The $46 million war epic that Laurence Olivier only joined for the money
In short: In 1981, a massive war film about the Battle of Inchon arrived with a staggering budget and a bizarre production history. Financed by the Unification Church and starring a legendary actor who openly admitted he was just there for the paycheck, the project became a legendary cinematic disaster.
Inchon was the brainchild of Sun Myung Moon, the founder of the Unification movement, who aimed to use the medium of film to project his ideological influence into American society. Moon and his associate Mitsuharu Ishii initially considered biopics of Jesus or Elvis Presley before settling on a war epic. They even consulted a psychic, Jeane Dixon, who claimed the spirit of General Douglas MacArthur endorsed the project from beyond the grave. Despite Moon's desire to remain a silent financier, his involvement became a central point of controversy, leading to protests at the film's Washington, D.C. premiere.
The production was plagued by misfortune, including a typhoon that destroyed a set-piece, the death of actor David Janssen, and numerous technical blunders—such as the accidental inclusion of a digital watch in a 1950s setting. Laurence Olivier, cast as MacArthur, was paid $1 million for six weeks of work. Despite his failing health and the grueling heat of filming in Seoul, Olivier remained professional, though he was famously candid about his motivations, telling interviewers he was simply grabbing whatever money he could before the end of his career.
The film's financial trajectory was catastrophic. With a budget that ballooned from an initial $18 million to $46 million, it earned less than $2 million in North American theaters. By the time it was pulled from distribution, it had incurred a deficit of over $44 million, marking it as the biggest box-office failure of the 1980s. It never received a home video release, and critics have consistently ranked it among the worst films ever made, leaving it as a strange, largely inaccessible footnote in Hollywood history.
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Sources
- Summary by Intellect · source: Inchon (film)
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