This Is The Movie That Took The Longest To Film
Stanley Kubrick’s attention to detail contributed to the film setting the Guinness World Record for longest continuous movie shoot at a staggering 400 days – nearly 14 months of uninterrupted filming.
The winner for longest continuous movie shoot is Eyes Wide Shut, the controversial 1999 film that was part satire, part mystery. Some love it, some hate it — but regardless of its polarizing nature (in part due to its explicit content upon which the entire movie is centered), no one can deny the fact that this title remains the movie that had the longest filming period.
Directed by Stanley Kubrick, who insisted on re-shooting every single scene until it was exactly as he had imagined, it’s not too surprising that this shoot is one of the longest film shoots ever. Word from the set was that Kubrick would make actors re-shoot scenes dozens and dozens of times until he was confident he had everything perfect.
One particular infamous incident was when Kubrick apparently made titular actor Tom Cruise walk through a door a total of 95 times to suit Kubrick’s exact vision.
Throughout the shoot, Kubrick also had to replace two actors who left during filming, which caused him to do additional re-shoots. Besides this, there actually weren’t any outlying problems that made Eyes Wide Shut take so long — it was almost entirely due to Kubrick’s film decisions throughout the shoot.
In the end, Eyes Wide Shut took a full 400 days to film. Guinness World Records recognized the film as the longest continuous film shoot, as filming did not break once over the 400 day period. For context, an average blockbuster film shoot can take up to six months, while a lower-budget movie will take as little as 3 weeks.