make the film, among all involved. A vivid, hair-raising story of movie production as train-wreck, LOST SOUL is an evisceration of the morally corrupt Hollywood machine and an insightful look at one man’s personal reckoning.

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Release Date:	Feb 20, 2015
Running Time:	98 minutes
Country:	United States
Language:	English

synopsis

In the mid-1990s, cult director Richard Stanley (HARDWARE) set out to make his passion project, an adaptation of H. G. Wells’ famous story “The Island of Dr. Moreau,” with Marlon Brando as the titular megalomaniacal scientist. But things didn’t work out as planned. In this revealing behind-the-scenes look at the film’s making, director David Gregory takes us through the ill-fated project, from its rocky pre-production to its rockier production. LOST SOUL offers details about everything that went wrong, related by Stanley, studios executives, actors and crew people. While the film charts such Hollywood-style sensationalistic conflicts, including the clash of massive egos between stars Val Kilmer and Brando, it also chronicles Richard Stanley’s journey from the key creative figure on the film to being replaced by director John Frankenheimer and reduced to a mere extra in a monster costume, lurking in the background.