Trailer
Plot summary
In 1668, Morgan Adams inherits her father's ship and his piece of a map to a hoard of gold hidden on Cutthroat Island. Her uncle Dawg holds another of the three pieces, and Mordachai, another brother of her father, holds the last. The markings are in Latin, so Morgan takes the Morning Star to Port Royal, where she outbids a rival for William Shaw, a thief and con man sold into slavery who is fluent in Latin. When she is recognized from a wanted poster, she escapes the harbor with her crew and Shaw. Her crew doubts her ability to lead, and a corrupt governor who learns of the treasure vows to find her.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Cutthroat Island (1995)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- When Harlin fired chief camera operator Nicola Pecorini after a dispute, more than two dozen crew members quit; broken pipes poured raw sewage into the tank where the actors were meant to swim, and Harlin spent $1 million of his own money on rewrites because Carolco Pictures was too deep in debt to pay.
- Oliver Reed was originally cast for a cameo as Mordechai Fingers, but he was fired after getting into a bar fight and attempting to expose himself to Davis while intoxicated. George Murcell eventually took his place.
- Michael Douglas agreed to play Shaw on two conditions: that filming start immediately, since he was available only briefly, and that his character have the same screen time as Davis. He pulled out claiming Davis’s role as Morgan had been expanded at his expense; Davis wanted to quit too, but was contractually obliged to finish.
- Matthew Modine blamed the cost overruns partly on Harlin’s habit of keeping three cameras rolling at once, and on Harlin and Davis having cases of V8 vegetable juice shipped out to the set in Malta for themselves; a room of unopened juice turned up late in filming and everyone present had to drink it.
- In the first week of shooting, original cinematographer Oliver Wood fell off a crane into one of the water tanks and broke his leg, forcing his replacement by Peter Levy; Wood was still credited at the film's close.
- Tom Cruise, Keanu Reeves, Russell Crowe, Liam Neeson, Jeff Bridges, Ralph Fiennes, Charlie Sheen, Michael Keaton, Tim Robbins, Daniel Day-Lewis and Gabriel Byrne all turned down the role of Shaw before Matthew Modine agreed to take it, partly because of his experience as a fencer.
- The film's failure is credited with pushing Carolco Pictures into Chapter 11 bankruptcy a month before release, and with scaring studios off pirate movies until Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl succeeded eight years later, in 2003.
- Guinness World Records named Cutthroat Island the biggest box-office bomb of all time in April 2012, a title it held for barely a month before being overtaken by Disney's John Carter that May.
