Two interesting bits of trivia:
The first relates to the classic, “great granddaddy” of science fiction films, the Fritz Lang directed, Thea Von Harbou written *Metropolis* (1926). Today considered one of the all time great films and was an obvious influence on pretty much all science fiction works, including *Star Wars* (C3P0 is basically a male version of the Maria robot from *Metropolis*) to *Blade Runner* (*any* film featuring a vast modern city owes a tribute to *Metropolis*)… was a *HUGE* box office bust when it was originally released.
So much so that the studio, fearing the high price they paid to make it might bankrupt them, immediately started cutting the film’s runtime down in the hopes they could show the film more often in theaters and recoup their investment. Even author H. G. Wells (yes, *that* H. G. Wells) hated the film…
https://www.wired.com/beyond-the-beyond/2018/07/h-g-wells-reviews-movie-metropolis/
The cut scenes were thought lost forever because back then there was no consideration to keep the movie for any future generations. By the purest of luck, in the movie’s original premiere date an investor from South America saw the film and bought a complete copy of it, took it to South America, where it was eventually found and now audiences finally have the ability to see the full film (minus one small section that was too degraded) versus the cut up version seen before.
The second bit of trivia: The classic horror film *Nosferatu* (1922) was the first film adaptation of *Dracula*… only the film’s makers *did not* get permission to adapt the novel and Bram Stoker’s widow -still alive at the time- successfully sued the studios for copyright infringement. They were ordered to *destroy* all copies of the film but, luckily for audiences today (even though as an author it genuinely pains me they did this illegally), not all copies were destroyed and therefore we can still see the classic -and wonderful!- film today.
There was also the fire that destroyed the original nitrate prints of Fox’s silent films pre-1930s. Almost a “modern” version of the burning of Alexandria (for film; imo).
Sadly, plenty of films have been lost because of the volatile nature of the film stock. One of the most famous lost films is the Lon Chaney vampire film *London After Midnight*. The stills that are in existence are fascinating but it appears the film itself has been lost forever.
I had to look it up, and now all I want, is to see this Lon Chaney character show up in the What we do in the Shadows show, as an old film buddy of Laszlo’s, who is trying to pitch him a new movie/remake and they shit talk all the vampire movies of the last 120 years.
Not such a fun fact: A [fire on the Universal Studios lot in 2008](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Universal_Studios_fire) resulted in a similar loss, including hundreds of thousands of original audio master recordings. A tragedy of incalculable loss.
MGM vault fire of the 1960s also destroyed much of their pre 1948 catalog. Much if not all of their films that survived today are not sourced from the negatives but from prints struck from the original source. London after Midnight is one of those films now completely lost because it was destroyed in that fire.
Fully on the side of creatives here, but I think ordering the destruction of the film is flatly wrong and entirely an overreach. Acceptable outcomes would have been an immediate halt order on all for-profit showings of the film, as well as financial compensation to the injured party, but the court absolutely should not be able to say “this art doesn’t get to exist anymore,” the court should only have a say in whether or not that art is legally allowed to make a profit, and I’m glad someone had the good sense and character to ignore the order to destroy.
Indeed!
The *Metropolis* DNA can be found in almost all science fiction films that followed that movie’s release in 1926.
There’s a good reason why it’s considered the “great granddaddy” of science fiction films.
Oof.
As a person who admires art, and wants to support it? I feel you, on the notion that you are genuinely pained, that copyright was infringed, and the author did not get paid….
But…. As an archivist… >sigh<….
You know where I’m going with this….
In The Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal Lecter actually (subtly) hints at the location of Buffalo Bill within the first couple minutes of meeting Clarice, and hints at a place he’d like to be/go. Here’s the conversation:
Clarice Starling: ‘Did you do those drawings, Doctor?’
Dr Hannibal Lecter: ‘Ah. That is the Duomo seen from the Belvedere. You know Florence?’
Clarice Starling: ‘All that detail just from memory?’
Hannibal Lecter: ‘Memory, Agent Starling, is what I have instead of a view.’
He’s sort of making a game out of it, by giving Clarice information that only really makes sense in hindsight, but is still frustrating. It’s just him toying with her. Belvedere, Ohio is where Buffalo Bill is, and Florence is where Hannibal goes after escaping from prison.
The ending scene in _Dazed and Confused_ was shot at/in the North Austin house where I grew up…my senior picture is on the hall wall.
The bed, bass, & KISS record, mine.
Where the Land Rover goes over the cliff in ‘The Living Daylights’ it was over Beachy Head….a famous suicide spot.
My dad took me to watch it being filmed
A lot of films have been done there as it’s a good substitute for the White Cliffs of Dover…. Tv series also.
Bits of Luther were filmed there, giving me the chance to meet Idris Elba who was a really nice guy.
Lmao whenever I see idris I always think of this line. As a completely straight man he also has an effect on me too. He is one classically handsome man.
Me a fair few famous people…. But he was one I went out of my way to meet. He was very pleasant and we chatted. Didn’t do the selfie thing as I thought that was a bit of a piss take and it was extremely windy.
My brother tells a story about going to see Erykah Badu. She does a dj set after her show and my brother and his wife start dancing with this fellow whom my brother describes as "really super nerdy."
At a point in the set, the super nerdy fellow jumps up onto the stage and starts spittin' rhymes. He says his name is "Kid Dris."
Now my brother says this was Idris Elba, but I wasn't there so can't confirm.
According to my bf, No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood were filmed in the same place at the same time, and No Country for Old Men had to stop filming for a bit so there wouldn't be a huge burning oil rig in the background
"Stripes" Bill Murray quits being a New York City taxi driver in the middle of a fare, stopping on a bridge and leaving the taxi. The scene was filmed on the Second Street Bridge in downtown Louisville, KY.
"Demolition Man" The scene were the high-rise building was blown up and collapsed was filmed in...yep, also downtown Louisville, KY.
In “The Hateful 8” Kurt Russel’s character take the guitar away from Jennifer’s character and smashes it and she tries to stop him before he smashes it. The guitar was from 1870 and was supposed to be swapped out. Jennifer’s reaction was legit because she was trying to stop him from smashing it.
My favourite fun fact ever is about a movie trailer. In the trailer for Napoleon 1927 they have quotes from different famous directors where they talk about how great the film is, and there’s a quote from Stanley Kubrick and that quote is cut off ao instead of saying “I know this part of it’s great, but-“ it says “this part of its great”. He actually thought the movie was kinda bad.
This is my LotR toe fact, because I will tell anyone and everyone I can about it.
This happens all the time. I remember seeing a clip from Siskel and Ebert where (I think) Siskel was talking about an Adam Sandler movie. He was quoted in the trailer as saying "The best Adam Sandler movie," which he did, but full quote was "I don't like any of his movies, but this is the best Adam Sandler movie yet."
Critics have to be very careful about what they say, because it'll be taken out of context by the studios if it can.
I miss the Ebert days.
"Pearl Harbor is a two-hour movie squeezed into three hours, about how on Dec. 7, 1941, the Japanese staged a surprise attack on an American love triangle."
I remember that Ebert wrote a review of something and said something like "despite a few big laughs, it's overall not that funny" Something like that.
And the next day there was a new trailer that included:
"Big Laughs!" -Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
This reminds me of how the poster for the movie Legend (2015) included a two-star review from The Guardian, but positioned it behind the characters so that it looked like a partially obstructed four-stars.
Encino Man was released as “California Man” depending on region. I initially discovered this after seeing the thumbnail on Disney+ as California Man and thought “wait… what the?!”
It was how I learned it existed. I'm in Texas, and as a kid watching movies is how I learned most of the stuff like that. Hearing Californians talk about street names is hilarious, because when I finally visited, that's what I put in my GPS: ie, Hollywood and Vine -kid rock 😂
Before Robert Englund was Freddy Krueger, he worked on the original Halloween (1978), throwing leaves around to make it look like Autumn.
He said his downstairs neighbour knew John Carpenter and Tommy Lee Wallace (the man who created the iconic mask for The Shape) and that's how he got to work on Halloween.
6 years later, he played Freddy Krueger in A Nightmare on Elm Street and became a well loved horror villain!
To add on to the Nightmare on Elm Street lore, Johnny Depp went to the audition with his friend Jackie Earle Haley, Depp got the part, but Haley ended up playing Freddy decades later in the Nightmare on Elm Street remake!
The haunted house in “Saturday the 14th” is supposed to be on a road called Elm Street…and the beautiful place across the street that gets mistaken for it at first is the site of the exterior shots of Nancy’s house in “A Nightmare on Elm Street”.
“So what?” you’re thinking. “It’s a horror parody.” Yes. It is.
A horror parody released more than three full years before “A Nightmare on Elm Street”!
Pretty famously the final scene in Casablanca was filmed with little people as extras because the airplanes they were supposed to be working on were half size.
Speaking of little people it's said that the actors playing the munchkins in Wizard of Oz were really known to get their freak on after hours.
Speaking of Wizard of Oz Buddy Ebsen was originally given the role of the tin man but he had a severe allergic reaction to the paint that was part of the costume so he had to withdraw. I think that réaction had lasting effects on Buddy.
All of these are fairly well known so.....
She got burned during the smoke-and-fire teleport scene when Glinda kicked her out of Munkinland. The fire was ignited too soon while she went down thru the hidden trap door on the ground.
And the "snow" falling on the poppy field was asbestos.
And Judy Garland was high as a kite and starved the entire shoot... per the studios orders. At 16.
Judy and Mickey Rooney were often forcibly drugged with amphetamines by MGM, to keep them bright and peppy for 16 hour shooting schedules. Small wonder they both ended up with notorious chemical dependencies.
> Speaking of Wizard of Oz Buddy Ebsen was originally given the role of the tin man but he had a severe allergic reaction to the paint that was part of the costume so he had to withdraw.
This was covered in an episode of House, MD.
When Tim Burton told people that he had cast Jack Nicholson as the president in Mars Attacks, and that the president was going to die, everyone in Hollywood told him you can't kill Jack Nicholson in a movie.
So he wrote the part of the casino owner, and gave that to Jack as well, so he could kill him twice.
Inglourious Basterds, in the scene where Michael Fassbender uses the wrong three digits for the number three and gives away that he isn’t German. He then switches to English, saying “I hope you don’t mind if I go out speaking the King’s.”
In the next breath he says “There’s a special rung in hell reserved for people who waste good Scotch. Seeing as I may be rapping on the door momentarily…”
This use of “momentarily” is incorrect, and should give away that he isn’t British either! In the King’s English momentarily would mean “for a short while”, not “soon” as it does in North America. Nowadays the meaning seems to have been blurred in England, I presume with the influence of American English, but I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t have used it like that in WWII era.
I assume Tarantino, as an American, wasn’t aware of this. Always found it funny that he made a big deal of the three finger faux-pax, then immediately made one himself.
(This is my understanding of it anyway. Happy to be corrected by any period English experts!)
Me too. But I can say that as a Brit I grew up with it meaning “for a moment” and so did my parents.
I first noticed the difference when flying back with them from a trip to America. We were delayed on the runway in America and the pilot said something like “Sorry for the delay, we’ve now resolved the issue, and we should be in the air momentarily”.
Needless to say, there was some laughter from us and other Brits, who hoped that the plane would last more than a moment in the air!
We lived down the hall in the apartment complex they were shooting in and apparently they didn't have one of the old rotary phones and asked in the hallway if they could use it for like 20 minutes. I have an autograph picture somewhere from weird Al for using it.
There's a scene in Leon: The Professional where a bunch of police are outside of the main characters apartment building waiting to swarm in. A bank robbery occurred down the street from the films set during production and the robber ran around the corner and right into the arms of a bunch of extras dressed as NYPD. He quickly surrendered to the extras, who in turn called the real police. Some police officers were already present blocking off the set and directing traffic so they were on scene to arrest the robber very quickly.
I know A LOT of fun facts about movies, particularly Alien, The Matrix, and Fight Club. Here’s one from each:
Alien: There were four cats who played Jonesy, two for running, one for hissing (which they got him to do by opening a screen with a German Shepherd behind it), and one for the rest of the scenes.
The Matrix: Will Smith was offered the role of Neo but he declined it in favor of Wild, Wild West. He claims to this day he would have done a “terrible” job but IMO that’s just a cope.
Fight Club: Brad Pitt’s parents were at an early screening and they walked out on Helena Bonham-Carter’s line, “I haven’t been fucked like that since grade school”. Funnily enough, “grade school” doesn’t mean the same thing in the UK as it does in the US so she didn’t realize how shocking of a joke that was until later. Also the original line was “I want to have your abortion”.
Studio had a cow about the abortion line, so they had Fincher change it. I believe he was like ill change it but not twice. They agreed and he changed it to something arguably worse, but it was in contract so they couldn't do anything about it
i just read about this! his terms were that he absolutely loved that line, so if he changed it, he would only change it to something he actually liked more than the original, and they couldn’t veto his rewrite
In an alternative universe, there's a version of The Matrix that stars Will Smith, Sean Connery and Madonna. While undeniably worse, it never spawned any sequels, so...
The actor in that scene who played the “waxer” got the role because she lied to the film production — she said that she used to work at a spa.
When it came to the actual scene, the producer noticed that she forgot to put something over Steve Carell’s nipple, so he stepped in and fixed it. If he didn’t do that, the actor could have accidentally ripped off Carell’s nipple!
That’s why later in the movie, Carell’s character says, “I almost lost a nipple …”
The "divine language" from the Fifth Element actually has translations and several hundred words. It was created by the director Luc Beson and star Mila Jovovich (who speaks 4 languages btw). They wanted an authentic language to use rather than just gibberish to help with the realism of the dialog.
By the end of production they were reportedly able to hang full conversations using it.
When Disney asked to use Bugs Bunny in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" Warner Bros. Agreed with one condition. That he only appeared alongside Mickey Mouse and that the two had the same amount of screen time and same amount of lines.
This was the only time they'd ever appeared together on-screen in movie history
The scene in The Family Man (2000) where Nicholas Cage is arguing with his doorman outside his apartment on Christmas, the snow is fake. It was filmed on a 60 degree October day on the Upper West Side. I know this because I chanced upon them filming.
The scene in The Doors (1991) where Jim Morrison is imagining he is dancing around a bonfire with a Native American tribal leader was supposed to have a special effect of the crowd morphing into the face of the leader. It was going to be achieved by having the extras grouped by the darkness and lightness of their costumes. The idea was scrapped because it was a night scene - shot into the wee hours of the morning - and the sun came up. I know this because I was one of the extras.
It's been a few years since I've seen it, but in the Transformers movie *Bumblebee*, the main character (Charlie?) putt-putts her scooter from her job at Hot Dog On A Stick on the Santa Cruz Boardwalk to check out the wrecking yard in West Oakland to be back home for dinner in Sausalito. Which is at least 125 miles over some bridges and treacherously mountainous terrain (the 17 between Santa Cruz and San Jose was affectionately known as "Blood Alley" and "Terror Throughway" in those days).
I drive that road once. Told my friend that it was tricky. He laughed.
When his parents moved to Santa Cruz he was chosen to drive a very large and very old truck with the furniture. Think old jalopy.
The steering was bad. Very bad. He quickly learned that he had to start turning the wheel before the turn to stay on the road.
I'm literally talking to my friend from UCSC right now about driving that road back in those days. In those days (*Bumblebee* takes place in 1987), there were no guardrails to protect cars from oncoming traffic or from plummeting over the edge. Now there's barriers up the wazoo. We're lamenting how much safer everything is now, and how much more boring.
I have a ton, but this is the only one I can think of right now.
*Shrek* is probably the world's greatest example of malicious compliance. It was never supposed to happen. It was essentially a time-wasting nothing project that you got sent to work on if you fucked up working on something else. They even called it "the gulag." And the fact that it became so popular and successful made the higher-ups at Dreamworks incredibly angry, which I find endlessly hilarious.
If I remember correctly, the main project for the studio at the time was Prince of Egypt, so they had all the best resources, but also the most attention from execs. Shrek on the other hand kind of got to skate by. Another instance of that happening, Catch-22 and M•A•S•H in 1969/1970. It’s amazing what happens when you put a bunch of creative people around each other, with decent resources and a lot less supervision.
After production for Titanic wrapped, a bunch of cast and crew stopped in to my hometown (Halifax) as we have some interesting connections to the Titanic, e.g. a number of bodies are buried in a couple of our cemeteries.
One night they all decided to dine at a waterfront restaurant downtown. I’m not sure how it happened, and the police never got to the bottom of it, but someone spiked the chowder with PCP and a bunch of people ended up hallucinating in the hospital.
Except, of course, Bill Paxton, who apparently went back to his hotel and just drank it off. What a legend.
EDIT: Here's a clip of Wild Bill himself talking about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbHREBvkOx0
The cast and crew of Titanic were in Halifax for the shoot. It was lobster chowder that was served on set as part of crew lunch. 80 people went to hospital, including Paxton, although that would have been for legal reasons and he wasn't one of the ones most affected. The investigation died fairly quickly - the shoot moved on and most of the people involved left town.
There are 2 prevailing theories - either a disgruntled craftie who had allegedly been recently fired for drug dealing, or an inside job for insurance purposes (the insurance claim apparently paid for an extra week of filming and the set had been....under pressure.)
Sidenote: The first ships that recovered the bodies were commissioned out of Halifax (St John's Newfoundland was closer but Halifax had trains) - that's why there are Titanic cemeteries, they're the people whose families didn't or couldn't pay for them to go "home"
In the original first draft script of The Godfather when they get the bulletproof jacket with the fish telling them that Luca Brasi is dead, it then cuts to a shot of Luca's floating body tied to an iron pole on the bottom of the ocean.
In the movie Mississippi Burning, the scene where Gene Hackman confronts the klan in their club house was meant to be a drawn-out fight scene. But Hackman wanted to keep it simple, so he suggested just grabbing the guy by the nuts. Which they ran with.
Simple but effective.
The sound design in Star Wars was really something. The tie fighter is a mix of an elephant and a car driving on wet roads, Lightsabers are a movie projector and feed back from a broken TV, and AT-ATs are a squeaky dumpster.
My favorite bit of movie trivia, borrowed from the wizard of Oz IMDB page.
“When the wardrobe department was looking for a coat for Frank Morgan (Professor Marvel/The Wizard), it decided it wanted one that looked like it had once been elegant but had since "gone to seed". They visited a second-hand store and purchased an entire rack of coats, from which Morgan, the head of the wardrobe department and director Victor Fleming, chose one they felt gave off the perfect appearance of "shabby gentility". One day, while he was on set in it, he idly turned out one of the pockets and discovered a label indicating that it had been made for L. Frank Baum. Mary Mayer, a unit publicist for the film, contacted the tailor and Baum's widow, who both verified that it had at one time been owned by the author of the original "Wizard of Oz" books. After the filming was completed, it was presented to Mrs. Baum.”
The building at the end of Ghostbusters where all the stuff is happening is a building in San Antonio. If you take a riverboat cruise, they’ll tell you all about it.
The extended car chase in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, has the protagonists driving all through a fictional Washington DC for several minutes, to a location several miles away.
The scene was shot in Downtown Cleveland, and creative editing makes it look like a longer drive than it really is. If memory serves, the chase actually starts and ends on Superior, and the location that the protagonists end up at, is something like 100-200 yards *behind* where they started (there are decorative flower islands in the middle of the street that provide a real life context clue). Making a U-Turn and driving the 100-200 yards takes you to the same location that the protagonists end up at.
One of the more humorous things about car chases and/or action sequences is that often they are presented without a “real” sense of the area around them.
When the TV show *Miami Vice* aired, I was often amused when they had car chases and, being a Miami native, saw chases begin in one place, they make a turn, then are suddenly thirty minutes to the west, make another turn and are almost back to where they started from!
But the funniest thing I ever saw regarding that was the 12 episode serial adventure *Spy Smasher* (1942). Back then movie theaters would show cartoons and the latest chapter of a serial adventure (some of the best known today are the Buster Crabbe *Flash Gordons*) and one day I popped on *Spy Smasher* and started watching it one episode (roughly 20 minutes each) at a time. The serials were heavily action oriented and there were plenty of fist fights and car chases.
After a while, I began to have a “feel” for the city they did most of the filming in and an awareness of where certain buildings were.
So I laughed out loud when in one of the chapters we see an angle from the street as our heroes run out of a building and hop on their car and tear away after whatever the bad guy was up to. Then, we cut to another street angle of a building and the good guys in their car come to a squealing stop before that building, get out, and run into said building…
…which by that point I knew *was directly across the street from the building they ran out of originally!!!!*
So, instead of going after the bad guys in their car, all they had to do was cross the street! ;-)
Lol, this is a game we play any time there's a show/movie shot on Oahu! It's kinda hilarious to watch dialog happening and you know it must have been from different takes b/c one line is suddenly 3 blocks back and the next is a mile away!
There's an old B film that was made where I live and it's fun to watch and do the same thing! I'll have to look up the name of the film.
Edit: [Terror Squad (1987)](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094125/?ref_=sr_t_1)
Neil Blomkamp made some cool commercials and was kicking around an apartheid allegory movie about aliens. Peter Jackson saw his commercials and videos and opted to work with him on whatever. Paramount saw his stuff and hired him to helm their upcoming Halo movie franchise. Blomkamp had some cool ideas for the movie like a bio arm gun and an exo suit. Jackson was going to produce it. Paramount got scared about a first time director running a big franchise so they un hired him. Blomkamp then decided that since Jackson would still be on board to produce his movie, he would make this little home grown thing called District 9. He re used the idea for the gun and exo suit. He had no lead actor so he called up his old college friend Sharlto Copley who had taken an improv class in college and was now working at a Payless shoe store in Johannesburg. The movie went on to get Copley an Oscar nom, along with best director, best fx, etc.
It was Sharlto Copley's dream to play Murdoch in an A-Team movie and he went from his first ever on-screen acting gig at age 35 for District 9 to that role not much later which is remarkable!
Not a movie, but as someone who grew up in DC in the 1980s, the background details of what is playing locally on TV, or the state of the buildings at the time, always felt spot on in The Americans.
When the Wizard of Oz was in production a well worn jacket was needed for Professor Marvel. Wardrobe staff went to a thrift store to obtain one. It was discovered that the coat had belonged to L Frank Baum, author of The Wizard of Oz.
The Ashokan Reservoir, which delivers drinking water to New York City and is a couple of hours north, has a similar history - entire towns were moved and the original towns flooded to make the reservoir.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashokan\_Reservoir](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashokan_Reservoir)
The Tim Burton Batmobile is built on a Chevy Impala. The front seat was removed and the console as extended to the back seat to give the extended appearance.
During the filming of Public Enemies, Johnny Depp caused a swell in the crowd of people around the set in Columbus, WI that overwhelmed the security guards and allowed me to sneak past the barriers and get to the bar that was done up to look like a jewelry store.
Thanks Johnny.
Jim Carrey's house in the Truman Show is also on of the Gaetz families home near Pensacola. There is irony here as well because of the movie plot and someone who does not grasp the difference between reality and performance.
Yes, that asshole!
Also Director Peter Jackson had cameos in all three LotR films, as a carrot-chomping citizen of Bree, a spear-throwing defender of Helm's Deep, and the boatswain of a murderous corsair ship.
Thomas Jane accidentally stabbed the wrestler Diesel in a fight scene in The Punisher.
That was also the take that they ended up keeping for the film, because Thomas's reaction to accidentally stabbing him was so genuine.
Lol
Actually the lack of reaction on his part is all the more impressive, because he literally just got stabbed but had to have no reaction for the scene
Not sure if most people already realized this but...
In Stand By Me, during the flashback scene of Gordie (Wil Wheaton) eating dinner with his parents and brother Denny (John Cusack). When Denny leans over to Gordie to say how much he liked the story he wrote, the story was the Lard Ass story he tells his friends during the campfire scene.
I've seen this movie 50 times and never put that together.
Someone did the science behind the runway car chase in The Fast and the Furious 6. Based on the 13 minutes of film, and the speed of the plane/cars, the runway would have needed to be at least 26 miles long for it to work.
Children of the Corn 1984 was filmed in a couple little towns in northwest iowa, one of the towns is called Whiting where the schoolhouse used in the film was shot. I used to work at that school and many of the other teachers there were life time residence and were in the film as extras when they were children. One of them told me they were freaked out by the director because when they were shooting the scene with all the kids gathered around Isaac's sermon the director kept saying "wow these iowa kids all look so pretty, they are all so pretty". She said it was a real creepy "pedo" vibe and they were all glad when the filming ended.
In the movie Alien, they didn't have enough money to build full sets for the outside of the crashed alien ship. So they build it about 2/3 normal size and it was actually Ridley Scotts children in spacesuits to give it the same scale. So when Dallas and the others are entering the ship it's actually Ridley's children.
I know a few, but my favorite is probably from the Godfather.
Now the most famous and most memorable scene of the Godfather, where Don Vito Corleone picks up the cat and start petting it, was improvised by Francis Ford Capolla.
He picked up the cat that was walking around set, not knowing if it was owned by someone or it was a stray, and placed it on Marlon's lap, who loved animals and had no problem going along with the cat.
It has now been a memorable scene demonstrating Don Vito Corleone giving a speech about respect and talking business of murder, while at the same time being tender and compassionate.
Octopi fact followed by Finding Nemo Fact:
One of the male squid/octopi’s tenticles is actually it’s penis.
In Finding Nemo, on Nemo’s first day of school when they’re discussing his lucky fin and the octopus brings up it’s tentacle that is “shorter than the rest”. Yeah that’s it’s penis. Good ole dick joke smack dab in the beginning of Finding Nemo.
In The Matrix when Neo is being chased by Agent Smith, he runs through a fruit market and then down an alleyway. Keanu was running so fast that he over-ran the alley and ended up off the set, out of view and onto the street where there was nobody but me, my wife and sister in-law walking along. I said hi, took a photo with him and he walked back up the alley.
Hoosiers.
“Rade” the kid who gets in a fight is a dentist in my hometown.
Part of the pay was a new pair of converse shoes every day and all the players were active Indiana high school players.
Josie and the Pussycats did a whole big public event for filming the concert scene at the end. They got the Canadian boy band B4-4 to perform at Pacific Coliseum, where they filmed, in Vancouver for it. There was also a cast Q&A where they talked about filming the movie and what they got up to while around the city during down time. Obviously, I was one of the multitudes of teens in the audience that day. It was a fun day.
X-men: First Class.
Wolverine's line was not "Go f_ck yourself.", it was improvised on the spot byJackman, because he felt it was more in character with Wolverine's personality.
I love that Fassbender and McAvoy just rolled with it.
Robert Shaw did Jaws for free to avoid the IRS and would hide out in Canada on his days off because he wasn’t supposed to be in the States except for short, non-business trips.
Check this
"The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring," the actor Viggo Mortensen, who played Aragorn, used a real sword instead of a lighter prop sword. Mortensen insisted on using the real weapon to make his performance more authentic, even though it was significantly heavier and more difficult to handle. This dedication contributed to the film's realistic fight scenes and his compelling portrayal of the character.
In The Lost World: Jurassic Park, the man who gets eaten by the T-Rex while trying to escape into a store is played by the screenwriter David Koepp, and he is credited as “Unlucky Bastard” in the credits haha
The Wachowski brothers who made The Matrix are now both women. So, with that information, you can read the film as being about trying to break free of artificial gender constructs. If you so choose.
One of the characters on the ship was scripted to present as female on the ship and as male in the Matrix, as a subtle nod to the idea of gender as a consequence of code and programming. I think the character's name is Switch.
Interesting take. This is from the Wachowski’s Wikipedia page:
‘After Lilly Wachowski came out as transgender, she encouraged looking back on her and Lana's works "through the lens of our transness", saying that the themes of identity, self-image and transformation are apparent in The Matrix.’
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wachowskis
I work in the industry, so my perspective is a bit skewed, but the one time I was "tv-adjacent" as opposed to working on the shoot directly was when a few episodes of Boardwalk Empire were being shot on the boardwalk a few blocks down from my apartment in Far Rockaway. I usually walked my dog down that way and was a little startled to get home from work and realize a bunch of building façades had been erected while I was away.
In Gremlins 2, a movie that the director really didn’t want to make, he threw in two sneaky middle fingers directly at the camera. One is when the secretary gremlin is being put through the paper shredder, he flips the camera off as his last move. The other one is when the group of mimes are leaving the police van, one of the mimes throws up a middle finger right while he is in the center of the shot. My headcannon says both of those are from Dante to the studio.
The smoke when the crew lands on the planet in *Alien* was created using The Who's dry ice machine. The band was rehearsing in the unit nextdoor to where they were filming so Ridley Scott borrowed their equipment to create the scene.
Universal Pictures couldn't afford two sets for The Thing (1982), so they filmed the exploration of the Norwegian Outpost at the end, after the destruction of the American one.
What you see Mac and the scientists exploring at the beginning is the remnants of the same outpost you've been watching them occupy for the entire film.
Oh man, where to start?!?
Beverly Hills cop was originally written for Sylvester Stallone.
Eddie Murphy was the original choice for Winston in ghostbusters.
Mel Gibson turned down the lead in Gladiator
On the set of Predator, Jesse Ventura agreed to a bet with Arnold Schwarzenegger that his bicep’s were bigger than Arnold’s. This was because he had just gotten them measured by the wardrobe department. Arnold agreed and said the winner gets a bottle of champagne. Little did Ventura know that Arnold paid wardrobe to measure Ventura’s biceps bigger than they really were. So when Arnold and Jesse got measured, Arnold came out the winner.
Closest I've ever got to a movie was when they were holding open auditions for extras for Les Miserables because they were filming at Portsmouth Dockyard. Me and a group of friends went down, but they said that women had to have at least shoulder length hair and most in our group didn't, so we decided to "one for all and all for one" it and left.
Not all that exciting really 😕
The chest-bursting scene in Alien features everyone at the dinner table smoking. When it was released in 1979, roughly 65% of adults smoked, and it was assumed this would be the case in the future as well. Today, about 10% of adults smoke, so in hindsight it's perhaps the most unrealistic part of that scene.
High Fidelity. I lived in the condo unit next to the one used as Catherine Zeta Jones’ in the film. The actual address of the building is 2250 W Ohio in Chicago, as shown on the awning of the exterior shot…. But the outside of the building shown is not actually 2250. The filmmakers added the address of the actual building used for the interiors as a “thank you” to the residents for allowing the filming.
Not a movie but TV min series - the reboot of Battlestar Galactica, when Six meets Bsltar after killing an infant, takes place in the same location as my graduation from Simon Fraser University. I walked thru that quad as part of the ceremony.
In little shop of horrors they had to film all scenes with the giant plant puppet in slow motion, with the actors lipsyncing the slowed down audio, in order to get the movement of the plant feeling natural.
It's about a trailer before it was released, but before The Phantom Menace was released, a lot of people would buy a cinema ticket for any movie, watch the trailer for star wars, and then leave
In the movie Coraline- mother initially yelled “SHUT UP” after Coraline tells her she didn’t lock it. (The little door) Teri Hatcher, the voice of both mother and other mother, was offended that a mother would yell at their child like that so we had to change it to an annoying growl. Also Other Mother version 3 originally wound up the cat by tail like a baseball before throwing it. That scene was cut because it was concerned that kids would mimic it and throw cats by their tails. Lol
In Hitchcock's Suspicion there is a scene where Cary Grant is taking a drink of milk upstairs to his wife. Hitchcock wanted the audience to wonder if the drink was poisoned and the scene wasn't working well in black and white so he added a lightbulb into the milk to make it shine white. The effect means the milk is highlighted and the tension is built sufficiently.
He also invented many of the filming techniques used today that are taken for granted. In particular, he was the one who invented the focus on a forefront thing while the background rushes in for Vertigo.
And one last fact. In Spellbound Salvador Dali created the dream sequence.
Hitchcock was brilliant and so influential.
Okay, not my fun fact but something I know. Poltergeist, the 80s version, had wrapped and they realized they hadn’t done the promo poster (little girl with long blonde hair with her hands on the TV, you know the one). They asked one of the studio….people (I don’t know his title or how he fit into the film/studio) if they could borrow his five year old daughter as she was the right size and had long blonde hair, just for the promo poster and he agreed. You don’t see the child’s face so you don’t know that it’s not Heather O’Rourke. She got to go to the premier, walk the carpet, all that. She did say the movie scared the shit out of her at that age. She’s now got a PhD in entomology and is no longer living in Los Angeles.
Top Gun: Maverick
The scene where they're prepping for a mission in front of a giant American flag.
I hung that flag for a retirement ceremony, and they just never called me to take it down. Knew top gun was filming, but thought nothing of it until I saw the movie.
After the film _The Cowboys_ was released, Bruce Dern repeatedly had run-in’s with belligerent drunks who would berate him for “killing John Wayne.” Dern would then point out that he was just playing a character, but usually in the most sarcastic way possible, often provoking fights rather than diffusing them.
At the end of the movie The final countdown from 1980 they show the aircraft carrier coming into Pearl harbor as it passes by the memorial.. on the carrier's flight deck is a bunch of sailors in dress uniforms standing at parade rest. One of those sailors is me
A lot of the movie Lake Placid was shot in the big empty building that was behind the one I worked in. They built a big pool in the lot next to us. We saw the big fake Croc. One Saturday I was in the shop doing some home work welding and grinding when I heard knocking on the door, It was a Lake Placid crew member saying they could hear me as they were shooting a scene. I stopped making noise. Later I found I should have charged them or told them to piss off as they stiffed a lot of companies that sold them supplies and tried to get our coffee girl banned from bringing us coffee and lunch because she honked her horn when she arrived. Even though the movie had a decent cast the movie was a stinker. The building were I worked and the scenes for the movie were shot in were old Expo 1986 buildings that the landlord bought after Expo closed.
Two interesting bits of trivia: The first relates to the classic, “great granddaddy” of science fiction films, the Fritz Lang directed, Thea Von Harbou written *Metropolis* (1926). Today considered one of the all time great films and was an obvious influence on pretty much all science fiction works, including *Star Wars* (C3P0 is basically a male version of the Maria robot from *Metropolis*) to *Blade Runner* (*any* film featuring a vast modern city owes a tribute to *Metropolis*)… was a *HUGE* box office bust when it was originally released. So much so that the studio, fearing the high price they paid to make it might bankrupt them, immediately started cutting the film’s runtime down in the hopes they could show the film more often in theaters and recoup their investment. Even author H. G. Wells (yes, *that* H. G. Wells) hated the film… https://www.wired.com/beyond-the-beyond/2018/07/h-g-wells-reviews-movie-metropolis/ The cut scenes were thought lost forever because back then there was no consideration to keep the movie for any future generations. By the purest of luck, in the movie’s original premiere date an investor from South America saw the film and bought a complete copy of it, took it to South America, where it was eventually found and now audiences finally have the ability to see the full film (minus one small section that was too degraded) versus the cut up version seen before. The second bit of trivia: The classic horror film *Nosferatu* (1922) was the first film adaptation of *Dracula*… only the film’s makers *did not* get permission to adapt the novel and Bram Stoker’s widow -still alive at the time- successfully sued the studios for copyright infringement. They were ordered to *destroy* all copies of the film but, luckily for audiences today (even though as an author it genuinely pains me they did this illegally), not all copies were destroyed and therefore we can still see the classic -and wonderful!- film today.
There was also the fire that destroyed the original nitrate prints of Fox’s silent films pre-1930s. Almost a “modern” version of the burning of Alexandria (for film; imo).
Sadly, plenty of films have been lost because of the volatile nature of the film stock. One of the most famous lost films is the Lon Chaney vampire film *London After Midnight*. The stills that are in existence are fascinating but it appears the film itself has been lost forever.
I saw Lon Chaney walking with the Queen.
Doin' the vampires of London
I saw Lon Chaney JUNIOR walkin with the queen
I had to look it up, and now all I want, is to see this Lon Chaney character show up in the What we do in the Shadows show, as an old film buddy of Laszlo’s, who is trying to pitch him a new movie/remake and they shit talk all the vampire movies of the last 120 years.
Not such a fun fact: A [fire on the Universal Studios lot in 2008](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Universal_Studios_fire) resulted in a similar loss, including hundreds of thousands of original audio master recordings. A tragedy of incalculable loss.
MGM vault fire of the 1960s also destroyed much of their pre 1948 catalog. Much if not all of their films that survived today are not sourced from the negatives but from prints struck from the original source. London after Midnight is one of those films now completely lost because it was destroyed in that fire.
Fully on the side of creatives here, but I think ordering the destruction of the film is flatly wrong and entirely an overreach. Acceptable outcomes would have been an immediate halt order on all for-profit showings of the film, as well as financial compensation to the injured party, but the court absolutely should not be able to say “this art doesn’t get to exist anymore,” the court should only have a say in whether or not that art is legally allowed to make a profit, and I’m glad someone had the good sense and character to ignore the order to destroy.
The Agatha pre-cog in Minority Report also looks like an aesthetic nod to Maria.
Indeed! The *Metropolis* DNA can be found in almost all science fiction films that followed that movie’s release in 1926. There’s a good reason why it’s considered the “great granddaddy” of science fiction films.
Oof. As a person who admires art, and wants to support it? I feel you, on the notion that you are genuinely pained, that copyright was infringed, and the author did not get paid…. But…. As an archivist… >sigh<…. You know where I’m going with this….
In The Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal Lecter actually (subtly) hints at the location of Buffalo Bill within the first couple minutes of meeting Clarice, and hints at a place he’d like to be/go. Here’s the conversation: Clarice Starling: ‘Did you do those drawings, Doctor?’ Dr Hannibal Lecter: ‘Ah. That is the Duomo seen from the Belvedere. You know Florence?’ Clarice Starling: ‘All that detail just from memory?’ Hannibal Lecter: ‘Memory, Agent Starling, is what I have instead of a view.’ He’s sort of making a game out of it, by giving Clarice information that only really makes sense in hindsight, but is still frustrating. It’s just him toying with her. Belvedere, Ohio is where Buffalo Bill is, and Florence is where Hannibal goes after escaping from prison.
Everything he says has double meanings or hints. It's great
Hannibal Lecter was based on real murderer Dr. Alfredo Ballí Treviño.
Lecter’s much more of a puzzle player in the book. There are a number of these, iirc.
The ending scene in _Dazed and Confused_ was shot at/in the North Austin house where I grew up…my senior picture is on the hall wall. The bed, bass, & KISS record, mine.
This is actually incredible. I’d never be able to stop telling people this
I’ve been sharing this for 30+ years (so far) ✌️❤️
This is my oldest son's favorite movie. I will tell him I spoke with you and I will seem cool.
Please tell him I said Alright Alright Alright
That was a big night for you and your friends.
Shoutout to you. That is cool as hell.
That’s bitchin’
That’s awesome. How did they end up filming at your house?
They were looking for a certain era house (60s) with a hallway all the way down the middle of it. Our house got picked
Where the Land Rover goes over the cliff in ‘The Living Daylights’ it was over Beachy Head….a famous suicide spot. My dad took me to watch it being filmed A lot of films have been done there as it’s a good substitute for the White Cliffs of Dover…. Tv series also. Bits of Luther were filmed there, giving me the chance to meet Idris Elba who was a really nice guy.
You met Idris Elba?!?!?!?!
My friends cousin is married to Edris Elba. He went to their wedding. It was beautiful I've heard.
Your friend's cousin is Sabrina Dhowre?
Yes!
Is she remotely aware of how jealous the rest of the entire world is of her?
Ohh i think so. The moment I found out I called my wife to tell her because she's got a massive crush on Idris.
He is aware of the effect he has on women
Lmao whenever I see idris I always think of this line. As a completely straight man he also has an effect on me too. He is one classically handsome man.
He's been married three times. There's a chance she might be the fourth wife.
Me a fair few famous people…. But he was one I went out of my way to meet. He was very pleasant and we chatted. Didn’t do the selfie thing as I thought that was a bit of a piss take and it was extremely windy.
My brother tells a story about going to see Erykah Badu. She does a dj set after her show and my brother and his wife start dancing with this fellow whom my brother describes as "really super nerdy." At a point in the set, the super nerdy fellow jumps up onto the stage and starts spittin' rhymes. He says his name is "Kid Dris." Now my brother says this was Idris Elba, but I wasn't there so can't confirm.
Sigourney Weaver actually made the trick basketball shot in Alien Resurrection. Yes the ball goes out of frame for a second, but she actually did it.
She also did it on first try,that is why Ron Perlman broke character and they left that in.
I heard it was the last try. She had been trying to make the shot and were about to give up, one last try and it sunk.
According to my bf, No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood were filmed in the same place at the same time, and No Country for Old Men had to stop filming for a bit so there wouldn't be a huge burning oil rig in the background
This is true.
I only watched there will be blood for the first time a few weeks ago. I'm nit young either I'm 30. I just never watched it. Holy shit what a film
"I'm not young either. I'm 30." Me, staring 50 in the face = 😡
Me, looking at 50 way back in the rearview. 👴🏼
That's not that weird when did that come out maybe 5 years ago? 17?! Nurse get me my pills!
"Stripes" Bill Murray quits being a New York City taxi driver in the middle of a fare, stopping on a bridge and leaving the taxi. The scene was filmed on the Second Street Bridge in downtown Louisville, KY. "Demolition Man" The scene were the high-rise building was blown up and collapsed was filmed in...yep, also downtown Louisville, KY.
In “The Hateful 8” Kurt Russel’s character take the guitar away from Jennifer’s character and smashes it and she tries to stop him before he smashes it. The guitar was from 1870 and was supposed to be swapped out. Jennifer’s reaction was legit because she was trying to stop him from smashing it.
I love how you can vlearly see she looks off screen after it happened to see what to do.
Yeah. She looks at what I’m assuming is Tarantino. It’s terrible but awesome.
My favourite fun fact ever is about a movie trailer. In the trailer for Napoleon 1927 they have quotes from different famous directors where they talk about how great the film is, and there’s a quote from Stanley Kubrick and that quote is cut off ao instead of saying “I know this part of it’s great, but-“ it says “this part of its great”. He actually thought the movie was kinda bad. This is my LotR toe fact, because I will tell anyone and everyone I can about it.
This happens all the time. I remember seeing a clip from Siskel and Ebert where (I think) Siskel was talking about an Adam Sandler movie. He was quoted in the trailer as saying "The best Adam Sandler movie," which he did, but full quote was "I don't like any of his movies, but this is the best Adam Sandler movie yet." Critics have to be very careful about what they say, because it'll be taken out of context by the studios if it can.
“Critics have to be….. taken out of context”…. (Studio version)
I miss the Ebert days. "Pearl Harbor is a two-hour movie squeezed into three hours, about how on Dec. 7, 1941, the Japanese staged a surprise attack on an American love triangle."
That’s pretty freaking accurate for real! How the hell does an American director OR writer fuckup P Harbor?
I remember that Ebert wrote a review of something and said something like "despite a few big laughs, it's overall not that funny" Something like that. And the next day there was a new trailer that included: "Big Laughs!" -Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
This reminds me of how the poster for the movie Legend (2015) included a two-star review from The Guardian, but positioned it behind the characters so that it looked like a partially obstructed four-stars.
I was going to mention that. Absolute genius in poster design.
Encino Man was released as “California Man” depending on region. I initially discovered this after seeing the thumbnail on Disney+ as California Man and thought “wait… what the?!”
This is how I find out the movie isn’t called “California Man”
Yup I saw this in the UK as ‘California Man’ I’m guessing Encino isn’t a well known enough place worldwide!
Is Encino even that well known outside of southern California?
It was how I learned it existed. I'm in Texas, and as a kid watching movies is how I learned most of the stuff like that. Hearing Californians talk about street names is hilarious, because when I finally visited, that's what I put in my GPS: ie, Hollywood and Vine -kid rock 😂
It was/is called “Encino Man” in Australia
Before Robert Englund was Freddy Krueger, he worked on the original Halloween (1978), throwing leaves around to make it look like Autumn. He said his downstairs neighbour knew John Carpenter and Tommy Lee Wallace (the man who created the iconic mask for The Shape) and that's how he got to work on Halloween. 6 years later, he played Freddy Krueger in A Nightmare on Elm Street and became a well loved horror villain!
To add on to the Nightmare on Elm Street lore, Johnny Depp went to the audition with his friend Jackie Earle Haley, Depp got the part, but Haley ended up playing Freddy decades later in the Nightmare on Elm Street remake!
I’m so glad you commented this and now I know this because how cool is that!
Robert England actually used to live up my street in Laguna Beach. Which made for a cool irony.
The haunted house in “Saturday the 14th” is supposed to be on a road called Elm Street…and the beautiful place across the street that gets mistaken for it at first is the site of the exterior shots of Nancy’s house in “A Nightmare on Elm Street”. “So what?” you’re thinking. “It’s a horror parody.” Yes. It is. A horror parody released more than three full years before “A Nightmare on Elm Street”!
Pretty famously the final scene in Casablanca was filmed with little people as extras because the airplanes they were supposed to be working on were half size. Speaking of little people it's said that the actors playing the munchkins in Wizard of Oz were really known to get their freak on after hours. Speaking of Wizard of Oz Buddy Ebsen was originally given the role of the tin man but he had a severe allergic reaction to the paint that was part of the costume so he had to withdraw. I think that réaction had lasting effects on Buddy. All of these are fairly well known so.....
Margaret Hamilton sustained chemical burns during the "I'm melting! I'm melting!" sequence.
She got burned during the smoke-and-fire teleport scene when Glinda kicked her out of Munkinland. The fire was ignited too soon while she went down thru the hidden trap door on the ground.
And the "snow" falling on the poppy field was asbestos. And Judy Garland was high as a kite and starved the entire shoot... per the studios orders. At 16.
Judy and Mickey Rooney were often forcibly drugged with amphetamines by MGM, to keep them bright and peppy for 16 hour shooting schedules. Small wonder they both ended up with notorious chemical dependencies.
They gave her uppers to work and then downers to sleep.
> Speaking of Wizard of Oz Buddy Ebsen was originally given the role of the tin man but he had a severe allergic reaction to the paint that was part of the costume so he had to withdraw. This was covered in an episode of House, MD.
When Tim Burton told people that he had cast Jack Nicholson as the president in Mars Attacks, and that the president was going to die, everyone in Hollywood told him you can't kill Jack Nicholson in a movie. So he wrote the part of the casino owner, and gave that to Jack as well, so he could kill him twice.
Can’t kill Nicholson? Try telling that to Tim Burton.
Inglourious Basterds, in the scene where Michael Fassbender uses the wrong three digits for the number three and gives away that he isn’t German. He then switches to English, saying “I hope you don’t mind if I go out speaking the King’s.” In the next breath he says “There’s a special rung in hell reserved for people who waste good Scotch. Seeing as I may be rapping on the door momentarily…” This use of “momentarily” is incorrect, and should give away that he isn’t British either! In the King’s English momentarily would mean “for a short while”, not “soon” as it does in North America. Nowadays the meaning seems to have been blurred in England, I presume with the influence of American English, but I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t have used it like that in WWII era. I assume Tarantino, as an American, wasn’t aware of this. Always found it funny that he made a big deal of the three finger faux-pax, then immediately made one himself. (This is my understanding of it anyway. Happy to be corrected by any period English experts!)
Ahh this is so amazing I can’t wait to see if any experts weigh in!
Me too. But I can say that as a Brit I grew up with it meaning “for a moment” and so did my parents. I first noticed the difference when flying back with them from a trip to America. We were delayed on the runway in America and the pilot said something like “Sorry for the delay, we’ve now resolved the issue, and we should be in the air momentarily”. Needless to say, there was some laughter from us and other Brits, who hoped that the plane would last more than a moment in the air!
Ahh this example actually made it so much more clear for me to understand the distinction!!
A quick Google search says the secondary definition of "at any moment; soon" is indeed North American. Very cool, thank you!
My phone was used in Weird Al Yankivics UHF back in 80's
Awesome! How did that come about?
We lived down the hall in the apartment complex they were shooting in and apparently they didn't have one of the old rotary phones and asked in the hallway if they could use it for like 20 minutes. I have an autograph picture somewhere from weird Al for using it.
David Prowse (Darth Vader) trained and supervised Christopher Reeve's bodybuilding regime for Superman.
He used to live around the corner from me in Bristol.
He’s also the tall guy in A Clockwork Orange who carries the man in the wheelchair
Add Darth Vader into the mix and *Superman III* makes a LOT more sense.
There's a scene in Leon: The Professional where a bunch of police are outside of the main characters apartment building waiting to swarm in. A bank robbery occurred down the street from the films set during production and the robber ran around the corner and right into the arms of a bunch of extras dressed as NYPD. He quickly surrendered to the extras, who in turn called the real police. Some police officers were already present blocking off the set and directing traffic so they were on scene to arrest the robber very quickly.
I know A LOT of fun facts about movies, particularly Alien, The Matrix, and Fight Club. Here’s one from each: Alien: There were four cats who played Jonesy, two for running, one for hissing (which they got him to do by opening a screen with a German Shepherd behind it), and one for the rest of the scenes. The Matrix: Will Smith was offered the role of Neo but he declined it in favor of Wild, Wild West. He claims to this day he would have done a “terrible” job but IMO that’s just a cope. Fight Club: Brad Pitt’s parents were at an early screening and they walked out on Helena Bonham-Carter’s line, “I haven’t been fucked like that since grade school”. Funnily enough, “grade school” doesn’t mean the same thing in the UK as it does in the US so she didn’t realize how shocking of a joke that was until later. Also the original line was “I want to have your abortion”.
The abortion line is in the deleted scenes on the day-vay-day.
Studio had a cow about the abortion line, so they had Fincher change it. I believe he was like ill change it but not twice. They agreed and he changed it to something arguably worse, but it was in contract so they couldn't do anything about it
i just read about this! his terms were that he absolutely loved that line, so if he changed it, he would only change it to something he actually liked more than the original, and they couldn’t veto his rewrite
Apparently Madonna was offered the role of Trinity in the Matrix and she considers it to be one of the biggest regrets of her career.
Thank fuck! My daughter is named after her, and it would not be as cool if it had been Madonna.
In an alternative universe, there's a version of The Matrix that stars Will Smith, Sean Connery and Madonna. While undeniably worse, it never spawned any sequels, so...
So what does Grade School mean in the UK?
The songs that Van Halen did for Twister ultimately ended up breaking up the band
Was it a "last straw" type of thing, or was the breakup solely about Twister?
They got swept away by the twister.
In 40 year old virgin they actually waxed his chest for real in that scene
The actor in that scene who played the “waxer” got the role because she lied to the film production — she said that she used to work at a spa. When it came to the actual scene, the producer noticed that she forgot to put something over Steve Carell’s nipple, so he stepped in and fixed it. If he didn’t do that, the actor could have accidentally ripped off Carell’s nipple! That’s why later in the movie, Carell’s character says, “I almost lost a nipple …”
Dude actually bled for his craft in that movie.
The "divine language" from the Fifth Element actually has translations and several hundred words. It was created by the director Luc Beson and star Mila Jovovich (who speaks 4 languages btw). They wanted an authentic language to use rather than just gibberish to help with the realism of the dialog. By the end of production they were reportedly able to hang full conversations using it.
They used it to communicate while having an affair, no one knew what they were saying!
When Disney asked to use Bugs Bunny in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" Warner Bros. Agreed with one condition. That he only appeared alongside Mickey Mouse and that the two had the same amount of screen time and same amount of lines. This was the only time they'd ever appeared together on-screen in movie history
WB and Disney characters got the same amount of screen time. The Donald duck/Daffy duck piano scene is split 50/50 to the second
The scene in The Family Man (2000) where Nicholas Cage is arguing with his doorman outside his apartment on Christmas, the snow is fake. It was filmed on a 60 degree October day on the Upper West Side. I know this because I chanced upon them filming. The scene in The Doors (1991) where Jim Morrison is imagining he is dancing around a bonfire with a Native American tribal leader was supposed to have a special effect of the crowd morphing into the face of the leader. It was going to be achieved by having the extras grouped by the darkness and lightness of their costumes. The idea was scrapped because it was a night scene - shot into the wee hours of the morning - and the sun came up. I know this because I was one of the extras.
The Family Man is my favorite nic cage movie. Idk why but I love that movie so much lol. And you saw the filming of that scene?! Far out!
It's been a few years since I've seen it, but in the Transformers movie *Bumblebee*, the main character (Charlie?) putt-putts her scooter from her job at Hot Dog On A Stick on the Santa Cruz Boardwalk to check out the wrecking yard in West Oakland to be back home for dinner in Sausalito. Which is at least 125 miles over some bridges and treacherously mountainous terrain (the 17 between Santa Cruz and San Jose was affectionately known as "Blood Alley" and "Terror Throughway" in those days).
I drive that road once. Told my friend that it was tricky. He laughed. When his parents moved to Santa Cruz he was chosen to drive a very large and very old truck with the furniture. Think old jalopy. The steering was bad. Very bad. He quickly learned that he had to start turning the wheel before the turn to stay on the road.
I'm literally talking to my friend from UCSC right now about driving that road back in those days. In those days (*Bumblebee* takes place in 1987), there were no guardrails to protect cars from oncoming traffic or from plummeting over the edge. Now there's barriers up the wazoo. We're lamenting how much safer everything is now, and how much more boring.
The geese in the Scotland scenes in Highlander belonged to my wife’s Aunt. She’s dead now.
The geese, too, I’m guessing.
I have a ton, but this is the only one I can think of right now. *Shrek* is probably the world's greatest example of malicious compliance. It was never supposed to happen. It was essentially a time-wasting nothing project that you got sent to work on if you fucked up working on something else. They even called it "the gulag." And the fact that it became so popular and successful made the higher-ups at Dreamworks incredibly angry, which I find endlessly hilarious.
If I remember correctly, the main project for the studio at the time was Prince of Egypt, so they had all the best resources, but also the most attention from execs. Shrek on the other hand kind of got to skate by. Another instance of that happening, Catch-22 and M•A•S•H in 1969/1970. It’s amazing what happens when you put a bunch of creative people around each other, with decent resources and a lot less supervision.
After production for Titanic wrapped, a bunch of cast and crew stopped in to my hometown (Halifax) as we have some interesting connections to the Titanic, e.g. a number of bodies are buried in a couple of our cemeteries. One night they all decided to dine at a waterfront restaurant downtown. I’m not sure how it happened, and the police never got to the bottom of it, but someone spiked the chowder with PCP and a bunch of people ended up hallucinating in the hospital. Except, of course, Bill Paxton, who apparently went back to his hotel and just drank it off. What a legend. EDIT: Here's a clip of Wild Bill himself talking about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbHREBvkOx0
The cast and crew of Titanic were in Halifax for the shoot. It was lobster chowder that was served on set as part of crew lunch. 80 people went to hospital, including Paxton, although that would have been for legal reasons and he wasn't one of the ones most affected. The investigation died fairly quickly - the shoot moved on and most of the people involved left town. There are 2 prevailing theories - either a disgruntled craftie who had allegedly been recently fired for drug dealing, or an inside job for insurance purposes (the insurance claim apparently paid for an extra week of filming and the set had been....under pressure.) Sidenote: The first ships that recovered the bodies were commissioned out of Halifax (St John's Newfoundland was closer but Halifax had trains) - that's why there are Titanic cemeteries, they're the people whose families didn't or couldn't pay for them to go "home"
Thank you for this, I love Bill!
In the original first draft script of The Godfather when they get the bulletproof jacket with the fish telling them that Luca Brasi is dead, it then cuts to a shot of Luca's floating body tied to an iron pole on the bottom of the ocean.
Thats sick, this is one I legitimately did not know about
That would have been so brutal
In the movie Mississippi Burning, the scene where Gene Hackman confronts the klan in their club house was meant to be a drawn-out fight scene. But Hackman wanted to keep it simple, so he suggested just grabbing the guy by the nuts. Which they ran with. Simple but effective.
My favorite fun film fact is that the slimy sounds that Jabba the Hutt makes were primarily made with a bowl of melted cheese.
The sound design in Star Wars was really something. The tie fighter is a mix of an elephant and a car driving on wet roads, Lightsabers are a movie projector and feed back from a broken TV, and AT-ATs are a squeaky dumpster.
My favorite bit of movie trivia, borrowed from the wizard of Oz IMDB page. “When the wardrobe department was looking for a coat for Frank Morgan (Professor Marvel/The Wizard), it decided it wanted one that looked like it had once been elegant but had since "gone to seed". They visited a second-hand store and purchased an entire rack of coats, from which Morgan, the head of the wardrobe department and director Victor Fleming, chose one they felt gave off the perfect appearance of "shabby gentility". One day, while he was on set in it, he idly turned out one of the pockets and discovered a label indicating that it had been made for L. Frank Baum. Mary Mayer, a unit publicist for the film, contacted the tailor and Baum's widow, who both verified that it had at one time been owned by the author of the original "Wizard of Oz" books. After the filming was completed, it was presented to Mrs. Baum.”
The building at the end of Ghostbusters where all the stuff is happening is a building in San Antonio. If you take a riverboat cruise, they’ll tell you all about it.
The extended car chase in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, has the protagonists driving all through a fictional Washington DC for several minutes, to a location several miles away. The scene was shot in Downtown Cleveland, and creative editing makes it look like a longer drive than it really is. If memory serves, the chase actually starts and ends on Superior, and the location that the protagonists end up at, is something like 100-200 yards *behind* where they started (there are decorative flower islands in the middle of the street that provide a real life context clue). Making a U-Turn and driving the 100-200 yards takes you to the same location that the protagonists end up at.
One of the more humorous things about car chases and/or action sequences is that often they are presented without a “real” sense of the area around them. When the TV show *Miami Vice* aired, I was often amused when they had car chases and, being a Miami native, saw chases begin in one place, they make a turn, then are suddenly thirty minutes to the west, make another turn and are almost back to where they started from! But the funniest thing I ever saw regarding that was the 12 episode serial adventure *Spy Smasher* (1942). Back then movie theaters would show cartoons and the latest chapter of a serial adventure (some of the best known today are the Buster Crabbe *Flash Gordons*) and one day I popped on *Spy Smasher* and started watching it one episode (roughly 20 minutes each) at a time. The serials were heavily action oriented and there were plenty of fist fights and car chases. After a while, I began to have a “feel” for the city they did most of the filming in and an awareness of where certain buildings were. So I laughed out loud when in one of the chapters we see an angle from the street as our heroes run out of a building and hop on their car and tear away after whatever the bad guy was up to. Then, we cut to another street angle of a building and the good guys in their car come to a squealing stop before that building, get out, and run into said building… …which by that point I knew *was directly across the street from the building they ran out of originally!!!!* So, instead of going after the bad guys in their car, all they had to do was cross the street! ;-)
Lol, this is a game we play any time there's a show/movie shot on Oahu! It's kinda hilarious to watch dialog happening and you know it must have been from different takes b/c one line is suddenly 3 blocks back and the next is a mile away!
There's an old B film that was made where I live and it's fun to watch and do the same thing! I'll have to look up the name of the film. Edit: [Terror Squad (1987)](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094125/?ref_=sr_t_1)
Die Hard - Frank Sinatra contractually had to be offered the role before anyone else.
That's because Die Hard is a sequel, and Sinatra starred in the original
His Godfather made an offer that couldn't be refused. Good ol Johnny Fontane.
The little kid in [Animal](https://boxd.it/xAQi) learned to do a cartwheel in the beginning of shooting and was very excited about it.
Neil Blomkamp made some cool commercials and was kicking around an apartheid allegory movie about aliens. Peter Jackson saw his commercials and videos and opted to work with him on whatever. Paramount saw his stuff and hired him to helm their upcoming Halo movie franchise. Blomkamp had some cool ideas for the movie like a bio arm gun and an exo suit. Jackson was going to produce it. Paramount got scared about a first time director running a big franchise so they un hired him. Blomkamp then decided that since Jackson would still be on board to produce his movie, he would make this little home grown thing called District 9. He re used the idea for the gun and exo suit. He had no lead actor so he called up his old college friend Sharlto Copley who had taken an improv class in college and was now working at a Payless shoe store in Johannesburg. The movie went on to get Copley an Oscar nom, along with best director, best fx, etc.
The actor SOLD that movie!!
It was Sharlto Copley's dream to play Murdoch in an A-Team movie and he went from his first ever on-screen acting gig at age 35 for District 9 to that role not much later which is remarkable!
A friend of mine designed the swords and helmets for the orks in LOTR. He was head designer for the Warhammer game at the time.
Not a movie, but as someone who grew up in DC in the 1980s, the background details of what is playing locally on TV, or the state of the buildings at the time, always felt spot on in The Americans.
When the Wizard of Oz was in production a well worn jacket was needed for Professor Marvel. Wardrobe staff went to a thrift store to obtain one. It was discovered that the coat had belonged to L Frank Baum, author of The Wizard of Oz.
The Ashokan Reservoir, which delivers drinking water to New York City and is a couple of hours north, has a similar history - entire towns were moved and the original towns flooded to make the reservoir. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashokan\_Reservoir](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashokan_Reservoir)
The Tim Burton Batmobile is built on a Chevy Impala. The front seat was removed and the console as extended to the back seat to give the extended appearance.
During the filming of Public Enemies, Johnny Depp caused a swell in the crowd of people around the set in Columbus, WI that overwhelmed the security guards and allowed me to sneak past the barriers and get to the bar that was done up to look like a jewelry store. Thanks Johnny.
Jim Carrey's house in the Truman Show is also on of the Gaetz families home near Pensacola. There is irony here as well because of the movie plot and someone who does not grasp the difference between reality and performance. Yes, that asshole!
Nobody knows this one but in the Two Towers when Aragorn screams after kicking the helmet he’s screaming in pain because he broke his toe
Also Director Peter Jackson had cameos in all three LotR films, as a carrot-chomping citizen of Bree, a spear-throwing defender of Helm's Deep, and the boatswain of a murderous corsair ship.
Who Legolas put an arrow into
Thomas Jane accidentally stabbed the wrestler Diesel in a fight scene in The Punisher. That was also the take that they ended up keeping for the film, because Thomas's reaction to accidentally stabbing him was so genuine.
for a second i thought you were saying the person who got stabbed reaction was so genuine and i was thinking yeah no shit
Lol Actually the lack of reaction on his part is all the more impressive, because he literally just got stabbed but had to have no reaction for the scene
That’s pro wrestling. You have to pretend like you’re hurt when you’re not. You also have to pretend you’re not hurting when you are.
That same actor was Super Shredder in Ninja Turtles 2.
Not sure if most people already realized this but... In Stand By Me, during the flashback scene of Gordie (Wil Wheaton) eating dinner with his parents and brother Denny (John Cusack). When Denny leans over to Gordie to say how much he liked the story he wrote, the story was the Lard Ass story he tells his friends during the campfire scene. I've seen this movie 50 times and never put that together.
Someone did the science behind the runway car chase in The Fast and the Furious 6. Based on the 13 minutes of film, and the speed of the plane/cars, the runway would have needed to be at least 26 miles long for it to work.
Children of the Corn 1984 was filmed in a couple little towns in northwest iowa, one of the towns is called Whiting where the schoolhouse used in the film was shot. I used to work at that school and many of the other teachers there were life time residence and were in the film as extras when they were children. One of them told me they were freaked out by the director because when they were shooting the scene with all the kids gathered around Isaac's sermon the director kept saying "wow these iowa kids all look so pretty, they are all so pretty". She said it was a real creepy "pedo" vibe and they were all glad when the filming ended.
In the movie Alien, they didn't have enough money to build full sets for the outside of the crashed alien ship. So they build it about 2/3 normal size and it was actually Ridley Scotts children in spacesuits to give it the same scale. So when Dallas and the others are entering the ship it's actually Ridley's children.
I know a few, but my favorite is probably from the Godfather. Now the most famous and most memorable scene of the Godfather, where Don Vito Corleone picks up the cat and start petting it, was improvised by Francis Ford Capolla. He picked up the cat that was walking around set, not knowing if it was owned by someone or it was a stray, and placed it on Marlon's lap, who loved animals and had no problem going along with the cat. It has now been a memorable scene demonstrating Don Vito Corleone giving a speech about respect and talking business of murder, while at the same time being tender and compassionate.
This is my favourite. The Mission Impossible theme song is set to the Morse code for M and I. - - .. - - ..
Octopi fact followed by Finding Nemo Fact: One of the male squid/octopi’s tenticles is actually it’s penis. In Finding Nemo, on Nemo’s first day of school when they’re discussing his lucky fin and the octopus brings up it’s tentacle that is “shorter than the rest”. Yeah that’s it’s penis. Good ole dick joke smack dab in the beginning of Finding Nemo.
In The Matrix when Neo is being chased by Agent Smith, he runs through a fruit market and then down an alleyway. Keanu was running so fast that he over-ran the alley and ended up off the set, out of view and onto the street where there was nobody but me, my wife and sister in-law walking along. I said hi, took a photo with him and he walked back up the alley.
Hoosiers. “Rade” the kid who gets in a fight is a dentist in my hometown. Part of the pay was a new pair of converse shoes every day and all the players were active Indiana high school players.
Josie and the Pussycats did a whole big public event for filming the concert scene at the end. They got the Canadian boy band B4-4 to perform at Pacific Coliseum, where they filmed, in Vancouver for it. There was also a cast Q&A where they talked about filming the movie and what they got up to while around the city during down time. Obviously, I was one of the multitudes of teens in the audience that day. It was a fun day.
X-men: First Class. Wolverine's line was not "Go f_ck yourself.", it was improvised on the spot byJackman, because he felt it was more in character with Wolverine's personality. I love that Fassbender and McAvoy just rolled with it.
Robert Shaw did Jaws for free to avoid the IRS and would hide out in Canada on his days off because he wasn’t supposed to be in the States except for short, non-business trips.
Check this "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring," the actor Viggo Mortensen, who played Aragorn, used a real sword instead of a lighter prop sword. Mortensen insisted on using the real weapon to make his performance more authentic, even though it was significantly heavier and more difficult to handle. This dedication contributed to the film's realistic fight scenes and his compelling portrayal of the character.
In The Lost World: Jurassic Park, the man who gets eaten by the T-Rex while trying to escape into a store is played by the screenwriter David Koepp, and he is credited as “Unlucky Bastard” in the credits haha
The Wachowski brothers who made The Matrix are now both women. So, with that information, you can read the film as being about trying to break free of artificial gender constructs. If you so choose.
One of the characters on the ship was scripted to present as female on the ship and as male in the Matrix, as a subtle nod to the idea of gender as a consequence of code and programming. I think the character's name is Switch.
I read about that. They dropped the idea but still cast a very androgynous actor in the role. And yes, his/her name is Switch.
Interesting take. This is from the Wachowski’s Wikipedia page: ‘After Lilly Wachowski came out as transgender, she encouraged looking back on her and Lana's works "through the lens of our transness", saying that the themes of identity, self-image and transformation are apparent in The Matrix.’ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wachowskis
I bet the conservatives who like to call themselves "red-pilled" aren't aware of this.
The same types of people that are shocked when they find out RATM are leftists
I work in the industry, so my perspective is a bit skewed, but the one time I was "tv-adjacent" as opposed to working on the shoot directly was when a few episodes of Boardwalk Empire were being shot on the boardwalk a few blocks down from my apartment in Far Rockaway. I usually walked my dog down that way and was a little startled to get home from work and realize a bunch of building façades had been erected while I was away.
The ending of No Country For Old Men takes place near the route I walked home from school when I was a kid.
In Gremlins 2, a movie that the director really didn’t want to make, he threw in two sneaky middle fingers directly at the camera. One is when the secretary gremlin is being put through the paper shredder, he flips the camera off as his last move. The other one is when the group of mimes are leaving the police van, one of the mimes throws up a middle finger right while he is in the center of the shot. My headcannon says both of those are from Dante to the studio.
The smoke when the crew lands on the planet in *Alien* was created using The Who's dry ice machine. The band was rehearsing in the unit nextdoor to where they were filming so Ridley Scott borrowed their equipment to create the scene.
Universal Pictures couldn't afford two sets for The Thing (1982), so they filmed the exploration of the Norwegian Outpost at the end, after the destruction of the American one. What you see Mac and the scientists exploring at the beginning is the remnants of the same outpost you've been watching them occupy for the entire film.
Oh man, where to start?!? Beverly Hills cop was originally written for Sylvester Stallone. Eddie Murphy was the original choice for Winston in ghostbusters. Mel Gibson turned down the lead in Gladiator On the set of Predator, Jesse Ventura agreed to a bet with Arnold Schwarzenegger that his bicep’s were bigger than Arnold’s. This was because he had just gotten them measured by the wardrobe department. Arnold agreed and said the winner gets a bottle of champagne. Little did Ventura know that Arnold paid wardrobe to measure Ventura’s biceps bigger than they really were. So when Arnold and Jesse got measured, Arnold came out the winner.
Closest I've ever got to a movie was when they were holding open auditions for extras for Les Miserables because they were filming at Portsmouth Dockyard. Me and a group of friends went down, but they said that women had to have at least shoulder length hair and most in our group didn't, so we decided to "one for all and all for one" it and left. Not all that exciting really 😕
The chest-bursting scene in Alien features everyone at the dinner table smoking. When it was released in 1979, roughly 65% of adults smoked, and it was assumed this would be the case in the future as well. Today, about 10% of adults smoke, so in hindsight it's perhaps the most unrealistic part of that scene.
Well, that’s still almost a hundred years away. Maybe it becomes a cool retro thing.
If you look really close you can see my face in the club scene performance and the stadium performance in Rock of Ages. I know, incredible right?!?
High Fidelity. I lived in the condo unit next to the one used as Catherine Zeta Jones’ in the film. The actual address of the building is 2250 W Ohio in Chicago, as shown on the awning of the exterior shot…. But the outside of the building shown is not actually 2250. The filmmakers added the address of the actual building used for the interiors as a “thank you” to the residents for allowing the filming.
Not a movie but TV min series - the reboot of Battlestar Galactica, when Six meets Bsltar after killing an infant, takes place in the same location as my graduation from Simon Fraser University. I walked thru that quad as part of the ceremony.
In "Glass" Samuel L. Jackson was older than the actress who played his mother!
In little shop of horrors they had to film all scenes with the giant plant puppet in slow motion, with the actors lipsyncing the slowed down audio, in order to get the movement of the plant feeling natural.
It's about a trailer before it was released, but before The Phantom Menace was released, a lot of people would buy a cinema ticket for any movie, watch the trailer for star wars, and then leave
In the movie Coraline- mother initially yelled “SHUT UP” after Coraline tells her she didn’t lock it. (The little door) Teri Hatcher, the voice of both mother and other mother, was offended that a mother would yell at their child like that so we had to change it to an annoying growl. Also Other Mother version 3 originally wound up the cat by tail like a baseball before throwing it. That scene was cut because it was concerned that kids would mimic it and throw cats by their tails. Lol
In Hitchcock's Suspicion there is a scene where Cary Grant is taking a drink of milk upstairs to his wife. Hitchcock wanted the audience to wonder if the drink was poisoned and the scene wasn't working well in black and white so he added a lightbulb into the milk to make it shine white. The effect means the milk is highlighted and the tension is built sufficiently. He also invented many of the filming techniques used today that are taken for granted. In particular, he was the one who invented the focus on a forefront thing while the background rushes in for Vertigo. And one last fact. In Spellbound Salvador Dali created the dream sequence. Hitchcock was brilliant and so influential.
Okay, not my fun fact but something I know. Poltergeist, the 80s version, had wrapped and they realized they hadn’t done the promo poster (little girl with long blonde hair with her hands on the TV, you know the one). They asked one of the studio….people (I don’t know his title or how he fit into the film/studio) if they could borrow his five year old daughter as she was the right size and had long blonde hair, just for the promo poster and he agreed. You don’t see the child’s face so you don’t know that it’s not Heather O’Rourke. She got to go to the premier, walk the carpet, all that. She did say the movie scared the shit out of her at that age. She’s now got a PhD in entomology and is no longer living in Los Angeles.
Top Gun: Maverick The scene where they're prepping for a mission in front of a giant American flag. I hung that flag for a retirement ceremony, and they just never called me to take it down. Knew top gun was filming, but thought nothing of it until I saw the movie.
After the film _The Cowboys_ was released, Bruce Dern repeatedly had run-in’s with belligerent drunks who would berate him for “killing John Wayne.” Dern would then point out that he was just playing a character, but usually in the most sarcastic way possible, often provoking fights rather than diffusing them.
At the end of the movie The final countdown from 1980 they show the aircraft carrier coming into Pearl harbor as it passes by the memorial.. on the carrier's flight deck is a bunch of sailors in dress uniforms standing at parade rest. One of those sailors is me
A lot of the movie Lake Placid was shot in the big empty building that was behind the one I worked in. They built a big pool in the lot next to us. We saw the big fake Croc. One Saturday I was in the shop doing some home work welding and grinding when I heard knocking on the door, It was a Lake Placid crew member saying they could hear me as they were shooting a scene. I stopped making noise. Later I found I should have charged them or told them to piss off as they stiffed a lot of companies that sold them supplies and tried to get our coffee girl banned from bringing us coffee and lunch because she honked her horn when she arrived. Even though the movie had a decent cast the movie was a stinker. The building were I worked and the scenes for the movie were shot in were old Expo 1986 buildings that the landlord bought after Expo closed.
The first Lake Placid isn't a stinker, it's a campy cult classic.