43 Years Ago, The Most Dangerous Film Ever Made Premiered

The film industry is notorious for being a lot more dangerous than it looks from the outside. There are countless legends about unsafe film sets, from the real-life tragedy of "Twilight Zone: The Movie," to Tom Cruise's most dangerous stunts of the "Mission: Impossible" franchise. However, far and away the most dangerous film of all time just recently celebrated its 43rd anniversary in October 2024: the 1981 horror comedy film "Roar," written, directed, and starring Noel Marshall and his real life family, including his wife Tippi Hedren and step-daughter Melanie Griffith.

In "Roar," Marshall plays a wildlife conservationist, Hank, who lives in Tanzania to study the behavior of big cats. A visit from his family, including wife Madelaine (Hedren) and kids Melanie, John, and Jerry (played by Marshall and Hedren's real-life kids of the same names), is derailed when a lion pride goes rogue, resulting in pandemonium as the family tries to survive an attack from nature's most vicious apex predators. 

The film's release in 1981, following a disastrous 11-year production, was a massive box office failure, with its bloated budget of $17 million only making back $10 million, according to John Marshall. It should come as no surprise that a comedy film starring over 100 untrained big cats would result in catastrophe on set, but surprisingly, the now-cult classic has had a real-life positive impact on the world of wildlife conservation. Whether you're a daredevil or not, this is one film set you'd thank your lucky stars you weren't on.

Lots of people have probably never even heard of "Roar," but luckily comedian Marc Maron took to his Instagram to remind people about the cult classic. As Maron describes, "It is the craziest, most chaotic f***ing thing I've ever seen in my life ... The movie's terrible, but it's all footage of people trying to act normal with 40 f***ing lions in the house." 

Many of these lions used for the movie were personally owned by Noel Marshall and Tippi Hedren, which was illegal at the time and resulted in the couple having to relocate these large animals to a ranch in Acton, California. Because of issues with funding to maintain a crew and dozens of large animals, the Marshall family took on numerous roles on-set, with Noel's eldest John taking on boom mic operation, animal wrangling, and even veterinary work alongside acting in the film. The remaining crew consisted of predominately non-union workers. 

Once the film actually began shooting in 1976, the scheduled allotted for six months of photography, but predictably, this didn't account for the immense difficulty that would come from filming with dangerous, live animals. Simple scenes took numerous weeks to complete, and many days of shooting only resulted in one usable take. Although the film was produced with the intent of shedding light on animal endangerment, the real endangerment was the presence of these big cats around the cast and crew of "Roar." 

Even if there had been no incidents on the set of "Roar," it would've probably still earned the title of the most dangerous film ever made. One scene involving Tippi Hedren's character waking up to a jaguar licking her face was an untested stunt, accomplished by putting honey on the actress' face. This was especially dangerous given that the animal wranglers were too far away to have stopped the jaguar from biting her. However, this scene was quite a lucky break considering all the other accidents and injuries that took place on set. 

Noel Marshall contracted blood poisoning after being bitten in the hand, while Hedren was hospitalized after filming a scene with an elephant that left her with fractured bones and gangrene. Each member of the Marshall family was at one point or another attacked by an animal and suffered severe injuries, most notably being Melanie Griffith. Because her parents were big cat owners, Griffith grew up sleeping in the same bed as these dangerous animals, but the set of "Roar" exposed her to a near-death experience like no other. 

During production of one scene in the film, a teenage Griffith was slashed in the face by a lion and required plastic surgery in order to prevent her from being disfigured. Other crew members, including director of photography Jan de Bont, suffered egregious injuries, resulting in massive turnover of employees. Worst of all: many of these attacks remained in the final cut of the film, including Griffith's traumatic mauling, with blood and gore galore. 

The amount of danger that was present on the set of "Roar" would make a reasonable person ask the question: Why didn't they stop filming? According to Noel's son John, the family was determined to get through the experience together, telling Entertainment Weekly, "It has to do with dealing with lions and tigers. You can't show fear. If you show fear, you're dead. You have to be stronger than them — you have to be stronger than anything in life." Luckily, no one was killed on the set of "Roar," but something certainly died after it: the marriage of Noel Marshall and Tippi Hedren.

Everyone in the Marshall family handled the experience of moving on from "Roar" differently. Melanie Griffith has said very little about the film publicly, while John Marshall has been closely involved in theatrical re-releases over the years. The most impressive consequence of "Roar," however, is how Hedren furthered her interest in big cat conservation following her divorce from Marshall. 

In 1983, Tippi Hedren started The Roar Foundation to create the Shambala Preserve, an animal sanctuary at the same location in California where Hedren and Marshall originally housed their big cats. The Shambala Preserve is still active to this day, with the 94-year-old Hedren still a part of its preservation efforts as The Roar Foundation's president. While the film industry has certainly come a long way in its treatment of live animals, it's heartening to know that a film as dangerous as "Roar" could still have a positive impact on rescuing endangered species of big cats.