Hollywood has had its fair share of historically troubled productions. Whether it was casting changes, actor deaths, fired directors, in-production rewrites, constant delays, budget cuts or studio edits, these films had every intention to be a blockbuster, but were beset with unforeseen disasters. Sometimes huge hits, sometimes box office bombs. Either way, we have to ask: WTF Happened To This Movie?
So what do you do when you’ve got forty minutes of amazing Bruce Lee fight footage on your hands but your leading man just happens to be…well…dead? If you’re Golden Harvest you hire ENTER THE DRAGON director Robert Clouse to build a movie around your deceased star using outtakes, body doubles (who don’t look anything like Lee) and even a cardboard cut out at one point. The result is one of the most garish, ghoulish, exploitative movies ever to be put out by a mainstream studio (Columbia Pictures), which, to add insult to injury, only used a fraction of the glorious fight footage. Oh well, at least it had a score by John Barry.