The Conqueror (1956)
A Howard Hughes-funded box-office bomb featuring John Wayne as Genghis Khan and the redheaded Susan Hayward as a Tartar princess. The movie was filmed near St. George, Utah, downwind from a nuclear testing range in Nevada, and is often blamed for the cancer deaths of many of the cast and crew, including Hayward, Wayne, Agnes Moorehead, Mexican actor Pedro Armendáriz, and director Dick Powell.[56] The film made the 10-worst list in The Book of Lists, appears in Michael Sauter's book The Worst Movies of All Time, and was one of the films listed in Michael Medved's book The Fifty Worst Films of All Time. Hughes thought the movie was so bad that he bought up every copy (which cost him about $12 million),[dubious – discuss] and he refused to distribute the film until 1974, when Paramount reached a deal with him. This was the last film that Hughes produced.
Very interesting history behind that one.