This Robin Williams Movie Damaged an American Landmark — and It Only Allowed Shooting Again 8 Years Later for a Very Good Reason

While filmmaking looks like a seamless process from the audience's point of view, it requires grueling labor, accountability, and teamwork for any movie production to go off without a hitch. In the worst cases, cast and crew members can experience serious injury or death under reckless care. Even at their least disastrous, film productions are precarious work sites that can leave behind a calamitous mess for any town or city that harbors a shoot. San Francisco, California, learned the hard way when the city's town hall was nearly permanently destroyed following an accident while filming Bicentennial Man in 1999. The people of San Francisco had to think, "Of all the things to flood our town's property, why did it have to be some ridiculous Robin WilliamsDisney comedy?" City Hall swore off any film productions for the foreseeable future until Milk in 2008, a film San Fran would be proud to endorse.