Gary Larson once drew a Far Side panel of a video store in hell stocked with nothing but copies of one movie. Decades later Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino championed that same film, The New Yorker called it a wrongly maligned masterwork, and it drew votes in a 2022 greatest films poll. This deep dive explores the 1987 adventure comedy Ishtar, how unlimited money and top-tier talent spiraled into one of the most chaotic productions ever, and how time reversed its legacy.

We follow Warren Beatty’s desire to shield Elaine May as director, the Bing Crosby and Bob Hope road movie premise with Beatty and Dustin Hoffman playing against type, the 12.5 million dollars guaranteed up front, and the Coca-Cola mandate to shoot in Morocco to spend frozen funds. Then come land mine sweeps, the blue-eyed camel that was eaten during a haggling dispute, bulldozed dunes, the clash between improv and Vittorio Storaro’s rigid lighting, 108 hours of footage, three editing teams, David Puttnam’s hostile studio regime, and a 14 million dollar box office. We also report the 2017 Variety allegations against Hoffman and his attorney’s denial.

• Why Beatty could not fire his friend without betraying the reason he made the film
• Fifty takes of vultures landing on sand and five months to reach a rough cut
• Siskel and Ebert’s worst film of 1987 and Coca-Cola’s exit from the movie business
• Gary Larson’s public apology after finally watching the film on a flight
• Why 1987 critics reviewed the budget and modern viewers finally review the movie