Remember Natalie Portman's Only Western? The Set Drama Was Wilder Than The Movie

In 2015, Natalie Portman starred in a western that featured more on-set drama than its action-packed gunslinging plotline. "Jane Got a Gun" tells the story of a woman who teams up with her ex to protect her farm from her husband's ruthless gang of outlaws. Portman played Jane, but other cast and crew members weren't so set in stone. The journey to the final product of "Jane Got a Gun" was much longer than anyone ever expected.

Director Lynne Ramsay quit the production the weekend before its first day of shooting. Her departure stemmed from an array of issues leading up to the production. Ramsay was apparently at odds with producer Scott Steindorff. Two sources told the The Hollywood Reporter that Ramsay had not been provided an approved shooting script, budget, or filming schedule with mere days left to spare before the shoot. Meanwhile, another source claimed that Ramsay herself was the reason behind the script delays, as she was penning her own revisions. This situation ultimately led to a lawsuit between Ramsay and the film's producers.

According to The Guardian, producers said Ramsay was "repeatedly under the influence of alcohol, abusive to members of the cast and crew and generally disruptive." The suit also claimed that she "failed to adhere to proper safety protocol for handling weapons on set." While everyone on the cast and crew remained safe, it's easy to draw similarities between this situation and the horrific events that happened on the set of Rust, which led to actor Alec Baldwin facing charges of involuntary manslaughter (all charges have since been dropped).

When Natalie Portman and the rest of the crew arrived on set, they were surprised to find out that their director, Lynne Ramsay, had abandoned ship. Director Gavin O'Connor swiftly took Ramsay's place. Before this director swap even happened, Michael Fassbender, who was originally cast as the film's villain, also quit the production. "Jane Got a Gun" had been pushed back several times, which eventually interfered with Fassbender's "X-Men" filming schedule. Jude Law replaced him, but he wasn't in the cast for very long. After news broke of Ramsay's departure, Law left the production as well since he only signed on to the project in the first place to work with Ramsay.

In the lawsuit, producers asked for $500,000 in alleged damages caused by Ramsay leaving the project abruptly. Ramsay and the producers eventually reached a settlement. Despite all of the drama leading up to the production, once the film was released, buzz around it seemed to die down as reviews declared it decent but not outstanding (at the time of this writing, it has a 42% score on Rotten Tomatoes). The case of "Jane Got a Gun" appears to be reminiscent of films like "Don't Worry Darling," where the bizarre on-set drama is more compelling than the film itself. Sometimes, the real-life drama is all anyone can talk about, even to the point of absolute fatigue (as is the case with "It Ends With Us"). Looking back on leaving the project, Ramsay told Deadline, "I was really devastated. I really wanted to make the film. It was a hard decision to do that (walking away), but it was becoming a different movie."