History Trivia / Sahara2005

* ShootTheMoney: Averted when a plane crash that took up 45 seconds of film time and cost $2 million to film was cut to make room for the ProductPlacement scenes.

** Meanwhile, on set, the costs of the tortured writing process were becoming apparent. Expensive action sequences, such as a $2 million plane crash, ultimately had to be cut from the finished film so that contracts with advertisers who had paid millions to have their products featured could be honored. The budget ballooned to twice its original size, well over $100 million. That meant despite winning its opening weekend and doing well otherwise despite poor reviews, the film would still lose money. Just as had happened with ''Raise the Titanic'', the Dirk Pitt [[StillbornFranchise franchise was again dead after one film]] (a sequel was canceled). Eisner has only directed two feature films since then, 2010's remake of Creator/GeorgeRomero's ''Film/{{The Crazies|2010}}'' and 2015's ''Film/TheLastWitchHunter''.

* CreatorBacklash: The second film based off a Clive Cussler novel after ''Raise the Titanic'' 25 years prior, and ultimately, a similar outcome minus killing a major production company: Cussler disowned the final product and legal waves emerged. Between these two films, there wasn't a single other adaptation of Cussler's work in his lifetime.

* BoxOfficeBomb: ''Sahara'' was made on a $241.1 million budget, which included the $81 million marketing and distribution campaign, it only grossed $119.3 million at the box office.

* BoxOfficeBomb: Budget, $241.1 million (this includes the $81 million marketing and distribution campaign). Box office, $119,269,486.

** The ''coup de grâce'' came two years later—when the film's full, 151-page line-item budget, entered as evidence in the lawsuits and supposedly confidential, was [[http://articles.latimes.com/2007/apr/15/business/fi-movie15 leaked to the ''Los Angeles Times'']]. This rare look into the detailed finances of a film, especially a notoriously expensive bomb, showed the production benefiting from cheap Moroccan labor and European tax credits on one hand, but wasting the money on a plane crash that was cut and paying Creator/PenelopeCruz's hairstylist and dialect coach over a quarter of a million dollars. More seriously though, it even included expenses for what were ''explicitly labeled'' as bribes to Moroccan officials. some of which may have violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

** After the mess that had been ''Film/RaiseTheTitanic'' 20 years earlier, Creator/CliveCussler always turned down offers to sell the film rights to ''any'' of his books, not just the Pitt ones. Until he was approached, just as he had been for that film, by a very rich outsider, in this case Philip Anschutz. A Denver billionaire who had parlayed his oil and gas fortune into a broad range of investments, he was also a strongly conservative Christian. One of his investments had been the Regal theater chain, the largest in the country, and like many successful film exhibitors he decided to put some of his money into productions. The Anschutz Film group sought to produce films that weren't R-rated and delivered [[AnAesop a strong moral message]]. Like Lew Grade in the 1970s, he saw the possibility for a film series in the Pitt books.

* StillbornFranchise: This film's production and lawsuit from Cussler crushed a Dirk Pitt movie series out of the gates AGAIN.

** After the mess that had been ''Film/RaiseTheTitanic'' 20 years earlier, Creator/CliveCussler had refused to sell the movie rights to ''any'' of his books, not just the Pitt ones. Until he was approached, just as he had been for that film, by a very rich outsider, in this case Philip Anschutz. A Denver billionaire who had parlayed his oil and gas fortune into a broad range of investments, he was also a strongly conservative Christian. One of his investments had been the Regal theater chain, the largest in the country, and like many successful film exhibitors he decided to put some of his money into productions. The Anschutz Film group sought to produce films that weren't R-rated and delivered [[AnAesop a strong moral message]]. Like Lew Grade in the 1970s, he saw the possibility for a film series in the Pitt books.

** Finally (or so they thought) a draft that the studio and the producers liked met with the approval of Rob Bowman, who had agreed to direct. But when the producers, whom he said never told him the extent of Cussler's creative authority, kept telling him Cussler disliked that version[[note]]because it dispensed with some of his favorite scenes[[/note]], he quit. Breck Eisner, son of Disney head Michael, replaced him. Despite his parentage and the familiarity it gave him with this kind of moviemaking, he had never directed a big-budget film himself. Strife over the script and casting continued, with Cussler later alleged to have used racist and antisemitic slurs to refer to some of the counterparties during arguments.

** After three years of this, filming finally got underway in London with a script credited to four writers. Cussler had had it by this point, and blasted the film on his latest Pitt book tour. Before it was even released he filed suit, alleging Anschutz and the other producers had never intended to honor their promise to give him creative control and deceived him all along. They, in turn, countersued, alleging he had promised to sabotage the film if they didn't use his script. Cussler lost, but some theater chains grew leery about booking the film (and that wouldn't be the end of the damage from that one—see below).

* CreatorBacklash: The second film based off a Clive Cussler novel after ''Raise the Titanic'' 25 years prior, and ultimately, a similar outcome minus killing a major production company: Cussler disowned the final product and legal waves emerged.

* CreatorKiller: This film and its infamous production shot down Breck Eisner's (the son of ex-Disney CEO Michael) career; he didn't direct another theatrically released film for 5 years and didn't do a tentpole again until ''The Last Witch Hunter'', and he hasn't attempted a film with a budget ''Sahara's'' size. The producers, who wound up in legal stormy weather with Cussler, also struggled for the rest of the decade.

** Meanwhile, on set, the costs of the tortured writing process were becoming apparent. Expensive action sequences, such as a $2 million plane crash, ultimately had to be cut from the finished film so that contracts with advertisers who had paid millions to have their products featured could be honored. The budget ballooned to twice its original size, well over $100 million. That meant despite winning its opening weekend and doing well otherwise despite poor reviews, the film would still lose money. Just as had happened with ''Raise the Titanic'', the Dirk Pitt [[StillbornFranchise franchise was again dead after one film]] (a sequel was canceled). Eisner has only directed two feature films since then, 2010's remake of Creator/GeorgeRomero's ''Film/TheCrazies'' and 2015's ''Film/TheLastWitchHunter''.

** And just as it had during ''Raise the Titanic'', that provision led to a huge and expensive revolving door of writers and directors. Cussler had written his own script, but clashed bitterly with every professional screenwriter brought in to polish or rework it, deriding them as hacks (the feeling was apparently mutual). Before long, 10 different writers had been paid almost $4 million for their services, without getting any closer to a script everyone was happy enough with to start filming (much less casting—Cussler actually bragged that he turned down TomCruise for the part as "too short").