'Wild Things' would've included a sex scene between Matt Dillon and Kevin Bacon if one of them didn't refuse to film it, the director says
The 1998 film "Wild Things" nearly featured a sex scene between Kevin Bacon and Matt Dillon.
According to director John McNaughton, it never happened because one actor refused to film it.
"You win some, you lose some," McNaughton said about the scrapped scene.
"Wild Things" nearly featured a sex scene between Kevin Bacon and Matt Dillon, but the moment was scrapped when one of them refused to film it, the director said.
Speaking to Ethan Alters for Yahoo News on the 25th anniversary of the 1998 cult classic, director John McNaughton recalled one of the more surprising moments in the original script that never got shot.
"Wild Things," which also starred Neve Campbell and Denise Richards, follows a police detective uncovering a conspiracy in a case involving a high-school guidance counselor accused of rape by two female students.
The film features several twists and turns. However, one of the most shocking moments scriptwriter Stephen Peters originally included was a sex scene between Dillon's and Bacon's characters after it is revealed the pair are conspiring together against the two young women.
"In the original version of the scene, Matt walks into his bathroom to take a shower and there's Kevin," McNaughton said. "They were supposed to look each other up and down and then wham — go at it."
But it never happened, because one of the two refused to film the scene as it was originally portrayed in the script. According to Alters, McNaughton refused to say who. Representatives for Dillon and Bacon did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
"I love surprise, and I love stuff that I don't see coming," he said. "But in that moment it was like 'You win some, you lose some; we're moving on.'"
Dillon told Total Film in 2005 that he was "relieved" when the scene was cut, while Bacon told the publication that the twist would've been "great," ultimately blaming the film's financiers for taking it out as he believed they "didn't like the idea of men making out."
McNaughton made several other revelations elsewhere in the Yahoo interview, including that Marvel star Robert Downey Jr. was initially slated to play Dillon's character.
According to the director, they ended up going with Dillon over Downey Jr. partly because his substance-abuse issues at the time made him a liability for the studio production and partly because they were unable to finalize a deal with his representatives.
Looking back, McNaughton said he believes the right actor got the role.
"As my dear mother used to say, 'Everything happens for a reason,'" he said.
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