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Making a motion picture is hard work under the best of circumstances. It's a collaborative process that requires careful, hopefully cordial coordination between an incredibly diverse array of craftspeople: directors, actors, writers, camera operators, designers, stunt people, electricians, carpenters, animal wranglers, and occasionally muppets. The degree of difficulty gets ratcheted up when you dare to shoot in less-than-welcoming elements like the water, the jungle, or the desert.

"Jaws," "Apocalypse Now," and "Lawrence of Arabia" are three of the greatest films ever made, but they were brutally difficult to pull together. Mother Nature's fury knocked all three of these well behind schedule. Sets were wrecked, equipment was damaged beyond repair and a mechanical shark refused to operate properly. Was it worth it? For the viewer, absolutely. You watch these movies and, in between breathtaking sequences, lament that they really couldn't be made in this risk-taking fashion nowadays. But one viewing of George Hickenlooper,...

What could possibly go wrong while shooting a movie with a reported 150 lions, tigers, jaguars, leopards, and elephants? After their 1969 trip to a nature preserve in Zimbabwe, married couple Noel Marshall and Tippi Hedren were inspired to make Roar, a 1981 film about a scientist and his family living in such an environment among wild animals. Perhaps they had never heard or decided to ignore the advice of entertainer W.C. Fields, who famously warned against the inherently difficult nature of working with animals on film. Regardless, Marshall and Hedren, along with their Roar cast and crew, would learn this lesson the hard way.

The film "Roar" is considered the most dangerous film ever made, with numerous injuries and financial ruin plaguing its production. The movie cost $17 million to make, but only earned $2 million, leading to the director and his wife having to sell off their assets to keep the project afloat. The injuries on set were numerous, with up to 70 crew members reportedly being injured, including the director being bitten by a lion and Melanie Griffith being mauled, leading to facial reconstructive surgery.

With the amount of work going into any production, disaster on set is inevitable. This has been highlighted time and time again with real-life tragedies, such as the infamous death of two child actors and Vic Morrow on the set of Twilight Zone: The Movie, to the lesser-known injuries that plagued Werner Herzog's Fitzcarraldo. Often, these instances are born from a combination of neglect and bad luck, resulting in...

Roar, a 1981 film, used real lions and resulted in multiple animal attacks, making it one of the most dangerous movies ever made. The cast and crew, including the cinematographer, experienced serious injuries, with reported 48 injuries within the first two years of filming. Roar is seen as an exploitation of animals, with some questioning whether these scenes should even be considered stunt work.

A stuntman reacts to Roar's use of real lions in a new video. Released in 1981, the film follows a family living on a nature preserve in Africa with lions. Noel Marshall starred alongside his real-life wife, The Birds star Tippi Hedren, her daughter Melanie Griffith, and his sons John and Jerry Marshall. Roar, which took a total of 11 years to complete production, infamously used real lions, which resulted in countless injuries, and was deemed one of the most dangerous movies ever made.

In the latest episode of Corridor Crew's "Stuntmen React" series,...

Sometimes you have to go through hell to make a great movie. Just ask Alexander Skarsgård, who said that the grueling shoot for Robert Eggers’ “The Northman” left him “so exhausted that you want to cry.”

Like “Jaws,” “Apocalypse Now,” and “Titanic” before it, “The Northman” overcame filming hardships to earn rave reviews, and the brutal production anecdotes only added to its legacy. But not every movie with a hellish production history can be so lucky. Just ask the casts and crews of films like “Heaven’s Gate” and “Waterworld,” who were put through hell only for their films to become notorious box office flops.

Movie shoots can be painful for myriad reasons: difficult actors, loopy directors, dangerous conditions, and even acts of God can impact what ends up on screen. Something that sounded like a good idea during pre-production (Noel Marshall’s idea to use real tigers and lions on “Roar” seemed awesome!

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In Universal’s Beast, out Aug. 19, Idris Elba is hunted by a ferocious lion. That creature is entirely computer-generated. But in 1981’s Roar, the beasts mauling Tippi Hedren, daughter Melanie Griffith (then 19) and the rest of the cast were real.

Often cited as the most dangerous film production of all time, Roar began in 1969, when Hedren — who’d starred in Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds — was filming in Mozambique, accompanied by then-husband Noel Marshall. They stumbled on an abandoned plantation house that had been overrun by a pride of lions. Their guide told them the local wildlife was becoming endangered by poaching, and, to encourage conservation, the couple decided to make a film about wild animals and humans cohabitating in harmony.

Back in L.A., they consulted animal trainers, who told them the number of big cats they wanted to put onscreen — they...

No animals were harmed in the making of “Beast.” Frankly, it doesn’t look like any animals were even used in the making of “Beast,” but if you can get past the idea that the two-ton lion threatening Idris Elba and his family in the movie is a singularly frightening combination of ones and zeros, not killer instinct and claws, then “Beast” is a blast.

A white-knuckle “When Animals Attack!” movie in the tradition of “Jaws” and “Anaconda,” this big-budget, big-screen release features A-list actors — Ok, actor, singular — and a director who knows what he’s doing: Icelandic ace Baltasar Kormákur, who cut his teeth on such nightmare-inducing man-against-nature films as “Everest” and “Adrift.” Here, the threat is a very big, very angry African cat, understandably agitated after a group of poachers slaughtered his pride, that has decided to kill every human that crosses his path. Seriously, the body count...

Hollywood has had its fair share of historically troubled productions. Whether it was casting changes, actor deaths, fired directors, in-production rewrites, constant delays, budget cuts, or studio edits, these films had every intention to be a blockbuster but were beset with unforeseen disasters. Sometimes huge hits, sometimes box office bombs. This week's movie, Roar, is a disaster anyway you slice it. The passion project of Noel Marshall, who stars alongside his real-life wife (at the…...

Chicago – Both the Music Box Theatre and the Gene Siskel Film Center have continued their at-home screenings, due to the physical theaters having to close during the pandemic quarantine. Below are the updates to their current offerings.

Music Box Theatre Presents Porno, Roar, Someone Somewhere, What She Said

Roar

Photo credit: MusicBoxTheatre.com

The Music Box Theatre will get a percentage of the proceeds from any screening. Click site link below for details.

Scheduled: Now until the theater re-opens.

Description: Porno involves group of seemingly wholesome young movie theatre employees are tempted and terrorized by a sex demon. And, when the five teen employees discover a mysterious old film hidden in its basement, they unleash an alluring succubus who gives them a sex education … written in blood.

Roar has emerged as a popular cult film. Released in 1981, it features Hank (Noel Marshall), who lives in a multi-wild-animal preserve (including lions and tigers) in Africa.

With streaming dominating the industry — and suddenly becoming the “new normal” in a changing world — IndieWire is taking a closer look at the news cycle, breaking down what really matters to provide a clear picture of what companies are winning the streaming wars, and how they’re pulling ahead.

By looking at trends and the latest developments, Streaming Wars Report: Indie Edition offers a snapshot of what’s happening overall and day-to-day in streaming for the indie set. Check out the latest Streaming Wars Report for updates to the bigger players in the industry.

More from IndieWireDisney+ Sets Another Live-Action Remake with 'Robin Hood'New Movies: Release Calendar for April 10, Plus Where to Watch the Latest Films Buzzy Originals

Virtual Cinemas Are Packed With New Films, but Older Libraries Run Deeper

While the biggest story in the streaming world has undoubtedly been the rapid pivot to “virtual cinemas” and “theatrical at home” experiences in recent weeks,...

A vanity project from Tippi Hedren and her husband Noel Marshall, this 1981 thriller about a family under attack by angry jungle creatures was dubbed “the most dangerous movie ever made” thanks to numerous animal injuries suffered by cast and crew. That bruised and bloodied bunch included Hedren’s daughter Melanie Griffith and 70 other crew members who were, in the words of Richard Dreyfuss, “lining up to be a hot lunch”.

Hollywood loves hyperbole, but when it comes to talking about Noel Marshall’s wild “Roar,” it’s hard to overstate just how crazy, dangerous, and just plain nuts the film’s production was.

For 11 years, producer-director Marshall; his wife, the actress Tippi Hedren; and their children, including then-fledging actress Melanie Griffith, lived, ate and slept in the company of 150 lions, tigers, cheetahs, and jaguars. (Yes, this sounds like a bad enough idea already, but wait for it.) Eventually, Marshall and Hedren came up with the idea to use their own life — and cats! — as the basis for a film meant to bolster their love for animal conversation. It did not work out very well.

Read More: ‘Roar’: Tippi Hedren Reveals How Many People Were Actually Hurt While Filming Legendarily Insane Movie

The film’s shoot was plagued from the start, both by financial difficulties (Marshall and Hedren sold almost everything they had to finance it), and a series of horrific, seemingly random plagues, including floods, wildfire, and disease. And that’s to say nothing of the injuries.

When Drafthouse Films re-released the film back in 2015, the forward-thinking distributor sold the feature with a canny (and true) tagline: “No animals were harmed in the making of this movie. 70 members of the cast and crew were.”

As IndieWire detailed at the time: “Some of the injuries sustained in the course of production: cinematographer Jan de Bont was scalped, requiring 220 stitches; Griffith was mauled by a lion, which required facial reconstructive surgery; an A.D. narrowly escaped death when a lion missed his jugular by an inch; Hedren, who was also attacked by birds on the set of ‘The Birds,’ endured a fractured leg and multiple scalp wounds; and Marshall himself was wounded so many times that he was hospitalized with gangrene.”

Read More: ‘Holy F*cking Sh*t’ Discovery of ‘Roar,’ the Most Dangerous Movie Ever Made

Those injuries and upheavals are just part of the upcoming behind-the-scenes documentary, “Roar: The Most Dangerous Movie Ever Made,” which dives deep into the film’s troubled production, complete with exclusive interviews and never-before-seen footage. “Roar,” it seems is still dangerous, and now there’s even more of it.

In our exclusive clip, various cast and crew members (including Marshall’s son John, who starred in the film) detail the circumstances surrounding perhaps the most notorious injury to happen during production: the scalping of de Pont at the hands (paws) of some very angry big cats. Check it out below.

“Roar: The Most Dangerous Movie Ever Made” will debut on Animal Planet (too good) on Saturday, June 24 at 10Pm Et.

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Although there’s no shortage of regional film festivals throughout the year, few — if any — are better curated than the Maryland Film Festival. With a slate organized by Director of Programming Eric Allen Hatch, the downtown Baltimore festival, which takes place from May 3-7, offers the finest in independent and international cinema of the past year, as well as some of our most-anticipated world premieres.

Now in its 19th year, we’re pleased to debut the full line-up for the 6-screen festival, and can exclusively reveal that Brett Haley‘s The Hero (one of our favorite films from Sundance) will be the Closing Night film. World premiering at the festival is Stephen Cone‘s Princess Cyd, his follow-up to one of last year’s finest films, Henry Gamble’s Birthday Party, along with Josh Crockett‘s Dr. Brinks & Dr. Brinks.

We can also exclusively reveal the Opening Night Shorts — 5 short...

Keep up with the always-hopping film festival world with our weekly Film Festival Roundup column. Check out last week’s Roundup right here.

Lineup Announcements

– Cardiff Animation Nights will be returning to run a dedicated animation strand at Cardiff Independent Film Festival (C.I.F.F.) for a second year this May. This year’s animation strand at C.I.F.F. will comprise three programs of animated short films in competition for the Best Animation Award, as well as an Animated Family Shorts program curated by renowned Cardiff-based studio Cloth Cat Animation, networking events, and an Animation Quiz run by the team at Skwigly Animation Magazine.

The competition program features animated short films from across Europe, Asia, North America, South America and Australia, including Mikey Hill’s The Orchestra, Anete Melece’s Analysis Paralysis, Chris Shepherd’s Johnno’s Dead, Ross Hogg’s Life Cycles and Alois Di Leo’s Way of Giants.

In the flurry of year-end lists and awards that greet us every December, one always stands out: John Waters’, which appears annually in Artforum. The cult filmmaker has once again shared his top-10 list, which is led this year by “Krisha,” a “hilariously harrowing portrait of a family reunion ruined by an alcoholic relative and too many dogs” that the “Pink Flamingos” director says is “told with verve and lunacy.”

Read More: John Waters Talks Trump and the Election Results With Colbert on ‘The Late Show’

ALso making the cut: an “exceptional piece of investigative reporting” (“Tickled”), “the best accidentally gay movie ever made by a known heterosexual director” (“Everybody Wants Some!!”) and two featuring “the best actress in the whole wide world” (“Elle” and “Valley of Love”). Find the full list below, and read all of Waters’ comments at Artforum.

Read More: John Waters on ‘Multiple Maniacs,’ His Favorite...

The best of 2016 lists keep on coming and today we have what is certainly the most eclectic. As he does every year, John Waters has named his favorite films of the last 12 months. Ranging from the ultra-obscure to the arthouse to one studio feature, it’s another varied batch of movies to either put on your radar or revisit. Topping the list is one of the year’s most overlooked films, Trey Edward Shults‘ debut Krisha, which he calls, “hilariously harrowing.”

Also on the list is Richard Linklater‘s Everybody Wants Some!! (“the best accidentally gay movie ever made by a known heterosexual director”), Todd Solondz‘s Wiener Dog (“nasty, blunt, rude, and full of hideous surprises”), Paul Verhoeven‘s Elle, Pedro Almodóvar‘s Julieta (“If Hitchcock had actually understood women, might he not have made this serious and absolutely stunning hellodrama about female longing and loneliness?”), and more.

Check out...

Noel Marshall’s legendarily wild and totally bonkers movie “Roar” has long been billed as one of the most dangerous movies ever made (if not the most dangerous), thanks to its use of a multitude of wild big cats, many of which have been blamed for harming scads of cast and crew. Marshall and his then-wife Tippi Hedren made the film back in the late seventies, casting their own family, including Hedren’s daughter Melanie Griffith and Marshall’s sons Jerry and John, as a clan terrorized by a pack of seemingly domesticated lions and tigers, oh my. (And the big cats? Those were theirs, too.)

For years, rumors have persisted that 70 people were injured during the film’s spectacularly ill-fated shoot — when Drafthouse re-released the film in 2015, they used that number to frame up their catchy tagline: “No animals were harmed in the making of this movie. 70 members of the cast and crew were.

Some people choose dogs as their pet of choice, others choose lions. While Melanie Griffith was in high school in the 1970s, she and her family owned a pet lion (seriously). Griffith's mother Tippi Hendren and stepfather Noel Marshall decided to make a film about big cats after a trip to Africa, and an animal trainer encouraged them to welcome a lion into their home in order to gain a better knowledge of what they're actually like. The result was a male lion named Neil who resided with Griffith's family. Their life with Neil was well documented by Life magazine, which revealed the family's everyday life. There are photos of Hendren resting on Neil's back while reading. There are photos of...

Across her diverse filmography, Blake Lively has hung tough against the menaces of gun-toting criminals (The Town, Hick, Savages), mean rich teens (Gossip Girl), aging (The Age of Adaline), moving away from your friends (the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants films), and being in Green Lantern (Green Lantern). Yet her latest project — the watery survival flick The Shallows — will pit the actress against her deadliest foe yet. After a surfing incident strands the starlet on a solitary outcropping of rock, a hungry shark encircles her as the tide rises. Teen soap opera alumna vs.

Cinema Retro has received the following press release from Olive Films regarding the incredible 1981 film "Roar":

Thursday, June 16 at 7 pm Central Time (8 pm Et), Olive Films is treating fans to another installment of Spoiler Alert!

Actor/filmmaker John Marshall joins us to discuss his most infamous project, Noel Marshall's Roar (1981), "the most dangerous film ever made."

Moderator Steve Prokopy of Ain't It Cool News will ask your questions live on air. If you have a question you would like to hear answered, send it to fans@olivefilms.com.

You won't want to miss what is sure to be an unforgettable interview! You can tune in through our Youtube page or our Google Plus page.

To summarize...

What: Spoiler Alert with John Marshall

When: Thursday, June 16 @ 8Pm Est/7Pm Cst

Where: Click here to access Olive Film's You Tube event page

Produced over the course of ten years, Roar is an audacious cinematic experiment: a thriller showcasing the majesty and ferocity of African lions, filmed on location amidst dozens of actual untrained cats. Photographed by Jan De Bont (d.p. of Die Hard and director of Speed), the result is a spectacular achievement—though often terrifying to watch—as actors (not stunt men) flee, wrestle, and come face-to-face with the massive hunters.

Writer/director Noel Marshall stars as Hank, a doctor and outspoken naturalist in Africa who allows lions, tigers, cheetahs, and other big cats to roam freely around his remote estate. While away protecting animals from poachers, Hank’s family—including Marshall’s real-life wife and daughter, Tippi Hedren (The Birds) and Melanie Griffith (Working Girl)—arrive at his home and are stalked by the massive lions that have overrun the house.

Not surprisingly, many members of the cast and crew suffered injuries during the making of the film though care was taken to ensure that no animals were harmed. Since filming Roar, Hedren has become an advocate for the protection of big cats, founding the Roar Foundation and the Shambala Preserve.

Well, another year spent in the company of classic cinema curated by the TCM Classic Film Festival has come and gone, leaving me with several great experiences watching favorite films and ones I’d never before seen, some already cherished memories, and the usual weary bag of bones for a body in the aftermath. (I usually come down with something when I decompress post-festival and get back to the working week, and this year has been no exception.) There have now been seven TCMFFs since its inaugural run in 2010. I’ve been lucky enough to attend them all, and this time around I saw more movies than I ever have before—18 features zipping from auditorium to queue and back to auditorium like a gerbil in a tube maze. In order to make sure I got in to see everything I wanted to see, I had to make sure I was...

I live in Los Angeles, and my residency here means that a lot of great film programming-- revival screenings, advance looks at upcoming releases and vital, fascinating glimpses at unheralded, unexpected cinema from around the world—is available to me on a week-by-week basis. But I’ve never been to Cannes. Toronto, Tribeca, New York, Venice, Berlin, Sundance, SXSW, these festivals are all events that I have yet to be lucky enough to attend, and I can reasonably expect that it’s probably going to stay that way for the foreseeable future. I never attended a film festival of any kind until I made my way to the outskirts of the Mojave Desert for the Lone Pine Film Festival in 2006, which was its own kind of grand adventure, even if it wasn’t exactly one for bumping shoulders with critics, stars and fanatics on the French Riviera.

But since 2010 there...

The sole directorial outing of Noel Coward arrives on Blu-ray, the infamously troubled production, Roar. The 1981 film received a limited theatrical re-release earlier this year thanks to distribution from Drafthouse Films, which managed to take in over a hundred thousand for the initially maligned film, repackaged as ‘the most dangerous movie ever made.’ Though questionable as an actual piece of filmmaking, it is one of those rare jaw dropping accomplishments, an actual occasion for otherwise hyperbolized language. The lack of narrative hardly matters since you’ll be distracted nearly every single moment as you wonder what the hell everyone was thinking when they made the film.

If you don’t recognize Marshall’s name (this stands as his only directorial effort), it’s because he was actually the husband (initially agent) of actress Tippi Hedren, and they conceived the idea of the film eleven years prior while working on another film set in Africa.

My original plan was to publish a list of my ten most anticipated films screening at the Fantasia Film Festival but considering the incredible line-up this year, I find it near impossible to narrow it down to only ten. So instead I’ve decided to select one movie a day, or better yet, the movie that you should choose if you only had time for one.

Day 1. Tangerine

Christmas Eve in Tinseltown!

If you’re not familiar with director Sean Baker start taking notes. The man is a genius and one of the best indie American filmmakers working today. In Starlet, Baker spun an unlikely friendship between a young porn actress and an old lady in the San Fernando Valley. In Prince of Broadway, he chronicled the struggles of a hustler balancing fatherhood while working in New York’s wholesale district. Baker’s work avoids labels by refusing to adhere...

Montreal’s genre film festival to showcase 135 features and almost 300 shorts across its three-week run from July 14-Aug 4.Scroll down for line-up

Fantasia International Film Festival has unveiled its full line-up for its upcoming 19th edition which kicks off next Tuesday [July 14].

Over its three-week run, the Montreal-based genre film festival will showcase 135 features, including 22 world, 13 international premieres and 21 North American premieres, and almost 300 short films.

Shinji Higuchi’s Attack on Titan will receive its Canadian premiere as the closing film of this year’s edition on Aug 4. The live-action film is based on Hajime Isyama’s steampunk fantasy war opera manga series.

Additional highlights of the final wave of titles include the world premieres of Malik Bader’s thriller Cash Only and Ken Ochiai’s Ninja the Monster, as well as the Canadian premiere of Jonathan Milott & Cary Murnion’s horror comedy Cooties starring Elijah Wood.

A trio of Sion Sono films will also be shown at this...

The 19th Annual Fantasia Film Festival is only a week away, beginning July 14 and running through August 4. And as promised for today, they’ve revealed their full line-up of films screening at 2015’s festival in Montreal.

This year’s line-up boasts 22 World Premieres, 13 International Premieres, and 21 North American Premieres. Both Marvel’s Ant-Man and the animated Miss Hokusai were previously announced, but now they’ve added the much anticipated Attack on Titan movie as their closing night film. Other highlights include the Sundance darlings Cooties, starring Elijah Wood and Rainn Wilson, Cop Car, starring Kevin Bacon and directed by the upcoming Spider-man director Jon Watts, and a trio of films from horror auteur Sion Sono.

See the full line-up announcement of films below via Fantasia’s Facebook page, and be sure to check out their website at fantasiafestival.com for additional information.

****

Fantasia 2015:

36 Countries, 135 Features, and Nearly 300 Short Films

- Including 22 World Premieres,...

There is a case to be made for home movies as the purest form of cinema. It’s folly, of course, to pit films against one another based on the circumstances under which they were made; to argue what is realer, and thus more valid, than the other. In a camera’s lens, especially, the lines of truth and lies blur and overlap. It’s just that in what we believe to be reality the stakes are always higher, the emotions elevated. One of the first films ever made, the Lumière brothers’ L'arrivée d'un train à La Ciotat, was a succinct 56 seconds that depicted the arrival of a train at its station in Lyon, France. When it was first shown to the public it was the audience’s virgin film-viewing experience, and it was reported that many were frightened by the illusion that the train was coming straight for them.

Ewan McGregor, Jane Seymour, Malcolm McDowell and Hong Kong director Johnnie To among the guests set to attend the festival.Scroll down for competition titles

The line-up for the 69th Edinburgh International Film Festival (Eiff) has been unveiled this morning by new artistic director Mark Adams.

This year’s Eiff (June 17-28) will comprise 164 features from 36 countries, including 24 world premieres, eight international premieres, 16 European premieres and 84 UK premieres.

Highlights including the UK premiere of Asif Kapadia’s documentary Amy, about the life of singer Amy Winehouse; the latest Disney-Pixar animation Inside Out; Arnold Schwarzenegger in zombie drama Maggie; comedy The D-Train, starring Jack Black and James Marsden; and a biopic of The Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson, Love & Mercy, in which John Cusack and Paul Dano play different aged versions of the musician.

Classic Screenings will include a rare outing for Noel Marshall’s Roar, a cult 1981 big cat movie.

Star power

This year’s Eiff will present...

Roar is, without question, the cinematic rediscovery of 2015. A movie made with little regard for anybody’s safety (as the tagline goes: “No animals in were harmed in the making – over 70 members of the cast and crew were!”), it’s the result of pure psychosis on the part of then power couple Noel Marshall…

The post Top Ten: Animals Attack! Movies appeared first on Shock Till You Drop.

Roar

Written & Directed by Noel Marshall

USA, 1981

Watching 1981’s notorious nature thriller, Roar, is like subjecting yourself to a psychological experiment. Unbelievable images evoke reactions ranging from horror to hilarity, sometimes within the same scene. Director Noel Marshall infuses his disastrous passion project with so much sincerity, however, that this weird little morsel must be savored like the cinematic singularity that it is. There will never be another film like Roar. Really, it’s much safer that way… for everyone.

The real-life family of writer-director Noel Marshall (who plays ‘Hank’) lived amongst 100 ‘big cats’ (including lions, tigers, cougars, leopards and jaguars) for over 11 years and exhausted millions of dollars to make Roar. He and then wife, Tippi Hedren (as ‘Madelaine’), transformed their California estate into a makeshift sanctuary, allowing the massive predators to roam freely in the same house as their three children, Melanie (Griffith), Jerry and John. For the film’s threadbare plot,...

Often times people watch a movie and wonder to themselves, "Who thought this was a good ideac" Usually, this thought is given to films that are incompetently put together or just dumb plot ideas. Rarely does that thought come up because of the safety of the entire cast and crew. This brings me to Roar, a movie where husband/wife duo of Noel Marshall and Tippi Hedren set out to make a film showcasing the plight and beauty of African big cats, and things... went a little awry. The cast and crew had to endure over seventy bloody attacks from the animals, which resulted in injuries ranging from director of photography Jan de Bont being scalped (resulting in 120 stitches) and Melanie Griffith needing facial reconstructive surgery. The film itself wants to have a light touch, but the entire time you are on edge knowing all of these people are really getting hurt.

We Bought a Zoo: Marshall’s Early Eighties Oddity Resurrected

In the annals of cinema, there are very few examples of entire film productions resulting in an end product that begs the question, “What were they thinking?” from the first to last reel. One such example, however, is Noel Marshall’s 1981 film Roar, featuring a plagued filming schedule from conception to theatrical release that tends to overshadow the actual product, which concerns a family being terrorized by a ferocious assortment of big, wild felines. If you don’t recognize Marshall’s name (this stands as his only directorial effort to date), it’s because he was actually the husband (initially agent) of actress Tippi Hedren, and they conceived the idea of the film eleven years prior while working on another film set in Africa. Fascinating in the sense of what the film crew was able to actually accomplish, but...

While I was waiting for the screening of "Unfriended," I was sitting with some friends and the conversation turned to "Roar", as it often does if I'm involved right now. After all, if there is any film being released theatrically this year that deserves to be obsessed over, it is "Roar." This oddity from 1971 was rediscovered by Tim League and the rest of the amazing Drafthouse Films team, and they're releasing it in limited markets starting this Friday. I've written my review of the movie, and I mean it sincerely when I say that the pull quote they used from me in the trailer for the film is one of the proudest moments of my entire career writing about movies. What makes the film special? Why have I seen it five times and I'm still willing to drive from Anaheim to Sherman Oaks after a long day at Celebration just...

A normal movie ends with the American Humane Association's assurance that "No animals were harmed." But Tippi Hedren's doomed 1981 obsession Roar isn't normal. The Aha's seal is the first thing on screen — yet, if the authorities had a safety code for humans, Roar would fail. This odd, slight, and near-deadly tribute to nature wound up as a mad masterpiece of mankind's folly. And this re-release feels kind of like stumbling across the giant heads of Easter Island. You're fascinated more by the how, what, and why than the actual artistic result. So much sweat and pain, for this?

In 1971, Hedren, her producer husband Noel Marshall, and their four kids (Marshall's sons and Hedren's teen daughter Melanie Griffith) decided to adopt a lion. Ten years later, ...

When Drafthouse Films announced that it had acquired Roar for distribution, and that the 1981 feature would have a limited theatrical run in Austin, I couldn't help but take the opportunity to write about the film taglined "the most dangerous movie ever made."

Roar tells the story of Hank (Noel Marshall), who lives on a game preserve with a variety of wild animals including lions and cheetahs. When his wife Madelaine (Tippi Hedren) and children (including Hedren's real-life daughter Melanie Griffith) come to stay, the question of whether humans and wild animals can co-exist is put to the test with highly gripping results.

Not many people know about Roar today except for a handful of film enthusiasts. For them, Roar exists as one of the most problem-plagued productions in cinematic history, rivaling the likes of both Heaven's Gate (1980) and Cleopatra (1963) in terms of behind-the-scenes catastrophe. Factors such as financial issues, intense...

Ever since Drafthouse Films decided to re-release an old 1981 film called Roar, folks have been buzzing. Billed as one of the most dangerous movies ever made, this crazy long-lost experiment -- directed by Noel Marshall and starring Tippi Hedren and Melanie Griffith -- is unlike any movie you've ever seen.  Why? Well, maybe the 100 real-life wild animals (most of them lions) has a little something to do with it. Don't believe us? Here's the trailer.   So what in the world is this movie, where did it come from and when can you see it? While out in Austin during SXSW, we caught up with Drafthouse Films honcho Tim League and grilled him on a movie that's so insane and over-the-top, it's hard to believe it's even real.  Check out what...

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Ever since Drafthouse Films decided to rerelease an old 1981 film called Roar, folks have been buzzing. Billed as one of the most dangerous movies ever made, this crazy long-lost experiment directed by Noel Marshall and starring Tippi Hedren and Melanie Griffith is unlike any movie you've ever seen.  Why? Well, maybe the 100 real-life wild animals (most of them lions) has a little something to do with it. Don't believe us? Here's the trailer.  ...

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Gene Siskel once posed the question, is this movie more interesting than a documentary about how they made it? The snuff film Roar from 1981 might be a good candidate. It’s about humans living among and caring for lions in the jungle and how eventually a battle between the lions turns life-threatening for the humans.

Yes, real lions. I’ll pay to watch that.

In fact, the film was so dangerous, 70 actors and members of the crew were seriously harmed and injured during production, but none of the animals were harmed during the film’s making.

Roar stars Tippi Hedren (The Birds), Melanie Griffith (Working Girl), and the film’s director Noel Marshall. Marshall produced The Exorcist, but he never acted in, directed, or wrote another film following Roar. Maybe the fact that he was mauled on set and took several years to fully recover had something to do with it.

In production for 11 years, real life couple Tippi Hedren and Noel Marshall, along with Hedren's daughter Melanie Griffith, shot an animal epic for the ages right in their own backyard. Packed wall to wall with Marshall's wild tigers, lions (but no bears it seems), Roar is the end result: a film I can't really fathom exists. Yes, the above vintage promo from the film's original 1981 release is cute. This new trailer for Drafthouse Films' April 17 re-release is most certainly not. ...

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Are you ready for not just one of the craziest movies ever made, but quite possible the most dangerous in the history of cinema? Drafthouse Films has partnered with Olive Films to release Noel Marshall's sole, and career-derailing, directorial effort, the notorious 1981 family affair with big cats, Roar. The film will have a limited theatrical release across the Us this spring and will be available on Blu-ray, DVD and On Demand platforms later this summer. We have the new trailer for this rerelease, but be warned, it's not for the squeamish!

An unprecedented, and wholly unpredictable, action-adventure, Roar follows wildlife preservationist Hank (Noel Marshall), who lives harmoniously alongside a menagerie of untamed animals, including cheetahs, elephants, lions and tigers on a preservation in the African plains. When his wife and children arrive for a visit, a long-brewing battle for dominance between two lions erupts and threatens their very lives.

Roar is a movie so filled with spectacularly bad ideas, it's insane that anyone made it yet alone survived it. It would be impossible, and surely illegal, for anyone to ever make a movie like it again. Even just watching it feels dangerous, like you're always seconds away from some ghastly tragedy you will never be able to unsee, but that you simply cannot look away from. So what is Roar? It's a movie from 1981 made by The Exorcist producer Noel Marshall and his wife Tippi Hedren (The Birds) with the intent of raising awareness for the need to protect wild animals, like lions and tigers and jaguars. And how do you raise awareness for something? By putting a bunch of people's lives in danger, of course.* Roar was filmed entirely using real lions, tigers...

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Read More: Drafthouse Films Acquires '80s Cult Classic 'Roar,' Plans Theatrical Release If you've ever wanted to watch an absurd amount of lion vs. human hijinks, you're in luck. In 1981, a ridiculous film by the name of "Roar" was released in Australia, and now it's making its (long overdue?) re-release in the U.S.  The tagline for the film is "There's never been a film like "Roar." And there never will be again!" It's lived up to that for over 20 years. The film has a simple but horrifyingly oddball premise: lions terrorize the inhabitants of a small town. Judging from the trailer, it's a crazy dose of lion shenanigans.  "Roar" lunges back into theaters on April 17. The film is directed by Noel Marshall, and stars Tippi Hedren of "The Birds."  Read More: Drafthouse Films Acquires Brit Marling Western 'The Keeping Room'...

There is dedication to cinematic authenticity, and then there is utterly foolhardy filmmaking. The folks behind the 1981 cult flick "Roar" definitely fall in the latter category. Today comes the bonkers trailer for the re-release of the film, which arrives via Drafthouse Films and Olive Films, and you really have to see to believe it. The short version of the story goes something like this: after shooting a film in Africa, Tippi Hedren and her husband/manager Noel Marshall wanted to raise awareness about the overhunting of wild lions, tigers and jaguars, as well as the problems facing keeping those animals in captivity. The couple decided that a making a movie would do the trick, but upon learning that big cats have a pack mentality, they chose to raise a bunch of the animals in their Los Angeles home. Eventually there were over 100 animals in their home, and it was at...

Lions, tigers and Tippi Hedren, oh my! Some of you may have heard of this film, but many others probably not. Roar is a one-of-a-kind film made by producer Noel Marshall who both stars in and directs this film featuring many of the actual lions (and tigers) owned by Marshall and real-life wife, actress Tippi Hedren. "For six years, Hedren and her daughter—the emerging young actress, Melanie Griffith—along with Marshall and his three sons lived, slept and ate with a growing pride of lions inside their home." (Read more on the story here.) It was originally released in 1982, but didn't earn that much, so Drafthouse Films has decided to re-release it in 2015 and here's their trailer for it. It kind of looks awesome. The quotes in this really sell it, just about how dangerous and unbelievable it looks, but I still can't wait to see it. A must see!

Drafthouse Films recently partnered with Olive Films to offer audiences a re-release director Noel Marshall 1981 film Raor with plans for an upcoming limited theatrical release across the Us this spring followed by a Blu-ray, DVD and On Demand platforms release later this summer. What is Roarc I didn't know before the press release last month, but here's Drafthouse's Tim League's lengthy and fascinating description: Roar began while Tippi Hedren star of Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds and her husband/manager Noel Marshall were shooting in Africa. After wrapping production they toured several safari wildlife preserves and were struck by the scene of an abandoned plantation house overrun by a large pride of lions. The image took root and inspired the epic eleven-year journey to create Roar. Hedren and Marshall quickly became devoted to raising awareness about the overhunting of wild lions, tigers and jaguars, as well as the inhumane treatment of big cats in captivity.

"Roar" feels like Walt Disney decided to make a snuff version of "Swiss Family Robinson." It may be the single most irresponsible thing I've ever seen as a movie, and I have seen it three times now. I may watch it again tonight. I am that fascinated by this record of absolute madness. Drafthouse Films has done a great job of picking up worthy new films for release, starting with "Four Lions," but they've also displayed a knack for turning up some fascinating curios, forgotten films that might otherwise never get their moment. "The Visitor" was a great example, a deranged mix of religious allegory and post-"Star Wars" blockbuster mania. One of the highlights of this year's Fantastic Fest was a screening of a film called "The Astrologer," a self-financed vanity project that defied any easy description, and I was disappointed to learn that there are copyright issues that...

When actress Tippi Hedren and her manager/husband Noel Marshall decided to devote their lives to creating a sanctuary for big cats in Africa, they were told lions refuse to live together unless they are raised together. So Hedren and Marshall did what any logical, reasonable couple would do: they raised over 100 lions in their home in Beverly Hills, where they lived with their children. This adventure is documented in 1981's "Roar," a critical and box-office disaster that has since gained notoriety and something of a cult following as a real-life thriller. It also features a young Melanie Griffith. The movie is full of surprises. And tigers. Tim League, founder of Drafthouse Films, said, "You’ve never seen a movie like 'Roar' and there will never, ever be a movie like 'Roar' again. We are extremely proud to expose 'Roar' to a whole new audience and salute its...

Drafthouse Films has partnered with Olive Films to release Noel Marshall’s sole directorial effort, notorious 1981 film maudit "Roar" starring Tippi Hedren, Melanie Griffith and over 150 lions, tigers and other untamed animals. The film will have a limited theatrical release this Spring and will be available on Blu-ray, DVD and VOD later this summer. (Original trailer below.) "Roar" follows wildlife preservationist Hank (Marshall), who lives harmoniously alongside a menagerie of untamed animals, including cheetahs, elephants, lions and tigers on a preservation in the African plains. When his wife and children arrive for a visit, a long-brewing battle for dominance between two lions erupts and threatens their lives. Set in Africa and produced by Hedren, the film was in production for 11 years, cost $17 million and ended up netting only about $2 million worldwide. Hedren would go on to co-write "Cats of Shambala" about her experience. Over 70 attacks...

American actress' experience of felines comes in handy as she co-stars with her mother Tippi Hedren and 150 wild animals in the film Roar

They are calling Roar the animal film to end all animal films and after watching it, you feel you should be interviewing a tiger. It stars Tippi Hedren (of Marnie and The Birds fame) and her husband Noel Marshall, her daughter Melanie Griffith and two of his sons - and the 150 "wild" animals who share their ranch home in California. Only the human branch of the family made it over here to launch the film, while the cats keep house back home.

Melanie Griffith grew up with big cats. "I was 13 when Noel got his first lion. I've raised ten myself." But even she had some qualms about the making of Roar; a variant-of-life story in which a scientist shares his house in Africa with a pride of lions,...

London, Mar 23: 'The Birds' star Tippi Hedren has revealed that Alfred Hitchcock had become dangerously obsessed with her during his 40-year career.

She also claims that Hitchcock's blondes lived in fear of the 'sadistic' director.

Hedren, a former model, was then 34 and more than 30 years his junior, the Daily Mail reported.

She had a six-year-old daughter - now the movie star Melanie Griffith - and was about to get married to a second husband, her agent Noel Marshall.

But Hitchcock, despite knowing this, had become fixated with Hedren.

He had started to bombard her with crude sexual overtures, and had cruelly.