He adds that Connery ended the argument by turning his back and walking off the set. ''It was more like Stephen saying to Connery, 'How mad are you? Are you mad enough to hit me in the face?''' says an eyewitness on the crew. Sources shoot down reports, however, that the two actually traded punches. ''I'm sick of it! Come on, I want you to punch me in the face!'' he was quoted as shouting. According to press accounts, Norrington got a little livid too. The director won't say what exactly was wrong with it - in fact, he won't talk to journalists at all, about any subject, on or off the record - but sources say Connery was so livid that he threatened to have Norrington fired. For instance, there was the business in Malta in late August, when Norrington shut down the set for the day because a prop elephant gun didn't look quite right. Regardless of how the film turns out, the battles behind the camera have provided plenty of drama. ''I've seen all the dailies and can tell you that this movie rocks.'' But what matters is what's on screen,'' says Jeffrey Godsick, exec VP of marketing for Fox. ''Has this been the easiest production? No. And when ''League'' debuts, chances are audiences won't smell a whiff of the turmoil that went into its making. Of course, ''Titanic'' wasn't always smooth sailing either. Most of this movie is going to end up on the cutting-room floor - if it ever gets finished.'' He'll do 10 setups when you usually only do two. ''This director doesn't know what he wants,'' grouses another crew member. And now, on this chilly October evening, with a month of shooting still left on the schedule, the pace of filming has slowed to a crawl that would have had Stanley Kubrick tapping his wristwatch impatiently. directorial effort was 1998's ''Blade.'' The two butted egos over virtually every element of the production. Then came the shouting matches between the Scottish superstar and Norrington, 38, a British-born ex-effects artist whose last U.S. (Fleeing his suite at the Four Seasons, Connery managed to rescue only his golf clubs.) The deluge destroyed almost $7 million worth of ''League'''s sets - even Nemo's submarine sank - and added at least two weeks of costly delays as cast and crew scattered across the Continent after emergency evacuations. The problems started in August, just as filming began, when the worst weather in more than 100 years flooded Europe. ''I've never been on a set as tense as this,'' offers a frazzled stagehand. Henry Jekyll, Naseeruddin Shah's Captain Nemo, Shane West's grown-up Tom Sawyer, and Peta Wilson's secret-agent vampire Mina Harker.) In fact, the mood on set is so bleak that the cast and crew don't even bother to lie to a visiting journalist about how swell it's all going. (Connery, as swashbuckling adventurer Allan Quatermain, leads a band of superfriends that includes Jason Flemyng's Dr. But it faces more challenges than merely selling audiences on tweed-clad superheroes fighting crime in 19th-century London. This $100 million Twentieth Century Fox adaptation of Alan Moore's cult comic book ''The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen'' may well do blockbuster business when it opens in July 2003. ''Oh, yes, it's been difficult,'' Connery himself concurs. ''He's not used to being kept waiting on a movie set. ''Connery isn't very pleased with how this is going,'' understates a crew member as he watches Norrington bounce around the soundstage in cargo pants and a Hard Rock Cafe T-shirt. For now, though, let's stick to what's going on inside this drafty, drizzly studio on the outskirts of Prague, where Connery has been stuck in his trailer for the last four hours waiting for Norrington to finish fidgeting with camera angles and fussing with the lighting. How Sean Connery and director Stephen Norrington supposedly came to blows over it. We'll get to the argument over the elephant gun in Malta in a moment. From clashes over direction to shooting delays to budget overruns, Sean Connery's new film is having some major ''League'' problems Behind-the-scenes battles plague Connery's latest.
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