Top 10 Movies With a Doomed Cast but We Didn't Know at the Time

Spun-off from author J.K. Rowling’s “Harry Potter” franchise, the first installment of the “Fantastic Beasts” trilogy was a box office success. Since its 2016 release, though, three of its key creatives have been mired in controversy. Johnny Depp’s domestic violence allegations and viral court cases related to his marriage to Amber Heard made him persona non grata. Mads Mikkelsen later replaced him as Grindelwald. Ezra Miller, who played the villainous Credence Barebone, became the subject of scandal due to a series of crimes committed between 2020 and 2022. Not only that, but original author and co-screenwriter J.K. Rowling has been under fire for increasingly inflammatory comments directed at transgender people. Cumulatively, it leaves a cloud over the movie.

During the old Hollywood era, Clark Gable, Marilyn Monroe, and Montgomery Clift were among the biggest stars imaginable. This 1961 western about a recent divorcée who befriends two cowboys starred all three. The movie was a pain to make, but the premature deaths of its three stars have tarnished the film to many. 59-year-old Gable died of a heart attack less than two weeks after the movie finished filming. Monroe passed away the year following its release. She was only 36. Clift, who had become dependent on painkillers after a 1956 car accident, suffered a career slowdown before passing away in 1966 at the age of 45.

This deeply philosophical science fiction movie from Soviet master filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky sees three men venturing into a ruinous land called the Zone. The Zone is startling to look at, but even more startling is that its ruinous and surreal look needed little dressing up. Defunct hydropower facilities in Estonia stood in for this mysterious place out of time. Years afterward, a sound designer on the film insisted that actor Anatoly Solonitsyn’s fatal cancer was due to shooting downriver from chemical dumping. Solonitsyn died of lung cancer at 47. It was the same type of cancer that also claimed the lives of director Tarkovsky and his wife, Larisa.

Russell Brand reprised his role as audacious rock star Aldous Snow in this raucous comedy that has not aged well for several reasons. The first is Brand himself. The comedian received heat for spreading conspiracy theories during the COVID-19 pandemic. More damning was when several sexual assault allegations against him were extensively investigated and published by Channel 4 and The Sunday Times. Co-star T.J. Miller would become the subject of his own scandal when a misconduct allegation came to light in 2017. Sean “Diddy” Combs appears in the film as an egoistic, rageful music executive. Given the various and increasingly disturbing bombshells in the 2024 investigation against Combs, it makes his appearance in the movie hard to view now.

Kenneth Branagh’s “Murder on the Orient Express” follow-up originally had a 2019 release date. Post-production and the ongoing pandemic pushed it nearly three years, but a lot had changed since then. Star Armie Hammer was embroiled in a career-ending sexting and abuse scandal involving some bizarre and truly outlandish preferences. Gal Gadot had become a laughing stock due to her cringeworthy Instagram video featuring her and other celebrities singing “Imagine” when COVID lockdowns began. Letitia Wright was under fire for sharing conspiracy theories about the virus and its vaccine. The trend continued a year after the movie’s release, when Russell Brand became the subject of a Channel 4 investigation for a series of sexual assault allegations.

Any film critic who sat through John Wayne playing Genghis Khan could have told you “The Conqueror” was cursed. But that curse extended far beyond the movie itself. Producer Howard Hughes decided to shoot the film on location downwind from nuclear testing sites. Not only that, but he even had some of the dirt from the site shipped to Hollywood to give the sets a more authentic look. By 1979, stars John Wayne, Susan Hayward, Agnes Moorehead, and Pedro Armendáriz had all passed away due to cancer. More than 90 cast and crew members associated with the production had developed cancer within that time. Exposure to radiation during the shoot has long been rumored to be the cause.

The production behind this blockbusting horror movie was known to be troubled. Happenings on and off the set, including the deaths and near-deaths of actors’ relatives, had the cast on shaky ground. Actor Jack MacGowran, whose character dies in the film, died tragically mere days after completing his scenes. Six years later, Paul Bateson, a bit player shown in the hospital scenes, was accused of a real-life murder. Playing the possessed girl, Linda Blair sustained chronic injuries, but her experiences after the movie’s release were a curse of their own. She received death threats and harassment. This led Warner Bros. to send her on a press tour to quell any rumors that she was somehow as evil as the demon in the film.

Given its reputation as a Hollywood classic for the whole family, stories from the production of “The Wizard of Oz” are shockingly upsetting. What sets it apart is just how many of those horror stories became known only years later, when the studios’ public relations departments weren’t so tight-lipped. Toxic makeup affected many actors, and even put original Tin Man actor Buddy Ebsen in the hospital. Wicked Witch actress Margaret Hamilton was badly burned during production. Star Judy Garland probably got it the worst. An already strenuous, studio-enforced regimen of pills and backbreaking exercise got worse when she was required to lose weight to play Dorothy. This cocktail led to a lifelong substance use disorder that prematurely ended her life at 47.

This melodramatic portrait of troubled 1950s teens rocketed its three leads to even greater heights. James Dean, Natalie Wood, and Sal Mineo didn’t just share a high profile after the movie’s release. Over the next 26 years, the three would meet untimely and suspicious ends. 24-year-old James Dean only starred in one more film before he was killed in a 1955 car accident. In 1976, 37-year-old Sal Mineo was the victim of a hit and run mugging that turned into a fatal stabbing. Then, Natalie Wood was found drowned after supposedly falling off her husband Robert Wagner’s yacht in 1981. Wagner was named a person of interest by the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department, but the case itself remains one of Hollywood’s infamous unsolved mysteries.

Upon its release in 1982, the first installment of the “Poltergeist” trilogy was a massive success, but the happiness was short-lived for its cast. Actress Dominique Dunne was murdered by her ex-boyfriend, John Thomas Sweeney, soon after the movie opened nationwide. The movie’s supposed curse only grew from there. Death also soon found Julian Beck and Will Sampson, two actors in the second movie, with Beck passing away even before the film was released. Finally, young star Heather O’Rourke suffered numerous medical issues and passed away in 1988. She was due for reshoots on the third film at the time of her death, which may have affected the film’s final narrative. Myths surrounding the “Poltergeist” curse are still circulated among movie lovers.

What cursed casts did we miss? Let us know in the comments.