In 1956, Howard Hughes produced and, through RKO, released the $6 Million epic, 'The Conqueror', a movie about the mongol Temujin (Genghis Khan), and his struggle against Tartar Armies and passionate love for the Tatar Princess. Directed by Dick Powell, and with an all star cast of John Wayne, Susan Hayward, Agnes Moorehead, Pedro Armendáriz, Thomas Gomez, and John Hoyt, the movie was a financial success, however was at the time, and continues, to be regarded among the worst films ever made by Critics and audiences.
Further more, the filming of the movie infamously took place downwind from a Nevada Nuclear testing site in Utah, with numerous cast and production members meeting tragic ends- Director Dick Powell died of cancer in 1963, Pedro Armendáriz committed suicide upon learning that his kidney cancer was terminal, with Wayne, Hoyt and Hayward all developing cancer later in life, although given their smoking habit, the effect of the filming location has been defeated. by 1980, of the 220 cast and crew members, 91 had been diagnosed with some form of cancer, with 46 succumbing to it. Additionally, family members of the actors who had visited the set reported developing cancer, John Wayne's sons Michael and Patrick developing Skin Cancer and a benign tumor, respectively.
Atop this, Howard Hughes would under go a full mental collapse in the years following, wrecked with guilt for his involvement in the movie, and his selection of the filming location, going so far as to buy every print he could for an estimated $12 Million, allegedly watching the movie on a loop in his final years; the movie only becoming widely available after his death in 1976.
So my question is, what if there was no 'The Conqueror'? What if the movie was simply never made? What effect would these actors and crew members not developing cancer have? Could this stop Hughes' mental collapse, or at least slow it down?