Hollywood’s wildest ’80s set? Former Paramount chief says ‘Popeye’ was “completely coked out”

Hollywood often looks glamorous from the outside, but anyone who’s spent time around the industry knows it has a long, messy shadow.

Countless films and series — Babylon, Birdman, Mulholland Drive, Ed Wood, even the recent The Studio — have peeled back the curtain on how quickly dreams can curdle into nightmares. And few eras were more chaotic than the 1980s, when drug use ran rampant across productions. According to one former studio boss, one of the most surprising examples was the live‑action Popeye starring Robin Williams.

A chaotic set behind Robin Williams’ first movie

Barry Diller — who ran Paramount Pictures from the mid‑’70s through the ’80s — recounts the story in his autobiography Who Knew. When asked which film had the most drug use on set, he didn’t hesitate. It wasn’t Street Fighter or any of the usual suspects.His answer: “Popeye.”

Diller put it bluntly: “Everyone was high.”

He went on to describe the movie’s frenetic energy with a vinyl‑record analogy: “If a normal movie runs at 33 RPM, Popeye is spinning at 78.”

The wildest revelation: film cans used as drug delivery

The most shocking detail came when Diller explained how the production — filmed in Malta — was receiving its daily reels. The film cans shipped back and forth to Los Angeles for processing were allegedly being used to smuggle drugs directly to the set.

“We discovered the film cans were being used to send cocaine back and forth. Everyone was high,” Diller said.

Robin Williams later acknowledged struggling with addiction during the ’80s. The overdose death of his friend John Belushi pushed him to quit.

A strange legacy in Malta

When filming wrapped, the elaborate seaside village built for the movie wasn’t torn down. Instead, it was left standing — eventually turning into a quirky tourist attraction now known as Popeye Village, where visitors can wander the old set for about $27 USD.

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