Stanley Kubrick's "Napoleon" swept the 1972 Academy Awards winning Best Picture, Director, Original Screenplay, Cinematography, Costume Design, and Best Actress for Audrey Hepburn - who came out of retirement to do the film. Starring Jack Nicholson as Napoleon, Hepburn as Josephine, and Malcolm McDowell as Tsar Alexander, the film is an epic three hour chronicle of Bonaparte's rise and fall that remains the highest grossing movie of Kubrick's career.
But the movie was almost never made. MGM threatened to pull the plug on the project, feeling it was too risky. But Kubrick convinced the studio that he could deliver them a cult hit as he'd done with "2001," so ultimately MGM gave him the greenlight in exchange for a reduced budget. What if Kubrick failed and MGM had shut down the project?