Top 10 Movies That Were Shot In Secret
Top 10 Movies That Were Shot in Secret
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We’ve come to expect the mass hysteria and frenetic hype around certain movies, which makes the decision of these filmmakers to keep it quiet all the more surprising. Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’ll be counting down our picks for the Top 10 Movies That Were Shot in Secret. For this list, we’re taking a look at films that were intentionally kept either mostly or totally under wraps from the public eye.
#10: “A Ghost Story” (2017)
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We’re talking about a film so secret that actor Rooney Mara confessed: “I didn’t even know it was going to be a feature.” After a secret trip to Texas along with a few cast members and some bold ideas, even director David Lowery himself claimed not to know if his cinematic vision would pan out. The actors, who had agreed to either little or no pay, would regularly come to work without knowing what the movie was all about. Despite all the challenges, the poignant story, which also starred actor Casey Affleck, would come to gain several prestigious film festival awards as well as critical acclaim.
#9: “Slice” (2018)
In the fall of 2016, the film production company A24 made a statement announcing that a secret film had been filmed that summer with Chancelor Jonathan Bennett, better known as Chance the Rapper. Although they did give the title of the film and a brief synopsis, nothing else was revealed for a year until the teaser trailer was released, which also revealed next to nothing. Fans of Chance would have to wait another year before the release of the horror-comedy, which follows a case involving pizza deliverymen in the town of Kingfisher and the efforts of a few determined citizens to crack it wide open.
#8: “The Day Shall Come” (2019)
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Waves were made when it was discovered that director Chris Morris, most known for 2010’s “Four Lions,” was making a secret film in the Caribbean (no pun intended). Details were scarce, although it was known that American actress Anna Kendrick, among others, was set to star. A photo of the actress on Instagram carrying a semi-automatic rifle created more speculation as to what the movie, still untitled, would be about. Audiences were finally pacified by the release of the movie, which would prove to be a darkly funny and satirical take on an FBI operation gone awry.
#7: “Guava Island” (2019)
Rihanna and Donald Glover together... in Cuba? After a picture of the two celebrities was released on a mysterious film, the stage was set for rabid conjecture. Would there be a music video, or something bigger? The questions continued to build as it was revealed that filmmaker Hiro Murai and actors Letitia Wright and Nonso Anozie were also involved. Most fans would have to speculate until the film’s release on Amazon in 2019. Written by Glover’s brother, Stephen Glover, the film would be a musical story about a small-time celebrity organizing a music festival with tragic results.
#6: “Unsane” (2018)
It seems hard to believe that acclaimed director Steven Soderbergh, the mind behind films like “Erin Brockovich” and “Ocean’s Eleven,” would intentionally make a film in secret. But in 2017, the experimental filmmaker did just that, rejecting efforts made by the media to learn more about the movie. In the lead role is none other than English actress Claire Foy as a woman trapped in a mental ward with a violent stalker after her. Even more incredibly, the entire film was shot on an iPhone 7 Plus, and that in itself makes this psychological thriller worth a watch.
#5: “Under the Skin” (2013)
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It’s hard to get more secretive than a film that features actors who don’t know they are being filmed. But that’s exactly what director Jonathan Glazer did, shooting in nightclubs, shopping centers, and on the street with hidden cameras in completely unscripted segments of the film, featuring many scenes with candid, brutally real reactions from real people. Although the film took over 10 years to get off the ground and failed at the box office, it has since garnered much critical acclaim and is even on the BBC's list of the 100 Greatest Films of the 21st Century.
#4: “The Cove” (2009)
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For a movie that won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, it is sobering to think of just how difficult it was to film. An expose on the shocking dolphin treatment in Taiji, Japan, the filming was complicated due to the fact that the subject’s site was surrounded by wire fences and “Keep Out” signs. Coupled with the outright hostility directed towards them by the local police and government officials, director Louie Psihoyos had to get inventive. This meant using underwater microphones and camouflaged high-definition cameras, as well as thermal and night vision cameras. The result has been called “a rousing piece of real-world thriller filmmaking” by the Christian Science Monitor.
#3: “Escape from Tomorrow” (2013)
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It’s easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission. At least, that was director Randy Moore’s philosophy for his sci-fi horror debut. Chronicling the tale of a man at the Walt Disney World Resort as he sinks into madness while on vacation, much of the movie had to be shot stealthily on handheld cameras and featured actors reading from scripts on their phones while in the Disneyland and Disney World parks. Afraid of being found out by The Walt Disney Company, Moore even decided to finish up the film in South Korea. The movie has since been called the “ultimate guerrilla” movie.
#2: “El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie” (2019)
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After the success of the series “Breaking Bad,” which began in 2008 and ended in 2013, rumors circulated about a feature film. However, for most fans, the appearance of a trailer from Netflix in August 2019 was a sudden, albeit pleasant, shock. What had happened? Creator Vince Gilligan had presented actor Aaron Paul with the idea in 2017, and classified shooting started the year after in New Mexico under the title “Greenbrier.” To keep the film a secret, cast members would wear big cloaks or heavy disguises to mask their identities to and from the set.
#1: “10 Cloverfield Lane” (2016)
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It started as a low-budget script that caught the attention of some pretty major players, most notably the studio Paramount Pictures. To keep the film a secret, the codename “Valencia” was given, and it was only during production that the filmmakers began to notice some correlations between the 2008 horror film Cloverfield and the project they were working on. An already secret production then became even more secret, as the filmmakers decided to craft the film as “Cloverfield’s” “spiritual successor.” They did this without informing most of the cast members, including lead actors Mary Elizabeth Winstead and John Gallagher Jr, who would only come to find out a few days before the trailer’s release.
