Mix one American director with a German producer on a period extravaganza, set the locations in Italy and Spain and start the cameras rolling without enough money to do the job. Then sit back and watch disaster strike. That is the scenario Andrew Yule has painstakiingly reconstructed. The more problems and reverses, the greater our interest: costly postponements, overwhelming language difficulties, elephants and tigers turning on their trainers, illnesses, sets not being ready, special effects breaking down and cameo stars (from Marlon Brando to Sean Connery) backing out of the project. You name it, Andrew Yule reports it!

Featuring 16 pages of photographs, this ultimate inside-Hollywood story of egos and ambition offers an intimate account of the feud between David Puttnam and Columbia Pictures.

Heaven's Gate, by comparison, was a party in Paradise. Some of cinema's legendary artists - renowned for their work with Fellini, Godard, Fassbinder, and Herzog among others - would unwittingly unite to create the greatest financial disaster in movie history: The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. Andrew Yule goes behind the scenes of Gilliam's epic and unravels, twist by agonizing twist, the contorted drama which saw the original budget of $23.5 million rocket to an astronomical $46 million - making it one of the most expensive features in history. Hardcover.