movie facts

[treky]

Eddie Murphy was originally going to be in "STAR TREK 4: THE VOYAGE HOME" but instead chose to do the movie "THE GOLDEN CHILD". He later said that if he knew beforehand how it would turn out-he would have stuck with "STAR TREK".:lol:

What are some others?

[treky]

Robert Redford, Charles Bronson,:eek: Sylvester Stallone:eek: :eek: and even (I swear I'm not making this up!)A BEVERLY HILLS DENTIST:lol: were all among the choices for the lead role in "Superman".:lol: :lol: :lol:

[TJL]

In other Eddie Murphy news, Harrison Ford and Sylvester Stallone were up for the lead in Beverly Hills Cop - the movie was going to be a more serious crime drama originally. Stallone's rewrites (lots more action scenes and car chases) pushed the film over budget, and Sly left the project and made his own cop film: Cobra.
When Eddie was finally cast, the film was rewritten as a comedy.

[browneyes106]

Sandra Bullock and Ashely Judd were also considered for the role of Maggie in Million Dollar Baby.

[LuLu Rogers]

Shirley Temple was up for the roll of Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, but 20th Century Fox refused to lend her to MGM, so Judy Garland was cast instead.

[tv star collector]

Shirley Temple was up for the roll of Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, but 20th Century Fox refused to lend her to MGM, so Judy Garland was cast instead.

Other actors were the first choices for The Wizard (W.C. Fields instead of Frank Morgan) and The Tin Man (Buddy Ebsen instead of Jack Haley), too.

[JamesG]

Other actors were the first choices for The Wizard (W.C. Fields instead of Frank Morgan) and The Tin Man (Buddy Ebsen instead of Jack Haley), too.

Yeah, I heard that Buddy Ebsen got replaced because he had a bad reaction to the make-up.

[TJL]

In other Star Trek movie facts, Tom Hanks was set to play warp drive inventor Zefram Cochrane in Star Trek First Contact but he couldn't because of his commitment to his directorial debut That Thing You Do.
Hans was very disappointed because he was a big Star Trek fan and wanted to appear in a Star Trek episode or movie.

[Torgo]

Though he's more famous for having part of his ear bit off by Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield executive produced and made an appearance in the low-budget 1990 horror film- 'Blood Salvage'.

[Torgo]

Arnold Schwarzenegger's stunt double Peter Kent played one of the main re-animated corpses in 'Re-Animator' (1985), so Arnold would come by the set to visit Peter. When the film was completed Arnold was given a special showing of the movie.

[LuLu Rogers]

Arnold Schwarzenegger's stunt double Peter Kent played one of the main re-animated corpses in 'Re-Animator' (1985), so Arnold would come by the set to visit Peter. When the film was completed Arnold was given a special showing of the movie.


Love that movie, it never fails to make me laugh!! :lol:

http://www.best-horror-movies.com/images/reanimator-movie-poster-small.jpg

[Marvo301]

Other actors were the first choices for The Wizard (W.C. Fields instead of Frank Morgan) and The Tin Man (Buddy Ebsen instead of Jack Haley), too.
Ray Bolger was originally hired to replace Buddy Ebson as the Tin Man. But the role he really coveted was that of the Scarecrow. So eventually he and Jack Haley (the original scarecrow) traded places and Bolger became the Scarecrow while Haley played the Tin Man.

[phoebe7165]

Yeah, I heard that Buddy Ebsen got replaced because he had a bad reaction to the make-up.

You're right!! Buddy had a severe allergic reaction to the aluminum dust on his costume. He even had to go to the hospital.

[Marvo301]

You're right!! Buddy had a severe allergic reaction to the aluminum dust on his costume. He even had to go to the hospital.
Which is why the switched Jack Haley's make-up to aluminum paste!

[treky]

in other "STAR TREK" news, the original plot of "STAR TREK 4: THE VOYAGE HOME" had them going back to November 1963 where they would have to interfere with the Kennedy assasination, and had Spock fire the mysterious "second bullet" and beaming out right after he fired it, which would have explained why that part has always remained a mystery.

And "STAR TREK 6: THE FINAL FRONTIER" was originally going to have a plot which would have started with graduation day at Starfleet academy, with Captain Kirk as the guest speaker. After speaking to the graduates, he asks "Are there any questions"? Someone asks him "How did you, Mr. Spock and Dr. McCoy meet and why have you remained such good friends all these years"? Then Kirk answers "Well, it's like this..." then tells the whole story starting with how he entered Starfleet academy, one day he broke up a fight between Spock and another cadet who was making fun of his Vulcan-human heritage, and that's how they met and became good friends (I forget how they met McCoy).
The movie would have ended with a scene of Kirk visiting the grave of a girlfriend he met during the movie who died (WELL D'UHHH:lol: ) then Spock and McCoy come over and the 3 of them talk for a few minutes, then Kirk says for the first and only time in the history of "Star Trek" "Beam me up, Scotty" and he beams out.
But then Paramount went through a change in upper managment, and Harve Bennet (the guy who was behind all the "ST" pictures exept the first one)was replaced.

[treky]

Shirley Temple was up for the roll of Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, but 20th Century Fox refused to lend her to MGM, so Judy Garland was cast instead.
back then, actors would have to sign a contract with a studio, and the studio would tell them what pictures they could make, when they could make them, what interviews they could give, what to wear to them, etc.
And if another studio wanted them for a movie, the first studio would lend them out, for a fee.

[phoebe7165]

Which is why the switched Jack Haley's make-up to aluminum paste!

Oh, I did not know that.;)

[Marvo301]

Oh, I did not know that.;)
Yeah, the problem with Buddy's make-up is that it was aluminum powder and he inhaled so much of it he couldn't breathe. So they learned a lesson from that and used aluminum paste on Jack so he wouldn't have the same problem.

[Torgo]

Jane Krakowski was considered to play Judy in the '83 slasher flick- 'Sleepaway Camp'

Morgan Freeman was considered to play the part of Merlin in George Romero's 'Knightriders'. Freeman turned it down because he thought the character was a racial stereotype.

Tom Savini bought the motorcycle that Ed Harris rides at the end of 'Knightriders', and rode it to and from the set of 'Creepshow'

Connie Sellecca was considered for the role of the title character in 1980's 'Galaxina'

Mario Bava's 'Reazione a catena' (1971) has 17 alternate titles, including 'Bay of Blood', and 'Last House on the Left II'

Horror host Zacherley provided the voice of the creature Aylmer in the horror film 'Brain Damage' ('88)

[LuLu Rogers]

Margaret Hamilton, a life-long fan of the Oz books, was ecstatic when she learned the producers were considering her for a part in the film. When she phoned her agent to find out what role she was up for, her agent simply replied, "The witch, who else?" :lol:


The original concept for the Wicked Witch of the West was to have her resemble a strikingly beautiful woman much in the same way the Evil Queen in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) was conceived. Producer Mervyn LeRoy originally cast MGM beauty Gale Sondergaard in the role as a sleek, sexy Wicked Witch of the West. However, the presence of a sexy Wicked Witch left a large plot hole within the script, for it played against the idea that bad witches were ugly. Convinced that the point was important, LeRoy retested Sondergaard as an ugly witch. Looking hideous in the make-up, she immediately declined the role and was replaced with Margaret Hamilton.

[browneyes106]

Anissa Jones from Family Affair auditioned for the role of Regan in The Exorcist.

[JamesG]

In the original The Texas Chain Saw Massacre real human bones were used around the Sawyer residence (Leatherface's house) because, believe it or not, it was cheaper to get hold of real bones as opposed to fake ones.

[JamesG]

Val Kilmer did not want to do Top Gun but he was forced to do it due to contract obligations.

The reason why Kilmer didn't want to do it has never been disclosed.

[HuntingtonM15]

In the original The Texas Chain Saw Massacre real human bones were used around the Sawyer residence (Leatherface's house) because, believe it or not, it was cheaper to get hold of real bones as opposed to fake ones.

Also about that movie:

After getting into the old-age makeup, John Dugan decided that he did not ever want to go through the process again, meaning that all the scenes with him had to be filmed in the same session before he could take the makeup off. This took about 36 hours, during a heat wave where the average temperature was over 100 degrees, with a large portion of it spent filming the dinner scene, sitting in a room filled with dead animals and rotting food. Edwin Neal who played the hitch-hiker claimed "Filming that scene was the worst time of my life... and I had been in Vietnam, with people trying to kill me, so I guess that shows how bad it was."

[HuntingtonM15]

About the casting of Thelma & Louise:

-Goldie Hawn and Meryl Streep wanted to make a movie together and Thelma & Louise was one of the scripts they considered. Ultimately, they decided to star in Death Becomes Her (1992) instead.

-The original Thelma and Louise were to be played by Michelle Pfeiffer and Jodie Foster, Ridley Scott was going to produce, and Callie Khouri (the screenwriter) would be directing. In the end, the pitching took so long that Pfeiffer and Foster were no longer available, and Scott had been persuaded to direct it himself.

-Callie Khouri hoped to cast Holly Hunter and Frances McDormand as Thelma and Louise.

-Cher was also offered the role of Thelma, but turned it down.

-It took producers so long to find someone for the role of Louise that Geena Davis had to sign a contract stating that the producers could cast her in either role if need be.

[JamesG]

I didn't intend on doing it as I went along but I noticed that most of the random facts I posted over in the Chit Chat thread happened to be movie related.

So here are the movie facts I posted over in Chit Chat as they can go here too:


1. 1984's Red Dawn was the first movie to earn the PG-13 rating by the MPAA.
It was said to be the most violent film of its time when released.



2. According to http://www.moviebodycounts.com/ the film to date with the highest body count is The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King with 836 kills.



3. Real-life murderer Ed Gein was the inspiration for three fictional murderers in the horror genre:

Norman Bates from Psycho - The part about him being devoted to his deceased mother and keeping everything of hers in the same condition. The cross-dressing as well.

Leatherface of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre - Leatherface was a grave robber, cannibal, cross-dresser, and made things out of human body parts like Gein did. Leatherface also wore a mask made out of human skin.

Buffalo Bill (Jame Gumb) from The Silence of the Lambs- The idea of wanting to be the opposite sex and as a result Buffalo Bill was making a full human skin suit out of women. Gein wore human skin also.



4. Viggo Mortensen's A History of Violence (2005) was the last major motion picture to be released on VHS.



5. The original Michael Myers mask was a modified Captan Kirk (William Shatner) mask.

The hair was teased, sideburns cut off, eyes made wider, and spray-painted white.



6. Four people have played Dr. Hannibal Lector to date:

Brian Cox originated the role in Manhunter.

Sir Anthony Hopkins played him in The Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal, and Red Dragon.

In Hannibal Rising, Aaran Thomas played an 8 year old Hannibal and Gaspard Ulliel played him as a teenager.



7. The first film to be rated NC-17 by the MPAA was Henry & June (1990); starring Fred Ward and Uma Thurman.



8. 1987's The Cure for Insomnia is currently the longest movie ever made with a runtime of 87 hours.



9. Harriet the Spy (1996) was NICKELODEON Studios first motion picture.



10. John Larroquette back in 1974 was the opening narrator for The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.

When the film was remade in 2003 John accepted the offer to come back and narrated.

He once again returned to narrate the remake's preqeul The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning.



11. 1973's The Exorcist is one of the few American films to be shot in Iraq.

At the time relations between Iraq and the US were very strained so director Freidkin had to shoot there with a British crew.

The opening and ending shots of the film are in Iraq.



12. O.J. Simpson was considered for the role of "The Terminator" in 1984's The Terminator.
He didn't get the part because the producers feared he was "too nice" to be taken seriously as a cold-blooded killer.



13. The first Disney animated theatrical release to get a PG rating was 1985's The Black Cauldron.

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003) was the first film by Walt Disney Pictures to get a PG-13 rating.



14. Halloween's Michael Myers got his name from the distributor who pushed John Carpenter's Assault On Precinct 13 into the London Film Festival.

Carpenter feld that he owed him so he named Michael Myers after him.



15. Currently the movie with the longest title is:

Night of the Day of the Dawn of the Son of the Bride of the Return of the Revenge of the Terror of the Attack of the Evil, Mutant, Alien, Flesh Eating, Hellbound, Zombified Living Dead Part 2: In Shocking 2-D (1991)

[browneyes106]

An early version of the script for Pretty Woman had the main character Vivian addicted to cocaine; part of the deal was that she had to stay off it for a week. She needed the money to go to Disneyland. Edward eventually throws her out of his car and drives off. The movie was scripted to end with Vivian and her prostitute friend on the bus to Disneyland.

[Liza]

Shirley Temple was up for the roll of Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, but 20th Century Fox refused to lend her to MGM, so Judy Garland was cast instead.

Judy Garland was the original choice of producers Arthur Freed and Mervyn LeRoy - but the studio heads thought that Shirley Temple would be a bigger draw (she was, afterall, the number 1 star at the time). Against their own wishes they had to audition Temple, but were happy when they realized her singing was not up to what the role required, and Fox wouldn't release her even if it had been.

Ray Bolger was originally hired to replace Buddy Ebson as the Tin Man. But the role he really coveted was that of the Scarecrow. So eventually he and Jack Haley (the original scarecrow) traded places and Bolger became the Scarecrow while Haley played the Tin Man.

Sorry to correct you, (I'm something of an Oz-junkie) but that's not quite right. Buddy Ebsen was actually originally cast as the Scarecrow, with Ray Bolger as the Tin Man. Bolger had been a huge fan of Fred Stone, who originated the role of the Scarecrow on Broadway in 1902 - because of this, Bolger had asked years before that if they ever made a movie of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz he could play the Scarecrow. Since it meant so much to Bolger, Ebsen agreed to swap roles with him, and become the Tin Woodsman.

It didn't work out well for Ebsen, as we all know, he had an awful allergic reaction to the silver dust makeup and was taken to the hospital. While he was recovering, the studio replaced him with Jack Haley, and changed the dust makeup to silver-paste. Haley didn't find out what had really happened to Ebsen until years later. He had just assumed Ebsen had been fired. :( Absolutely unfair to Ebsen, but who could imagine anyone but Haley in the role now?

Also, Haley's son, Jack Haley Jr., eventually married Judy Garland's daughter, Liza Minnelli. Judy, sadly, didn't live to see it. But for awhile, Dorothy and the Tin Woodsman were actually inlaws.

[Liza]

The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King has the longest title of all the films that have won the Academy Award for Best Picture. Gigi has the shortest.

[JamesG]

(I'm something of an Oz-junkie)

I don't mean to side-track this thread but since you mentioned that I wanted to know what you thought of the 1985 flick Return to Oz?

Not many people talk of this movie and it's nowhere as near as successful as The Wizard of Oz is.

[JamesG]

The first feature film to be based off of a trading card/sticker series was 1987's The Garbage Pail Kids.

[Torgo]

The Brady Bunch interior set was used for Bradford Dillman(Prof. James Parmiter) and Joanna Mile's(Carrie Parmiter) home in the 70's mutant cockroach flick- 'Bug'

Comic book artist Robert Crumb hated Ralph Bakshi's film version of Crumb's character 'Fritz the Cat' so much that he killed the cat off in his comic book series. In Ralph Bakshi's 'Wizards', Bakshi killed off a character named Fritz, just so he could have someone yell- "They killed Fritz! They killed Fritz!"

Peter Woodthorpe who provided the voice for Gollum and Michael Graham Cox who provided the voice for Boromir in Ralph Bakshi's animated version of 'Lord of the Rings' played the same roles in the BBC radio dramatization in 1981.

Ian Holm who played Bilbo in Peter Jackson's version of 'Lord of the Rings', provided the voice of Frodo in the BBC radio dramatization.

Tim Burton's first job working on a film was as an 'inbetween' artist for Ralph Bakshi's 'Lord of the Rings'

[Mrdata]

Judy Garland was the original choice of producers Arthur Freed and Mervyn LeRoy - but the studio heads thought that Shirley Temple would be a bigger draw (she was, afterall, the number 1 star at the time). Against their own wishes they had to audition Temple, but were happy when they realized her singing was not up to what the role required, and Fox wouldn't release her even if it had been.



Sorry to correct you, (I'm something of an Oz-junkie) but that's not quite right. Buddy Ebsen was actually originally cast as the Scarecrow, with Ray Bolger as the Tin Man. Bolger had been a huge fan of Fred Stone, who originated the role of the Scarecrow on Broadway in 1902 - because of this, Bolger had asked years before that if they ever made a movie of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz he could play the Scarecrow. Since it meant so much to Bolger, Ebsen agreed to swap roles with him, and become the Tin Woodsman.

It didn't work out well for Ebsen, as we all know, he had an awful allergic reaction to the silver dust makeup and was taken to the hospital. While he was recovering, the studio replaced him with Jack Haley, and changed the dust makeup to silver-paste. Haley didn't find out what had really happened to Ebsen until years later. He had just assumed Ebsen had been fired. :( Absolutely unfair to Ebsen, but who could imagine anyone but Haley in the role now?

Also, Haley's son, Jack Haley Jr., eventually married Judy Garland's daughter, Liza Minnelli. Judy, sadly, didn't live to see it. But for awhile, Dorothy and the Tin Woodsman were actually inlaws.

You are correct I was going to post a correction myself until I saw this one.
However one thing is wrong why does everyone say Buddy had an allergic reaction to the silver dust makeup. That is not what happened at all the silver dust got in the air and soon his lungs were coated in it one day on set he went to take a breath and nothing happened! He almost died and that is why they very secretly changed the makeup from aluminum dust to aluminum paste. But the filming could not wait for him to recover which was months so he was dropped and Jack Haley was made to do the part he was under contract and had to do it he had no choice!

Buddy tells this story himself on the extras of the movie I have.

Charles

[Liza]

You are correct I was going to post a correction myself until I saw this one.
However one thing is wrong why does everyone say Buddy had an allergic reaction to the silver dust makeup. That is not what happened at all the silver dust got in the air and soon his lungs were coated in it one day on set he went to take a breath and nothing happened! He almost died and that is why they very secretly changed the makeup from aluminum dust to aluminum paste. But the filming could not wait for him to recover which was months so he was dropped and Jack Haley was made to do the part he was under contract and had to do it he had no choice!

Buddy tells this story himself on the extras of the movie I have.

Charles

You're right, I'd forgotten that it wasn't an allergy, he'd just inhaled the stuff. Sucks, big time. But Haley in the meantime didn't know what was going on - he was just told to report to the Oz set and not ask questions. That kinda sucks too.

I don't mean to side-track this thread but since you mentioned that I wanted to know what you thought of the 1985 flick Return to Oz?

Not many people talk of this movie and it's nowhere as near as successful as The Wizard of Oz is.

Love it, love it, love it! It's so much more loyal to the spirit of the books than the '39 film ever was. Have you ever read the books? They are fantastic. It's really a shame Return to Oz kind of fizzled out, although it is something of a cult classic now.

http://www.wendyswizardofoz.com/returntoozcastcolor4.jpg

[Liza]

Margaret Hamilton, a life-long fan of the Oz books, was ecstatic when she learned the producers were considering her for a part in the film. When she phoned her agent to find out what role she was up for, her agent simply replied, "The witch, who else?" :lol:

Margaret Hamilton actually started out, believe it or not, as a kindergarten teacher.

147799

And you thought your teacher was scary! :lol:

[JamesG]

Love it, love it, love it! It's so much more loyal to the spirit of the books than the '39 film ever was. Have you ever read the books? They are fantastic. It's really a shame Return to Oz kind of fizzled out, although it is something of a cult classic now.

Nope I never read any of the OZ books. I think I have somewhere lying around a hardcover copy of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. If I come across it I'll give it a look.

[HuntingtonM15]

Often times when I watch one of my favorite movies, I look up the trivia on it if I haven't already done so in the past. Last night I watched Mermaids, and found this to be interesting:

The role of Charlotte initially went to Emily Lloyd, who went to receive $435,000 and 2.5% of the net profits from the film. When Cher complained that the fair-haired Lloyd could not look like her daughter, she was cast out of the film and replaced by Winona Ryder. Lloyd then sued Orion Pictures Corporation and Mermaid Productions, reaching a settlement on the second day of the trial, 30 July 1991.

[Torgo]

Deafula '75- Was shot entirely using American Sign Language.

There was a Spanish language version of 1931's Dracula(comprised of Spanish actors) filmed on the same sets as the English language Dracula. The English version was shot during the day, the Spanish version was shot during the night.

[Liza]

There was a Spanish language version of 1931's Dracula(comprised of Spanish actors) filmed on the same sets as the English language Dracula. The English version was shot during the day, the Spanish version was shot during the night.

That is interesting. Werner Herzog's version of Nosferatu was filmed in both English and German, as all of his actors were fluent in both.

The original film version of Nosferatu from 1922, was created because the studio could not obtain the rights to Dracula. Bram Stoker's widow still sued for copyright infringement, so the studio claimed it was bankrupt to avoid paying her.

[JamesG]

Interesting Facts about Friday the 13th (1980)

- The movie was filmed on location at Camp Nobebosco in New Jersey. It is still in operation today and they keep a wall of memorabilia from the film to honor it.

- Betsy Palmer (Mrs. Voorhess the killer) was in desperate need of a new car which was the reason she accepted the role in this movie. She called the script a "Piece Of S*IT" when she read it before signing on.

- Jason coming out of the lake at the end of the film was done as a "throwaway". They never intended on making this the start of a franchise. After the movie's unexpected success they brought back Jason as the new killer.

- The "snake scene" was not in the script and it was killed for real on camera.

- Since budget was very low the men on the set had to be the stunt-doubles of the female characters. Make-up artist Tom Savini jumped out of a window as the "Brenda" character.

[Liza]

The Dead Poets Society was filmed on location at Cranbrook School, outside of Detroit, Michigan. The school is in the same neighborhood where Robin Williams grew up, in Birmingham, Michigan. It is also right next to Farmington Hills, Pam Dawber's hometown.

That's right, both Mork and Mindy grew up in my neck of the woods! :lol:

http://img2.timeinc.net/ew/dynamic/imgs/080115/70s/mork-and-mindy_l.jpg

[JamesG]

Facts About Grease (1978)

- Most of the starring cast were beyond the high school student age; the oldest being Stockard Channing who was 34 at the time.

- Henry Winkler did not want to be typecast as playing "greasers" and as a result turned down the role of Danny Zuko.

- They wanted Lucie Arnaz to play Rizzo but Lucille Ball refused to allow her to go in for screen testing.

- Porn actor Harry Reams was originally signed on as Coach Calhoun but was replaced by Sid Caeser when producers got cold feet weeks before filming.

- Director Randal Kleiser hated two songs from the soundtrack. He hated the title song Grease being used because he felt the disco beat did not belong for a film about the 1950s. He also said You're The One That I Want sounded awful.

- Sal Mineo was originally referenced in the song Look At Me I'm Sandra Dee in the stage production but it was changed to Elvis when Mineo was murdered before filming began. Ironically, Elvis died the day they filmed the scene for the movie.

- A scene of an argument between Rizzo and Kenickie was cut from the final film because it was decided that it didn't match the tone of the rest of the movie. This scene would have explained the tension more between Rizzo and Kenickie when she dumps the milkshake on him in the diner.

- The drag race scene was filmed at a derelict location and some of the cast and crew got ill from filming at the filthy spot.

- Terminator's Michael Biehn had a small uncredited role as a high school athlete.

[browneyes106]

Scream facts

-To keep 'Drew Barrymore' looking scared and crying, director Wes Craven kept telling her real life stories about animal cruelty. She is a keen animal lover in real life.

-Wes Craven found the mask in a store while location-scouting in California.

-The film was originally to be shot at a high school in Santa Rosa, CA, but after the school board read the script they objected to the violent nature and production was moved to Healdsburg, CA.
-
Janeane Garofalo turned down the role of Gail Weathers

[Liza]

Facts About Grease (1978)

- Terminator's Michael Biehn had a small uncredited role as a high school athlete.

Really? Where is he? Now I'm gonna have to try and find him. :)

-Also-

Later in life, Sandra Dee made an appearance in a touring company of Grease, in the role of the principal. Several fans were surprised to discover that Sandra Dee was a real person.

Several of the songs from the stage show that were not featured in the film still played in the background, such as "Raining on Prom Night" and "Those Magic Changes."

John Travolta admitted he suggested Olivia Newton John for the role of Sandy because he had a serious crush on her at the time. He called her "The best Sandy in the world" despite the fact that the original Sandy was supposed to be all-American and the part had to be largely rewritten to accomodate Olivia's Australian accent.

Jeff Conaway (Kenickie) later married Olivia Newton John's sister, Rona.

Three actors claim to be the "original" Danny: Barry Bostwick who originated the role on Broadway, Jeff Conaway (Bostwick's understudy who played the role before landing the part of Kenickie in the film) and his replacement, Rex Smith. Bostwick is still a successful actor, appearing in everything from The Rocky Horror Picture Show, to George Washington, and Spin City. Conaway was a regular cast member of the show Taxi and has been featured on episodes of Celebrity Rehab. Rex Smith is now selling real estate in southern California.

[Liza]

Scream facts

-To keep 'Drew Barrymore' looking scared and crying, director Wes Craven kept telling her real life stories about animal cruelty. She is a keen animal lover in real life.

That's just wrong! I'd be so mad.

However, Drew Barrymore was given star billing despite only appearing in the opening sequence.

[JamesG]

Really? Where is he? Now I'm gonna have to try and find him. :)

I believe he appears twice. The first scene is when Kenickie puts the frog in a girl's purse; he is seated next to her. The next time is during a basketball scene when Danny Zuko throws a basketball at his stomach.

[JamesG]

Scream facts

-To keep 'Drew Barrymore' looking scared and crying, director Wes Craven kept telling her real life stories about animal cruelty. She is a keen animal lover in real life.

-Wes Craven found the mask in a store while location-scouting in California.

-The film was originally to be shot at a high school in Santa Rosa, CA, but after the school board read the script they objected to the violent nature and production was moved to Healdsburg, CA.
-
Janeane Garofalo turned down the role of Gail Weathers


More SCREAM Facts:

- Henry Winkler was uncredited in his role of the principal because he didn't want to take the limelight away from the younger up-coming actors.

- David L. Lander of Laverne & Shirley went on to play the high school principal in the SCREAM spoof Scary Movie; parodying a sitcom star being in the movie.

- The killer's voice on the phone was Roger Jackson in all three films. Roger Jackson is known as the voice of Mojo Jojo of The Powerpuff Girls.

- The Exorcist's Linda Blair has a small cameo of an aggressive reporter.

- Wes Craven appears in a cameo of the high school janitor wearing a Freddy Krueger hat and sweater.

- David Arquette (Dewey) was originally intended to be killed off but since the character was a fan favorite they decided not to do that.

- Courtney Cox and David Arquette fell in love on the set of SCREAM and eventually married; SCREAM 3 ended with their characters' engagement.

- The on-screen killer wearing the mask was 95% of the time played by stuntmen. Other times Wes Craven and Skeet Ulrich wore the mask in smaller scenes.

- Caller ID has this film to thank for the triple amount of sales since the movie came out in 1996.

- When Sydney (Campbell) kills Stu (Lillard) with the television set; the tv is playing the film HALLOWEEN.

[treky]

Walter Pigeon was the first choice for the lead role in "CASABLANCA".

George Lucas didn't add CHAPTER 1: A NEW HOPE to the title of "STAR WARS" originally. Not until the films re-realease.
Also in "STAR WARS" it has a mistake in one scene: something princess Leia says doesn't make sense with the way "RETURN OF THE JEDI" ends. That's because, when George Lucas made "STAR WARS" he didn't plan on making a sequel to it.
"RETURN OF THE JEDI" was originally going to be called "REVENGE OF THE JEDI" but then George Lucas remembered that in "STAR WARS" it was said that the jedi knights don't seek revenge.

"STAR TREK 2: THE WRATH OF KHAN" was first going to be subtitled "THE RETURN OF KHAN" but they thought some people might get it confused with "RETURN OF THE JEDI"

[JamesG]

"STAR TREK 2: THE WRATH OF KHAN" was first going to be subtitled "THE RETURN OF KHAN" but they thought some people might get it confused with "RETURN OF THE JEDI"

Something similar happened more recently...

The second Resident Evil movie, Resident Evil: Apocalypse, was originally going to be called Resident Evil: Nemesis. It was supposed to come from the third video game Resident Evil 3: Nemesis since the 2nd movie featured the "Nemesis" character.

It was then decided that the title be changed to Apocalypse after Star Trek: Nemesis came out and didn't perform well in the box-office.

[Liza]

Carrie and the original Star Wars actually held joint auditions. William Katt and Amy Irving originally auditioned for Star Wars, but were cast in Carrie instead.

Amy Irving's mother, Priscilla Pointer, also appeared in Carrie, as her onscreen mother.

Stephen King based the character of Carrie on two girls he went to highschool with. They were both outcasts - one was very poor and the other was from a fanatically religious family. Both girls died very young.

[Liza]

Walter Pigeon was the first choice for the lead role in "CASABLANCA".

There's also a rumor about Ronald Reagan being the first choice. Hard to imagine anyone but Bogie, isn't it? :)

Paul Henried was afraid appearing in Casablanca would ruin his career. He tried very hard to get out of it.

Casablanca started filming before they had an ending for the script. No one knew until they shot the last scene which man Ilsa would end up with.

Claude Raines and Paul Henried completed Now Voyager the day before they began work on Casablanca.

Despite their famous chemistry, Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman never made another film together.

Humphrey Bogart, Dooley Wilson, and the late Joy Page were the only Americans in the cast. Everyone else was European - most of them were Jews who had fled Nazi Germany.

[JamesG]

Facts About Grease 2 (1982)

- This film was a flop upon its original box office run; it went up against E.T. and Tootsie.

- This was the second in what was to be four Grease films and a proposed television series but after this bombed those plans were scrapped.

- John Travolta, Olivia Newton-John, and Jeff Conoway were in talks to return but it fell through.

- Those from Grease (1978) who reprised their roles were:
Didi Conn - Frenchy
Eve Arden - Principal McGee
Sid Caesar - Coach Calhoun
Dody Goodman - Blanche Hoodman
Eddie Deezen - Eugene Felnic

- This was Eve Arden's last feature film.

- A then unknown Michelle Pfeiffer was able to have a successful career after this flop; her lover Maxwell Caulfield wasn't as lucky.

[browneyes106]

Facts about Ghost


-At theatrical showings in Monterrey, Mexico, women in the audience were given envelopes marked "Solo para mujeres" (for women only) containing tissues.

-Molly Ringwald (a fellow Brat Pack member) auditioned for the role of Molly, which went to Demi Moore.

-The role of Oda Mae Brown was not written with Whoopi Goldberg in mind, but Patrick Swayze, an admirer of hers, convinced the producers that she would be right for the part.

-Patti LaBelle auditioned for the role of Oda Mae Brown.

-Writer Bruce Joel Rubin's mother makes a cameo, as the nun who faints over the size of the check that Oda Mae endorses.

-Paul Hogan was among the long list of actors to decline the lead role. Paul Hogan instead made Almost an Angel (1990).

-The horrific sounds made by the "shadow demons" are really the sounds of babies, played at extremely slow speed.

-Jerry Zucker described the effect he wanted when Sam passes through walls by dipping a napkin in coffee.

-When the movie was first released on VHS in 1991, the tapes were light or "ghost" grey.

-Nicole Kidman originally auditioned for the role of Molly.

-When Sam follows Willie to his apartment, he learns that his surname is 'Lopez' from the name tag on the apartment call button. Sam passes this info on to Oda Mae. However, the name 'Lopez' is a 'Dynotape sticker' obscuring the real name of the occupier. This probably explains why 'Willie Lopez' has no police record when Molly passes this info on to the Police detective.

-When it came time to cast the film, writer Bruce Joel Rubin suggested Patrick Swayze for the role of Sam Wheat. Director Jerry Zucker felt that Swayze was completely wrong for the part. Many actors that included Tom Hanks, Tom Cruise, Kevin Bacon, Al Pacino, Bruce Willis, Harrison Ford and Alec Baldwin were all offered the part but all turned it down feeling that playing a ghost would be cheesy. Zucker then decided to audition Swayze though he thought he would blow the audition. To Zucker's surprise, Swayze did a great audition and he was cast immediately in the part.

-The scene where Whoopi Goldberg meets two nuns is very prophetic. A couple of years after Ghost, Goldberg played a nun in Sister Act (1992). One year later, she repeated the role in Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit (1993).

-Meg Ryan turned down the part of Molly.

-Producers originally offered the role of Sam to Bruce Willis, Demi's husband at the time. But he turned it down, because he didn't think the film would work.

-The subway scenes were filmed on the abandoned lower level of the 42nd St. station of the IND 8th Ave. line. Trains appearing in the film wrong railed through the station; that is, they ran in the opposite direction of normal operation.

[JamesG]

Facts About HALLOWEEN (1978)

- This was Jamie Lee Curtis' first feature film. She shot it while on hiatus from the sitcom Operation Petticoat.

- The character of "Dr. Sam Loomis" (Donald Pleasence) was named after "Sam Loomis" from Psycho. "Sam Loomis" was Janet Leigh's lover in Psycho; Jamie Lee Curtis' mother.

- Early on it was debated among the crew to make Michael Myers show genuine symptoms of a mental illness; such as pacing back and forth and exploding into screaming fits. John Carpenter decided not to do that and told "Michael Myers" to just walk.

- Since the film was shot in Spring the crew had to use their own leaves to represent the Autumn season. Once the scenes were finished everyone on the set rushed to pick up the leaves to place them in bags as the budget was tight.

- John Carpenter casted P.J. Soles because he liked her from the film Carrie.

- The scene near the film's end with an unmasked Michael Myers was played by Tony Moran; brother of Happy Days' Erin Moran.

- Despite the film regarded as being very violent there is actually hardly any blood and gore; and the body count is only 5.

- Donald Pleasence shot his scenes in only 5 days and took the part because his daughter loved John Carpenter's Assault on Precinct 13. His character of "Dr. Loomis" became a fan favorite and Pleasence became a more dominant presence in the later sequels until his death.

[LuLu Rogers]

More HALLOWEEN (1978) Facts:

-This may have been mentioned, but Michael Myers mask was an altered version of William Shatner's Captain Kerk mask. Carpenter said he was given the choice of that or a clown mask, so he chose the latter. It ended up working quite well because the audience could project anything they wanted onto that blank face.

-It cost more for the producers to edit Halloween for television than it did to make the entire film.

-Jamie Lee Curtis was more like the character of Linda in real life, while PJ Soles was more like Laurie.

-Debra Hill guarded the mask throughout the film, she even slept with it.

-John Carpenter wrote the entire musical score for the movie.

-The original Myers house was set to be demolished in the early 1980's, but a fan saw it and ran to stop the wrecking ball. He bought the house for $1 and moved it to a location that happened to be right across the street from the famous hardware store from the film. The spot where the house was originally located is now an apartment complex.

-Most of the movie was shot on location in Pasadena, CA.

-Brian Andrews who played Tommy Doyle said that when he went to see the film for the first time, he was "scared ****less" :lol:

[Torgo]

Also in "STAR WARS" it has a mistake in one scene: something princess Leia says doesn't make sense with the way "RETURN OF THE JEDI" ends. That's because, when George Lucas made "STAR WARS" he didn't plan on making a sequel to it.


George Lucas did indeed plan on making a sequel to Star Wars, he basically already had the scripts written since Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi were originally one script, Lucas then split them into 3, hoping that Star Wars would make enough money allowing to make future sequels.
They even talked about this when I caught a re-airing of George Lucas on 'Biography'.

[browneyes106]

Carrie and the original Star Wars actually held joint auditions. William Katt and Amy Irving originally auditioned for Star Wars, but were cast in Carrie instead.

Amy Irving's mother, Priscilla Pointer, also appeared in Carrie, as her onscreen mother.

Stephen King based the character of Carrie on two girls he went to highschool with. They were both outcasts - one was very poor and the other was from a fanatically religious family. Both girls died very young.

I have a copy of a special edition of Carrie in which Stephen described both of them in a great detail in the intro section.

[Torgo]

Camille Keaton, the lead actress from 'I Spit On Your Grave', is a grand-niece of Buster Keaton, and was married to Judy Garland's ex-husband Sydney Luft- from '93 until his death in 2005.

[Liza]

Katharine Hepburn's niece, Katharine Houghton, played her onscreen daughter in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. Hepburn's real-life love, Spencer Tracy, played her husband. He died 17 days after filming ended. The producers were surprised he lived long enough to finish the film.

[JamesG]

Facts About Hellraiser (1987)

- Based on Clive Barker's novella The Hellbound Heart.

- This was Clive Barker's first directed feature film.

- Clive Barker based the appearance of The Cenobites from the people he came across frequenting sado-masochistic clubs around London and New York City.

- The make-up sessions of The Cenobites took about 6 hours.

- The most famous Cenobite, Pinhead, wasn't originally named that. In Hellraiser he was simply known as The First Cenobite. Fans started referring to him by that name and it caught on immensely so they called him "Pinhead" in the subsequent films.

- A Nintendo video game based off the motion picture was in the works but it never got made.

- Doug Bradley played Pinhead in all of the films in the series.

- Doug Bradley was ignored at a post-production party because nobody on the set saw him out of make-up; nobody knew who he was and he thought he was being snubbed.

- On the original VHS release it began with a fictional Home Shopping Network commercial advertising merchandise of the film; hosted by an old lady claiming to be a hardcore fan.

[browneyes106]

Facts about Field of Dreams

-The studio built the baseball diamond on an actual farm in Dyersville, Iowa. After the filming was completed, the family owning the farm kept the field, and added a small hut where you could buy inexpensive souvenirs. As of 1990, visitors were free to come to the field and play baseball as they please.

-In the novel, instead of seeking fictional author Terrance Mann, Ray Kinsella seeks real-life 60's author J.D. Salinger. In 1947, Salinger wrote a story called "A Young Girl In 1941 With No Waist At All" featuring a character named Ray Kinsella.

-In W.P. Kinsella's novel, protagonist Ray Kinsella is reunited with his identical twin brother, Richard Kinsella (a subplot that was discarded for the movie).

-The article the Chisolm newspaper publisher shows to Ray and Terrance is written by Veda Ponikvar. Ms. Ponikvar was a long-time writer (and eventually editor-in-chief) for the Chisholm Free Press.

-W.P. Kinsella, author of the original novel, was asked to write a review of the movie for a Canadian periodical. He gave it four stars out of five for two reasons: he didn't think the character of Mark was villainous enough, and he didn't think that Gaby Hoffmann (Karin) looked like she could be Kevin Costner and Amy Madigan's child.

-During filming, Iowa was in the middle of a drought, and the cornfields surrounding the diamond had to be given lots of extra water in order to grow tall enough for the actors to disappear into the stalks. As a result, the corn grew too fast for the Costner shots. In the one scene where corn is above his shoulders, he is walking on an elevated plank.

-Thousands of pallets of green grass were brought in to make the baseball field, but due to the haste in planting because of the shooting schedule, the grass was not able to grow appropriately and died. In order to keep the grass green, the production crew painted the grass.

-Then unknown, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon are among the thousands of extras in the Fenway Park scene, and are uncredited. Over a decade later, when Phil Alden Robinson welcomed Affleck to the set of The Sum of All Fears (2002), Affleck said, "Nice working with you again." Robinson asked, "What do you mean 'again'?" and Affleck explained the connection.

-When Ray visits 1972 Chisholm, Minnesota in search of Moonlight Graham, The Godfather (1972) is playing at the local movie theater.

-After the movie was completed test audiences didn't like the name "Shoeless" Joe Jackson because they said it sounded like a movie about a bum or hobo. Universal called director-screenwriter Phil Alden Robinson to tell him that "Shoeless Joe" didn't work, and the studio changed the title of the film to "Field of Dreams". When Robinson heard the news of the change, he called W.P. Kinsella, the author of the book, and told him the "bad" news, but apparently he didn't care, saying that "Shoeless Joe" was the title the publishing company gave the book. Kinsella's original title was Dream Field (1989).

-When Ray asks "Shoeless" Joe Jackson what he likes about about playing baseball, Shoeless Joe responds "the thrill of the grass", the title of W.P. Kinsella's 1985 book of short stories about baseball.

-Tom Hanks was originally offered the role of Ray Kinsella but turned it down.

-Archibald "Moonlight" Wright Graham was a real baseball player. On 29 June 1905, with the New York Giants, he played one Major League Baseball game. Five days later, he quit his dream of being a pro ball player to become a doctor.

-In 1991, Hawaii's House of Representatives filed House Resolution 95 to plead the case for "Shoeless" Joe Jackson's reinstatement. Among the reasons given was a quote given by James Earl Jones's character in the movie that "grasps the essence of an American tradition, baseball." Among those receiving a copy of the House Resolution were Phil Alden Robinson (Field of Dreams writer-director), Charles Gordon and Lawrence Gordon (Field of Dreams producers), and cast members Kevin Costner, Amy Madigan, and James Earl Jones.

-Burt Lancaster starred in three made-for-TV films after this movie, but this was his final role in a motion picture released theatrically.

-The shot of the line-drive knocking over the bag of baseballs next to Kevin Costner was sheer luck off the bat of Ray Liotta.

-The first day of shooting was the town hall scene. Amy Madigan was nervous about screaming in front of such a large group of people the first day.

-Fenway Park wanted too much money for additional shots, so the moment where Terrence orders his hot dog and a beer was actually shot in Iowa.

-Several deleted scenes include Ray getting his hearing checked; Ray buying baseball equipment; Ray getting lost on the way to Fenway with Terrence; and Ray and Terrence watching batting practice.

-Burt Lancaster was unaware that Timothy Busfield was part of the cast, and had him fetching water and chairs before realizing Busfield was going to be in the scene with him.

-The line, "Hey, Dad, you wanna have a catch," originally didn't include "Dad". Audiences were disappointed in the lack of acknowledgement of father and son, and the word "Dad" was looped in during post-production.

-"The Final Shot" was a big community event, enlisting 1,500 volunteers to drive for the last scene. For only a brief time could the headlights and also the blue of the sky be shown in one shot. The first take was too bright. On the second shot the lighting was perfect, but the camera f-stop was messed up. Just before the third and final shot, the director realized that as with any heavy traffic, most of the cars weren't moving. They would just look like lights on posts. He relayed a quick instruction through the local radio station: flash your high beams on and off. Though the cars are not moving, this simulated the appearance of lights passing behind obstructions to perfect effect.

-W.P. Kinsella and J.D. Salinger, on whom the character Terence Mann is based, were friends. In fact, Salinger accompanied Kinsella to Chisolm, Minn. in 1975 in search of Moonlight Graham, who had died 10 years earlier. Kinsella said he chose Graham's character for his book "Shoeless" Joe Jackson because he was intrigued by his nickname when he came across it while thumbing through the Baseball Encyclopedia.

-The movie's line "If you build it, he will come." was voted as the #39 movie quote by the American Film Institute (out of 100).

-Sheila McCarthy and Reba McEntire both auditioned for the part of Annie.

-The Cracker Jack baseball cards shown in the beginning of the film are based on real baseball cards produced in 1914 and 1915. However, the actual set does not include cards of Babe Ruth or obviously Lou Gehrig. There is, however, a "Shoeless" Joe Jackson card very similar to the Jackson card shown in the film, which has become very popular with collectors since the film's release.

-According to supplementary material on the DVD edition of this film, shortly before shooting began, the actor who played Ray Kinsella's father, Dwier Brown, was notified that his father unfortunately pass away. Immediately after the funeral, he traveled directly from the funeral to filming in Iowa for the scene. He stated that although the emotion was too fresh and painful, it had an effect on how he eventually played his scene with Kevin Costner.

-Final film of Anne Seymour.

-When "Shoeless" Joe Jackson is giving young Archie "Moonlight Graham" advice on hitting we can see that the bat Graham is using is a "Louisville Slugger" Jack Clark model. Jack Clark was a fairly prominent player from the 1970's and 80's.

-The movie was named as one of "The 20 Most Overrated Movies of All Time" by Premiere.

-Gaby Hoffmann's first film.

-When they hold up the Terence Mann book that is going to be banned in the school auditorium, it has the same cover design as the first edition of Jack Kerouac's 1957 novel "On the Road" (the novel thought by many to have spawned the 60s).

-Ranked #6 on the American Film Institute's list of the 10 greatest films in the genre "Fantasy" in June 2008.

-According to an AFI top 100 quotes list, 'The Voice' is that of Ray Liotta.

-The director has said that his greatest regret about this film is that he never used any African-American baseball players. The use of African-American players might have compromised the historical accuracy of the film since no African-American players were known to have played Major League baseball until until 1947 - the year Jackie Robinson broke in with the Brooklyn Dodgers.

-Ray Liotta spent months learning how to throw and hit as a left-handed player (he is naturally right-handed). But when it came time for his baseball scenes, the director told him that since he was playing a 'ghost' anyhow, accuracy was not important. So he played right-handed even though "Shoeless" Joe Jackson was known to be a lefty. When the film came out, baseball historians cried foul. He has since said in interviews that his biggest regret about the breakthrough role was that he didn't stand up for himself and demand to play left-handed.

-"Shoeless" Joe Jackson remarks about Ty Cobb's desire to play at the Field of Dreams (1989), "None of could stand the son of a bitch when he was alive, so, we told him to stick it." However, towards the end of the real Shoeless Joe's life, Ty Cobb came into his liquor store in South Carolina and asked Jackson whether or not he knew him.

-The owners of the site of the baseball field in Iowa canceled their 20th anniversary event due to the economic turn down and donated the money raised for it to a local food bank (2009).

-During the "search for Terry" scene, Ray can be seen driving up Huntington Avenue in Boston, and in fact at one point, he's just a matter of a few blocks from the very site where the very first World Series was played between the Boston Red Sox and Pittsburgh Pirates in 1903, which were played on what they at that time referred to as the "Huntington Avenue Grounds."

[Liza]

Bette Davis voiced her own opinion on how her charcter in Now, Voyager would have really ended up (which btw, I totally agree with):

"The man in that was never going to be right for her, he was too weak. I always felt that eventually she married Dr. Jacquith, my gorgeous Claude Rains. I always felt that."

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_VRME60-RLag/Ryndg0lPcBI/AAAAAAAADkc/5ah5hSB3t2Y/s320/Now+Voyager+III.bmp

[JamesG]

Facts About CLERKS. (1994)

- Filmed on location at the QuickStop/RST Video in Leonardo, New Jersey where director Kevin Smith worked at the time.

- The owner allowed them to film only outside of business hours (mostly from 11pm-4am) and since bright lights could not be afforded they had to close the shutters outside the store and worked a plot around it; they only had a black-and-white camera. Kevin Smith then returned to work at the store at 6am; practically living there while he made the movie.

- This film was a first in motion picture history to have the costs of the rights for the soundtrack cost more than how much the film cost to be made.
Soundtrack - $27,000
Production - $26, 800

- Jason Mewes was not on the covers and posters for the movie because executives found him to be odd-looking and not having a marketable face for advertising. After Clerks. became popular he has made the cover on every "Jay and Silent Bob" film made after.

- Was originally given an NC-17 rating due to the film's explicit sexual dialogues.

- Kevin Smith admitted that he took role of "Silent Bob" because in case the film failed he would have been in debt for the rest of his life and that he could say "I was in a movie".

- Kevin Smith's mother has a cameo in the film as "The Milkmaid". She then reprised the cameo role for Clerks II.

- When the film was first released it was the most stolen VHS tape from video rental stores.

- Today, the QuickStop convenience store is still in operation. The RST video store, that is next door, has since closed but the owners keep it looking the way it did for the many fans that frequent the establishment.

[browneyes106]

Facts about Saw
-
The MPAA originally rated the film NC-17, due to the film's tone; director James Wan had to remove some content to secure an R rating.

-Detective Sing pursuing the Jigsaw killer was the last sequence to be filmed.

-The scene in which Gordon turns off the lights and whispers to Adam was written differently in the script. The characters were to cut open opposite ends of a long pipe with their hacksaws and speak through it. This sequence was actually shot, but later cut because director James Wan decided that the characters being able to cut through a pipe made no sense if they couldn't cut through their chains.

=Film's pre-production was only five days; it was shot and cut at the same time in 18 days (all of the bathroom scenes were shot in six days). The actors had absolutely no rehearsals. The rehearsal takes were actual footage for the film.

-Filmed in 18 days.

-Sundance showed the NC-17 uncut version. The actual theatrical R-rated version is cut and more finessed, and the sound and colors were evened.

-The car chase was filmed in the garage of the warehouse by turning off the lights, adding some fog, and shaking the cars while filming from the front.

-Principal photography was done in a converted warehouse. The bathroom set was built while the other locations were existing rooms redressed.

-Was the closing film for the Toronto Film Festival.

-Originally intended for a straight-to-video release. After positive screenings, it was given the nod to become a premier movie.

-Director James Wan took a gamble and took no "up front" salary for the movie and opted for a percentage instead.

-Contains many references to the films of Italian horror/giallo director Dario Argento. The creepy painted puppet is a reference to Argento's Profondo rosso (1975), while the unseen killer's black gloves are one of Argento's trademarks and can be seen in almost all of his films.

-Shots cut in the R-rated version, according to director James Wan and screen-writer/actor Leigh Whannell, included ones of Amanda sifting through the intestines, the fat guy struggle through the barb wire just to shorten the scene, and some forensic ones. The color was made more even and the sound was altered because the MPAA had problems with the tone of the original cut shown in Sundance.

-James Wan and Leigh Whannell wrote the script and submitted it to their manager. The manager then sent it to an agent in L.A. who summoned the two of them for a meeting. They were encouraged to shoot a scene from the script as a short film which they started passing around to studios.

-According to the DVD commentary, casting agent Amy Lippens asked director James Wan who he wanted to play the character of Amanda. On a whim, Wan suggested actress Shawnee Smith, on whom he had had a crush since his teen years. He was surprised when Lippens came back a few days later and told him that they had secured her for the role.

-The detectives track down a fire alarm to a warehouse in "Stygian Street". "Stygian" is the name of director James Wan's first film, which also stars "Saw" co-writer/actor Leigh Whannell.

-According to the DVD commentary director James Wan points out that many of the scare scenes in the film were nightmares he and Leigh Whannell had as kids.

-The sequel Saw II (2005) was approved for production the weekend the film opened.

-Every scene was filmed in a set of buildings that were rented out to movie crews. Many of the sets in the film were originally empty rooms with props put in by the crew.

-Jigsaw's puppet was completely made from scratch by the films creators (it was not bought at a store or a puppet that was altered).

-All of the bathroom scenes were shot in chronological order in order to make the actors feel more what the characters were going through.

-According to the offical SAW website, in a still image used in one of the flash scenes, Adam's last name is "Faulkner".

-After Amanda stabs her cell-mate she is searching with her hands through his guts, the guts are actually pig uterus.

-To help sell his concept for the film, Leigh Whannell shot a scene in which he appears to be ensnared in a bear trap. There were no special effects involved, he actually had to place the teeth of the rusty bear trap in his mouth to make it seem real.

-Leigh Whannell mentions in the DVD commentary that the scene where his character plunges his hand down a filthy toilet is a tribute to Danny Boyle's Trainspotting (1996).

-Oren Koules one of the film's producers plays Shawnee Smith's dead cell mate.





Trivia items below here contain information that may give away important plot points. You may not want to read any further if you've not already seen this title.

-The only dummy used in the whole movie is the burned corpse of the man who is in the room, naked, with the safe and broken glass. All other corpses were played by the actors.

- The Jaw Splitter was also used in the original Saw short film, attached to a character named David. The scenario played out the same as the later version, with David escaping from the contraption seconds before it went off.

- Instead of the quadruple shotgun trap, the creators wanted a trap that consisted of two things that would spring from the walls and snap shut on Sing and fold him up into a box. They described it as an "iron cocoon." They decided against the idea, as it would have cost too much money for visual effects.

- According to an interview with Leigh Whannell, Adam and Lawrence were originally going to be trapped in an elevator.

- James Wan and Leigh Whannell returned for several re-shoots, but the original actors were unavailable by that time. Whannell played the parts himself, and Wan used close-up shots of the characters' bodies, avoiding showing their faces. Whannell plays Detective Sing (Ken Leung's character) entering the building with a shotgun, and the body of Sing falling down after being shot. Also, the close-up shots of Shawnee Smith's character's hands in her torture/murder scene were Whannell's, and he wore a wig to make his shadow on the wall appear more like Shawnee's.

-In contrast to the majority of popular horror films, all the victims who die are men.

[Torgo]

The Children ('80)
The noise made when the possessed children are killed is created from the sound of cats in heat.


Lobster Man from Mars ('89)
Orson Welles came up with the title for this movie. He had originally agreed to play the part of the producer, but died before production began.

In his autobiography, Tony Curtis says that he worked on the movie because they paid him $100,000, and he needed to make child support payments. He also mentions that during the production, he never saw the scenes of the movie that his character was reacting to.


Future-Kill ('85)
A couple of different stories exist as to how H.R. Giger was persuaded to design the poster art for this low-budget film. Edwin Neal, who spent the 1980s traveling extensively to science fiction and movie conventions selling movie memorabilia, always claimed that he was the one responsible for getting Giger involved; however, in Giger's book "Necronomicon II," Giger says that director Ronald W. Moore was with whom he dealt. Giger goes on to say that he felt manipulated by Moore, who told him in tears that the film would lose its financing without the Giger poster. Whatever the case, the original art did eventually end up in Neal's possession, along with numerous other prints and portfolios by Giger, lending credence to Neal's claims of involvement.

[JamesG]

Facts About MALLRATS (1995)

- The film's events happen the day before Clerks.

- The mall where this was filmed at was the Eden Prairie Center Mall in Minnesota.

- The studio insisted that Seth Green or Breckin Meyer play the role of "Jay"; not liking Jason Mewes. Kevin Smith insisted that they use Mewes, however the studio made Smith take auditions for the "Jay" character and made Smith pay for Jason Mewes' room and board from his own pocket.

- One of Ben Affleck's first motion pictures as a younger, upcoming actor. Kevin Smith still jokes that he "discovered" Affleck.

- During the filming of this a pilot for a television sitcom based off of Clerks. was in the works; but it never came to be and most of them were happy about it not happening.

- Heather Graham, Reese Witherspoon, Jennifer Love Hewitt, and Shawnee Smith all auditioned for roles in the movie but never got casted.

- Comic book artist Stan Lee appeared as himself and he impressed the crew and the studio with his performance since he is not a trained actor.

[Torgo]

Scifi Facts


Silent Running (1972
The model of the "Valley Forge" space freighter was 26 feet in length and was constructed of steel, wood, plastic, and over 650 army tank model kits. This model no longer exists, as it was disassembled and destroyed several years after filming. At least one original "dome" from the model has survived in good condition, and was offered on an Internet auction site in 2003 - it sold for $11,000, and currently rests in a science fiction museum in Seattle, Washington, USA.


A Clockwork Orange (1971)
Stanley Kubrick's 'A Clockwork Orange' is actually the second film adaptation of Anthony Burgess' novel. Andy Warhol's 'Vinyl' (1965) is the first.


Outland (1981)
The mining company is referred by the name "Con-Amalgamate". This is the same name given to the company that manufactured the defective life support system mentioned in Capricorn One (1978)- both were directed by Peter Hyams


Logan's Run (1976)
The first choices for the roles of Logan and Jessica were Jon Voight and Lindsay Wagner. The role of Peter Ustinov's character, the Old Man, was offered to James Cagney.


Destination Moon (1950)
The Woody Woodpecker cartoon used in the movie was updated and then used by NASA to explain space travel to the public.

Death Race 2000 (1975
The role of Frankenstein was originally offered to Peter Fonda, who considered the movie too ridiculous for words.

[Liza]

Facts About MALLRATS (1995)

- One of Ben Affleck's first motion pictures as a younger, upcoming actor. Kevin Smith still jokes that he "discovered" Affleck.

Oh, Kevin Smith can claim that all he wants - I remember Ben Affleck back when he was in Voyage of the Mimi!!!!

http://www.geocities.com/affleck1971/mimimore6.jpg

[JamesG]

Facts About The Mask (1994)

- Was originally intended to be a dark horror comedy directly based off of the comic books but was then made as a starring vehicle for Jim Carrey's unique comedy.

- This was Cameron Diaz's first motion picture.

- There were plans for a "The Mask II" being made at one point with Jim Carrey returning but differences with the script made Carrey drop out and "The Mask II" never happened. In 2005 a sequel was made, Son of the Mask, but this was critically panned and was a flop.

- The Mask's yellow suit was custom made by Jim Carrey's mother when he was doing early stand-up gigs.

- Jim Carrey has mentioned that he based the character of The Mask off of his father.

- The film contains a musical scene of The Mask performing Desi Arnaz's "Cuban Pete".

[Torgo]

Oh, Kevin Smith can claim that all he wants - I remember Ben Affleck back when he was in Voyage of the Mimi!!!!

http://www.geocities.com/affleck1971/mimimore6.jpg

Affleck's been around since the early 80's. And as far as early theatrical films, I think 'Dazed and Confused' was a far more memorable performance of Affleck's...

[Torgo]

Caveman Facts


Quest For Fire (1981)
The language used by the cavemen, which comprises all of the spoken dialogue, was created by Anthony Burgess. Burgess is best known as the author of the novel- A Clockwork Orange.


One Million B.C. (1940)
Lon Chaney Jr. designed his own makeup for Akhoba, but couldn't use it owing to Cosmetician's Union rules.


Caveman (1981)
The film opens up with "One Zillion BC - October 9th" October 9th was John Lennon's birthday. This was in memoriam of Ringo Starr's former friend and former band mate with the Beatles.


Encino Man (1992)
Jim Carrey and Nicolas Cage were both considered for the role of Link before Brendan Fraser was cast


The Flintstones (1994)
When Elizabeth Taylor was on the set, two jokes were played. When her character is at a makeup table, a stone perfume bottle is engraved "White Diamonds" which is the name of Taylor's perfume line. Another was when her character was tied up, Taylor playfully looked at the director and asked, Did he know how many men "wanted [her] in that position?".

[browneyes106]

Facts about National Lampoon's Vacation

Scripted with Disneyland as the Griswold's destination, but Disney objected, pointing out that they are open 365 days a year.

The theme park that served as Walley World was actually Six Flags Magic Mountain. The roller coaster referred by Clark as the "Whipper Snapper" is actually called "The Revolution" and was the first roller coaster to have a 360 degree vertical loop.

The Wagon Queen Family Truckster is actually a modified Ford LTD Country Squire station wagon.

Based on the article "Vacation 58" by John Hughes, which appeared in September 1979 issue of National Lampoon.

As the Griswalds are leaving Chicago, you can see the Buckingham fountain (a popular attraction in Chicago's Grant Park used in the intro to "Married with Children" (1987)) in the background at one point.

There was a Walley World Water Park in London, Ontario, Canada, which opened several years after the movie was released. John Candy was invited to the opening of the park but the park owners couldn't afford his appearance fee.

The "W" in Clark W. Griswold stands for Wilhelm.

Apparently, it was originally scripted that after Aunt Edna was tied to the roof of the car, there was a shot of her fingers moving implying she was, in fact, still alive. This was considered "cruel" to have a live person on the roof of a car by the ratings board, so it was cut and she remained dead.

The childhood pictures of Audrey on the living room wall were actual portfolio shots from the young commercial-acting days of Dana Barron.

Exterior filming of the Griswolds "on the road" took a greater part of three months, crossing numerous states.

The scene where the station wagon goes airborne in the Arizona desert actually caused some production changes due to the hard nose-landing that wasn't expected. Among those were matching the exact front-end damage on other station wagons used in other scenes.

In the Walley World scenes, Anthony Michael Hall is taller than Beverly D'Angelo, than from previous scenes in the film where he matched her height. This occurred because Hall grew three inches after principal photography, and the ending was re-shot months later, after the initial ending failed with test-audiences.

The first ending of the film consisted of the Griswold family going to the house of the owner of Walley World, and holding his family hostage and making them sing and dance. This did not go over well with test-audiences and the in-park scenes with John Candy was a last minute alternate.

Harold Ramis has an uncredited role as an off-camera voice of one of the police officers at Walley World.

Daisy Mabel (Cousin Eddie's tongueless daughter) was played by director Harold Ramis's own daughter, Violet Ramis.

All of the distant shots of Walley World, including the sign the family truckster drives under, were matte paintings.

The St. Louis inner city and the Dodge City main street were created on the Warner Brothers' backlot.

The character of Roy Walley was based on a combination of the brothers Roy Edward Disney and Walt Disney, right down to the thin mustache.

The poster art was by fantasy illustrator Boris Vallejo.

Imogene Coca originally turned down the part of Aunt Edna because she did not think she could portray such a mean character. Even during filming, she was often concerned that she was being (too) mean to her fellow cast members.

According to Harold Ramis, he was inspired to shoot wide angle shots of Clark alone in the desert by La guerre du feu (1981).

The gas station and sporting goods store were located at the intersection of Ocean Ave and Santa Monica Blvd in Santa Monica and have since been torn down and replaced by hi-rises.

The original ending in which the family holds Walley and his family hostage was part of the ending to Christmas Vacation (1989).

Premiere voted this movie as one of "The 50 Greatest Comedies Of All Time" in 2006.

This was the only "Vacation" movie to receive an "R" rating in the US by the MPAA. The European Vacation (1985) and Christmas Vacation (1989) sequels received "PG-13" ratings, while Vegas Vacation (1997) was rated "PG".

In the DVD commentary, director Harold Ramis mentions that for the scene in which the Family Truckster jumps into the air, several of the crew members had made bets against 2nd unit director Dick Ziker that he couldn't jump the car more than 50 feet (even drawing lines in the sand to measure the distance). Ziker ended up winning that bet, as he jumped the car more than 50 feet.

In the DVD commentary, Chevy Chase mentions that the scene in which Rusty puts his feet up on top of the driver's seat was originally not in the script, but the producers liked it, so it was kept in the movie.

Film debut of Christie Brinkley.

The opening scene was filmed at Star Ford in Glendale, CA. The dealership is still there (as of early 2009) with the same buildings that were in the movie.

[JamesG]

Facts About House of 1000 Corpses (2003)

- This was Rob Zombie's first directed film.

- Rob Zombie has a small cameo in the beginning of the film as the assistant of Dr. Wolfenstein on the television program.

- Was completed in 2000 but wasn't released until 2003.

- 666 came up twice when the film was released:
Opening weekend - $3,460,666
End of the run with gross divided - $666 per theater

- The scenes of posters with missing boys are childhood photos of Rob Zombie and his brother as kids.

- Otis and Baby Firefly's rants on home video footage were inspired by the Manson family's taped rants.

- Bill Mosely (Otis) appears also as a tv reporter and as Ed Gein.

- Dedicated to Dennis Fimple (Grandpa Firefly) who died after filming wrapped.

- Several characters are named directly after characters in five Marx Brothers films:
1. Captain Jeffrey T. Spaulding from Animal Crackers (1930)
2. Professor Quincy Adams Wagstaff from Horse Feathers (1932)
3. Rufus T. Firefly from Duck Soup (1933)
4. Otis B. Driftwood from A Night at the Opera (1935)
5. Dr. Hugo Z. Hackenbush from A Day at the Races (1937)
6. Signor Emanuel Ravelli from Animal Crackers (1930)
7. Vera-Ellen (Baby) from actress Vera-Ellen in Love Happy (1949)

[Mrdata]

Facts About The Mask (1994)

- Was originally intended to be a dark horror comedy directly based off of the comic books but was then made as a starring vehicle for Jim Carrey's unique comedy.

- This was Cameron Diaz's first motion picture.

- There were plans for a "The Mask II" being made at one point with Jim Carrey returning but differences with the script made Carrey drop out and "The Mask II" never happened. In 2005 a sequel was made, Son of the Mask, but this was critically panned and was a flop.

- The Mask's yellow suit was custom made by Jim Carrey's mother when he was doing early stand-up gigs.

- Jim Carrey has mentioned that he based the character of The Mask off of his father.

- The film contains a musical scene of The Mask performing Desi Arnaz's "Cuban Pete".


One of my favorite lines in the movie.

"**it-a-door ... **it-a-window I don't care" :rofl:

Charles

[JamesG]

Facts About The Devil's Rejects (2005)

- Sequel to Rob Zombie's House of 1000 Corpses.

- There were some cast differences with the Firefly family in this one:
1. "Grandpa Firefly" was omitted out of respect for Dennis Fimple who passed away.
2. "Dr. Satan" was omitted because Zombie wanted a more realistic tone with this movie and felt that the character wouldn't work.
3. Leslie Easterbrook replaced Karen Black as "Mother Firefly".
4. Tyler Mane replaced Robert Mukes as "Rufus Firefly"

- Rob Zombie had originally intended to make the movie using special effects only available during the 1970s but due to time constraints it could not be done.

- Rosario Dawson's scene was deleted from the film playing a nurse examining Dr. Satan.

- Stunt coordinator Kane Hodder (Jason Voorhees) appears in the film as a police officer killed in a shootout with the Firefly family.

- Rob Zombie mentioned that the Firefly shootout with the police, wearing the homemade body armor, was inspired by the Ned Kelly gang.

- When the film came to DVD it was dedicated to Matthew McGrory (Tiny Firefly).

[LuLu Rogers]

Facts About House of 1000 Corpses (2003)

- This was Rob Zombie's first directed film.

- Rob Zombie has a small cameo in the beginning of the film as the assistant of Dr. Wolfenstein on the television program.

- Was completed in 2000 but wasn't released until 2003.

- 666 came up twice when the film was released:
Opening weekend - $3,460,666
End of the run with gross divided - $666 per theater

- The scenes of posters with missing boys are childhood photos of Rob Zombie and his brother as kids.

- Otis and Baby Firefly's rants on home video footage were inspired by the Manson family's taped rants.

- Bill Mosely (Otis) appears also as a tv reporter and as Ed Gein.

- Dedicated to Dennis Fimple (Grandpa Firefly) who died after filming wrapped.

- Several characters are named directly after characters in five Marx Brothers films:
1. Captain Jeffrey T. Spaulding from Animal Crackers (1930)
2. Professor Quincy Adams Wagstaff from Horse Feathers (1932)
3. Rufus T. Firefly from Duck Soup (1933)
4. Otis B. Driftwood from A Night at the Opera (1935)
5. Dr. Hugo Z. Hackenbush from A Day at the Races (1937)
6. Signor Emanuel Ravelli from Animal Crackers (1930)
7. Vera-Ellen (Baby) from actress Vera-Ellen in Love Happy (1949)


I never understood the end of this movie, maybe I was reading too much into it, LOL. I got confused about Dr. Satan, was it really Otis, or just a totally different character? :confused:

[Shine]

Facts About The Devil's Rejects (2005)

- Sequel to Rob Zombie's House of 1000 Corpses.

- There were some cast differences with the Firefly family in this one:
1. "Grandpa Firefly" was omitted out of respect for Dennis Fimple who passed away.
2. "Dr. Satan" was omitted because Zombie wanted a more realistic tone with this movie and felt that the character wouldn't work.
3. Leslie Easterbrook replaced Karen Black as "Mother Firefly".
4. Tyler Mane replaced Robert Mukes as "Rufus Firefly"

- Rob Zombie had originally intended to make the movie using special effects only available during the 1970s but due to time constraints it could not be done.

- Rosario Dawson's scene was deleted from the film playing a nurse examining Dr. Satan.

- Stunt coordinator Kane Hodder (Jason Voorhees) appears in the film as a police officer killed in a shootout with the Firefly family.

- Rob Zombie mentioned that the Firefly shootout with the police, wearing the homemade body armor, was inspired by the Ned Kelly gang.

- When the film came to DVD it was dedicated to Matthew McGrory (Tiny Firefly).

Maybe its because I'm getting old, but just by looking at the title this movie sounds awful. :eek:

[JamesG]

Maybe its because I'm getting old, but just by looking at the title this movie sounds awful. :eek:

What makes you say that?

I thought it was rather well done. I was impressed with Zombie's work with this. Some people either loved it or hated it; I was one that loved it.

[JamesG]

I never understood the end of this movie, maybe I was reading too much into it, LOL. I got confused about Dr. Satan, was it really Otis, or just a totally different character? :confused:

I think it was meant to be a different character.

[LuLu Rogers]

I think it was meant to be a different character.


Gotcha. I watched this movie at night with 2 friends who were talking to me the whole time, so I got lost! :lol:

[HuntingtonM15]

What makes you say that?

I thought it was rather well done. I was impressed with Zombie's work with this. Some people either loved it or hated it; I was one that loved it.

I also really enjoyed the movie. I thought it was an excellent sequel. Very well done, and while I do enjoy House of 1,000 Corpses, I thought this one was much better.

[LuLu Rogers]

I also really enjoyed the movie. I thought it was an excellent sequel. Very well done, and while I do enjoy House of 1,000 Corpses, I thought this one was much better.


I just saw House of 1,000 Corpses recently. I really need to rent The Devil's Rejects, I'm interested to see what this sequel is like.

[Shine]

What makes you say that?

I thought it was rather well done. I was impressed with Zombie's work with this. Some people either loved it or hated it; I was one that loved it.


I don't know, just the title makes the movie sound tasteless. Also, I'm just not interested in horror movies like I used to be. I still like the classics (The Exorcist. Jaws, The Shining, ext), but I never go see new horror films.

[JamesG]

I just saw House of 1,000 Corpses recently. I really need to rent The Devil's Rejects, I'm interested to see what this sequel is like.

They're both rather well done. Devil's Rejects is nothing at all like House of 1000 Corpses. 1000 Corpses was more "fun" and over-the-top whereas Rejects is more brutal and gritty.

[JamesG]

I don't know, just the title makes the movie sound tasteless. Also, I'm just not interested in horror movies like I used to be. I still like the classics (The Exorcist. Jaws, The Shining, ext), but I never go see new horror films.

Well it definitely isn't Mary Poppins...

Also, I wouldn't really call Devil's Rejects a horror film. To me it's more of a crime/action film with some horror elements. That's just my view on it.

[Shine]

Well it definitely isn't Mary Poppins...

Also, I wouldn't really call Devil's Rejects a horror film. To me it's more of a crime/action film with some horror elements. That's just my view on it.

Honestly, I really don't go see that many new movies period. There just aren't that many new movies that interest me. Even up to just a couple of years ago, I went to see a couple of new movies a month. However, the older I get, the less interested I seem to get with new movies. I especially don't understand all these remakes. Why is there going to be a remake of A Nightmare On Elm Street? The original is a classic. How can it be improved upon? I'm almost 33 and I guess I'm still stuck in the 80's and 90's. :lol: It's okay, you can say it.:lol: ;)

[JamesG]

Honestly, I really don't go see that many new movies period. There just aren't that many new movies that interest me. Even up to just a couple of years ago, I went to see a couple of new movies a month. However, the older I get, the less interested I seem to get with new movies. I especially don't understand all these remakes. Why is there going to be a remake of A Nightmare On Elm Street? The original is a classic. How can it be improved upon? I'm almost 33 and I guess I'm still stuck in the 80's and 90's. :lol: It's okay, you can say it.:lol: ;)

Simple, because they know they are going to be huge hits and they are out of original ideas. I can't think of a better reason.

[Shine]

Simple, because they know they are going to be huge hits and they are out of original ideas. I can't think of a better reason.

I'm sure that's Hollywood's reasoning. However, I just don't see the point of remaking classic movies.

[HuntingtonM15]

They're both rather well done. Devil's Rejects is nothing at all like House of 1000 Corpses. 1000 Corpses was more "fun" and over-the-top whereas Rejects is more brutal and gritty.

Yeah, the extreme campy element was taken away in the sequel. I highly doubt it would ever happen, but I'd love if Rob did a prequel to the series.

[treky]

just a little fact about "STAR TREK 5: THE FINAL FRONTIER" (for those who are intersted):

they orriginally wanted Sean Connery for the role of Sybok, and that's why they named the planet "SO-CAR-REE" since it sounds like "SEAN CONNERY"

[JamesG]

I'm sure that's Hollywood's reasoning. However, I just don't see the point of remaking classic movies.

I wonder if they should be remaking bad movies and trying to make them better instead of remaking classics and making them worse.

[JamesG]

Saturday Night Fever (1977)

The "Saturday Night Fever Club" was the Odyssey 2001 located on 802 64th Street in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn; open from 1975-1987.

In 1987 it became a gay club renamed Spectrum.

By 2005 the place closed for good and the disco dance floor was sold in an auction. The spot is currently occupied by a wholesaler.

[JamesG]

Facts About Caligula (1979)

- The only film movie critic Roger Ebert has ever claimed to walk out on during his viewing of it; rating it zero stars.

- Peter O'Toole and John Gielgud were completely unaware that such graphic sex would be depicted in the movie. They thought they were doing a serious Roman period piece.

- The film took over four years to be completed and 2,500+ people were involved in its making.

- One of the few mainstream movies to depict "real sex"; no acting here folks.

- When the idea was first pitched it was originally intended for a tv mini-series.

- Despite being offered an undisclosed large sum of money Orsen Welles declined from appearing in the movie for "moral reasons".

- Producer Bob Guccione of Penthouse said that not enough pretty women appeared in the film so he went about hand-picking women to appear that were according to his standards.

- When the film was completed it was edited so much and scenes were placed at random that Malcolm McDowell (Caligula) questioned if he ever filmed the things he was doing in the movie.

- The principal cast refused to do voice-over dubbing if Bob Guccione's reshoots were going to be in the movie. They all agreed but when it was done Guccione put his footage back in.

- Considering certain factors the movie was not a failure in the box office. It had a limited run in select theaters and did rather well where it was released; breaking records in the independent circuit. It is also Penthouse's highest selling video.

[Liza]

^ Also about Caligula (and we all know how Liza feels about this movie):

- Gore Vidal who wrote the original script disowned the film and later sued to have his name taken off it.

- Maria Schneider was originally cast as Drusilla, but walked off the set in disgust very early into filming.

- Katherine Ross was offered the role of Drusilla (following Schneider's departure) but Malcolm McDowall talked her out of it.

- The actress who played Messalina was unaware of the pornography involved and succesfully sued Bob Guccione for damaging her career.

[JamesG]

Facts About Manhunter (1986)

- Was originally going to be called Red Dragon, the same name of the Thomas Harris novel of it which it was adapted from.

They came up with the name Manhunter so as to not have the audience think it was another martial arts flick as the 1980s had a lot of those at the time; particually having the word Dragon in the title.


- Brian Cox originated the role of Dr. Hannibal Lecktor in this movie; the only movie where Lecktor is spelled that way.


- Anthony Hopkins, who would forever be known as Dr. Hannibal Lecter from The Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal, and Red Dragon, was performing in the National Theater as King Lear during the making of this movie.

When The Silence of the Lambs was being made Brian Cox took over King Lear in the National Theater.


- Tom Noonan who played Francis Dollarhyde aka "The Tooth Fairy" was originally going to have the full body art tattoos on his back of William Blake's "Great Red Dragon" paintings, as the novel had depicted the character.

Director Michael Mann found them to be over-the-top and decided not to use them for the movie. When Ralph Fiennes took over the role in Red Dragon the tattoos were depicted.


- Frankie Faison who is known as playing Barney the Orderly appeared in Manhunter as a police officer. He was the only person to appear in all of the Hannibal movies; with the exception of Hannibal Rising.

[JamesG]

Facts About Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001)

- Fans were so eager to see the trailer for this movie that they purchased tickets for Scary Movie 2 only to leave the theater after the trailer finished.


- The first film that Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher had appeared in together since Return of the Jedi (1983); though they didn't share any screen time and didn't know the other was going to be in the movie until it was finished.


- One scene mentions an online movie critic giving Jay and Silent Bob bad reviews under the username "Magnolia Fan".

Kevin Smith had posted a negative review of the film Magnolia (1999) on his website and in response many Magnolia fans began to troll Kevin Smith's messageboards with criticism of him.


- At one point in the movie Jay and Silent Bob stumble upon the set of "Scream 4". Jay and Silent Bob appeared in a cameo in Scream 3 (2000).


- Seann William Scott, Shannon Elizabeth, and Jason Biggs filmed their small scenes during the filiming of American Pie 2 (2001).


- Ben Affleck and Matt Damon (playing themselves) say in the movie that they have to do a movie as a favor to the director and then stop to look at the camera.

Kevin Smith brought Affleck and Damon's Good Will Hunting (1997) script to Miramax and helped with getting the film made.

[browneyes106]

Facts About Manhunter (1986)

- Was originally going to be called Red Dragon, the same name of the Thomas Harris novel of it which it was adapted from.

They came up with the name Manhunter so as to not have the audience think it was another martial arts flick as the 1980s had a lot of those at the time; particually having the word Dragon in the title.


- Brian Cox originated the role of Dr. Hannibal Lecktor in this movie; the only movie where Lecktor is spelled that way.


- Anthony Hopkins, who would forever be known as Dr. Hannibal Lecter from The Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal, and Red Dragon, was performing in the National Theater as King Lear during the making of this movie.

When The Silence of the Lambs was being made Brian Cox took over King Lear in the National Theater.


- Tom Noonan who played Francis Dollarhyde aka "The Tooth Fairy" was originally going to have the full body art tattoos on his back of William Blake's "Great Red Dragon" paintings, as the novel had depicted the character.

Director Michael Mann found them to be over-the-top and decided not to use them for the movie. When Ralph Fiennes took over the role in Red Dragon the tattoos were depicted.


- Frankie Faison who is known as playing Barney the Orderly appeared in Manhunter as a police officer. He was the only person to appear in all of the Hannibal movies; with the exception of Hannibal Rising.

For some reason I always thought that spelling had a creepier feel than the Lector spelling.

[JamesG]

3 Ninjas

Chinese actor Victor Wong (Grandpa Mori) was the only person to appear in all four of the 3 Ninjas films.

The last one in the series, 3 Ninjas High Noon at Mega Mountain (1998), was also Victor Wong's last feature film.

[JamesG]

Facts About KISS Meets The Phantom of the Park (1978)

- Its original television airing was on October 28, 1978 on NBC.

- The theme park it was filmed at was the Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia, California.

- All four original KISS members hate the movie till this day; something that they all agree on.

- The idea of this movie came from how KISS were depicted in their MARVEL comic adaptations on being a band by day and superhero group by night.

- Peter Criss was dubbed over for the final cut because he didn't want to complete voice-over recording sessions. The only time in the movie you hear his natural voice is when he sings Beth.

- They had no choice but to use an African-American stunt-double in Ace Frehley's place for some fight sequences due to Ace being uncooperative on the set. :lol:

- The members of KISS were fed their lines on the spot so they really had no idea on what was going on and what was going to be the outcome of their scenes.

[Torgo]

Honestly, I really don't go see that many new movies period. There just aren't that many new movies that interest me. Even up to just a couple of years ago, I went to see a couple of new movies a month. However, the older I get, the less interested I seem to get with new movies. I especially don't understand all these remakes. Why is there going to be a remake of A Nightmare On Elm Street? The original is a classic. How can it be improved upon? I'm almost 33 and I guess I'm still stuck in the 80's and 90's. :lol: It's okay, you can say it.:lol: ;)

Wow, the way you were talking I thought you were years older than me, not younger. I'll be turning 40 next year and I still don't feel like I'm getting old.

[Torgo]

Facts About KISS Meets The Phantom of the Park (1978)

- Its original television airing was on October 28, 1978 on NBC.

- The theme park it was filmed at was the Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia, California.

- All four original KISS members hate the movie till this day; something that they all agree on.

- The idea of this movie came from how KISS were depicted in their MARVEL comic adaptations on being a band by day and superhero group by night.

- Peter Criss was dubbed over for the final cut because he didn't want to complete voice-over recording sessions. The only time in the movie you hear his natural voice is when he sings Beth.

- They had no choice but to use an African-American stunt-double in Ace Frehley's place for some fight sequences due to Ace being uncooperative on the set. :lol:

- The members of KISS were fed their lines on the spot so they really had no idea on what was going on and what was going to be the outcome of their scenes.

I remember watching this when it originally aired with one of my older sisters. She was a huge KISS fan. The 70's was the best when it came to these type of cheesy specials. Shows like this, and Star Wars Holiday Special hold a special place in my memory, for better or worse.

[Torgo]

Facts About Caligula (1979)

- The only film movie critic Roger Ebert has ever claimed to walk out on during his viewing of it; rating it zero stars.

- Peter O'Toole and John Gielgud were completely unaware that such graphic sex would be depicted in the movie. They thought they were doing a serious Roman period piece.

- The film took over four years to be completed and 2,500+ people were involved in its making.

- One of the few mainstream movies to depict "real sex"; no acting here folks.

- When the idea was first pitched it was originally intended for a tv mini-series.

- Despite being offered an undisclosed large sum of money Orsen Welles declined from appearing in the movie for "moral reasons".

- Producer Bob Guccione of Penthouse said that not enough pretty women appeared in the film so he went about hand-picking women to appear that were according to his standards.

- When the film was completed it was edited so much and scenes were placed at random that Malcolm McDowell (Caligula) questioned if he ever filmed the things he was doing in the movie.

- The principal cast refused to do voice-over dubbing if Bob Guccione's reshoots were going to be in the movie. They all agreed but when it was done Guccione put his footage back in.

- Considering certain factors the movie was not a failure in the box office. It had a limited run in select theaters and did rather well where it was released; breaking records in the independent circuit. It is also Penthouse's highest selling video.

I haven't seen it in years. But I do remember it being talked about everywhere in Elementary School after it was out. Not that anyone saw it, it was just one of the many great 'taboo' films to talk about. Of course I don't think anyone of us had any idea of what the film was really like.

[JamesG]

I remember watching this when it originally aired with one of my older sisters. She was a huge KISS fan. The 70's was the best when it came to these type of cheesy specials. Shows like this, and Star Wars Holiday Special hold a special place in my memory, for better or worse.

I had bought a bootleg DVD of this from a fan convention years ago. For a long time this was never released officially.

Recently when KISS released their KISSology DVDs they released Phantom of the Park in their Volume II set.

I also own a bootleg of that Star Wars Holiday Special. I will say that if they ever decide to officially release this it will sell. If anything they should do what KISS did and decide to release it as a special feature or something of the sort.

[Torgo]

I had bought a bootleg DVD of this from a fan convention years ago. For a long time this was never released officially.

Recently when KISS released their KISSology DVDs they released Phantom of the Park in their Volume II set.

I also own a bootleg of that Star Wars Holiday Special. I will say that if they ever decide to officially release this it will sell. If anything they should do what KISS did and decide to release it as a special feature or something of the sort.

That would be cool ,but I think Lucas is trying to pretend it never happened.

[JamesG]

That would be cool ,but I think Lucas is trying to pretend it never happened.

Yeah I think he is; though he had very little involvement with the actual project. Looking up more on it now, I haven't seen it in a while, I forgot Bea Arthur and Art Carney appeared in this.

Lucas said something of the sort that if he had a sledgehammer and time he would smash all of the bootlegs being sold at the conventions.

[browneyes106]

Facts about Forrest Gump

-Bill Murray was considered for the role of Forrest.

-Terry Gilliam turned down the chance to direct the film.

-Barry Sonnenfeld was offered the chance to direct this film.

-David Alan Grier turned down the role of Bubba.

-Ice Cube turned down the role of Bubba. John Travolta turned down the role of Forrest Gump.

-Chevy Chase turned down the role of Forrest.

-The Bayou le Batre hospital named after Forrest Gump is actually the University of South Carolina - Beaufort Performing Arts Center.
-
-The Vietnam scenes of Forrest Gump were shot on what is now the Ocean Creek Golf Course on Fripp Island, SC.

-Gary Sinise's lower legs were wrapped in a special blue fabric that allowed them to be optically removed from the film by computer later.

-Tom Hanks' younger brother Jim doubles for him in many of his mindless running sequences.

-Tom Hanks patterned his accent after Michael Conner Humphreys (young Forrest) who actually talked that way.

-On the day that Tom Hanks shot the football running scenes he had been suffering from influenza.

-The park bench that Tom Hanks sits on for much of the movie was located in historic Savannah, Georgia, at Chippewa Square. The fiberglass bench he sat on has since been removed and placed into a museum to avoid being destroyed by the weather. The church where the feather first falls is about 100 yards just down the street from his bench. The bench is currently held in the Savannah History Museum, Savannah, Georgia.

-When Lt. Dan says "I'm walking here!" to the cab - a nod to Midnight Cowboy (1969) - the song in the background is "Everybody's Talkin'", also from Midnight Cowboy (1969).

-The background music playing while Forrest is using the bathroom in the Kennedy White House is the theme from Camelot (1967), which was a name often used in reference to John F. Kennedy's years in office.

-Gary Sinise's character tells Tom Hanks's character that the day Forrest works on a shrimp boat is the day he'd be an astronaut. This is a reference to the book, where Forrest actually becomes an astronaut, and the following year, Sinise and Hanks appeared together as astronauts in Apollo 13 (1995). Gary Sinise is also the commander/narrator of the ride "Mission: Space in Epcot" in Walt Disney World, and also starred as an astronaut in Mission to Mars (2000).

-The necklace worn by Lt. Dan is a rosary with a Saint Christopher medal, inscribed "Protect Us In Combat". It was worn in Vietnam by Gary Sinise's brother-in-law, Jack Treese, in 1967-68.

-Tom Hanks said that he would make the film only if all the events that took place were true to historical reality.

-When Forrest gets up to talk at the Vietnam rally in Washington, the microphone plug is pulled and you cannot hear him. According to Tom Hanks, he says, "Sometimes when people go to Vietnam, they go home to their mommas without any legs. Sometimes they don't go home at all. That's a bad thing. That's all I have to say about that."

-The first boy in the school bus who refuses to let Forrest sit next to him is played by Alexander Zemeckis, director Robert Zemeckis' son.

-The girl in the school bus with the red hair is Tom Hanks's daughter Elizabeth Hanks.

-The line, "My name is Forrest Gump. People call me Forrest Gump," was ad libbed by Tom Hanks while filming the scene and director Robert Zemeckis liked it so much that he decided to keep it in.

-The actor who plays the reporter on the scene when Tom Hanks visits Washington DC after his tour in Vietnam was, himself, an actual tourist from Atlanta, Georgia. He happened to be on Capitol Hill that day with his wife, and was asked to read.

-In the opening shot of the film, the feather floats down over Madison Square in Savannah, Georgia. It then floats up to the sky where there is a dissolve, barely visible, and then it sweeps down past the Protestant Church and then heads for Chippawa Square, about half a mile away from the first square (although we are left to believe it's the same square).

-Dave Chappelle turned down the role of Bubba, thinking the movie would bomb and has since admitted to deeply regretting it.

-Warner Bros. gave up the rights to the film in 1988, in exchange for the rights to Executive Decision (1996), because the studio felt that the project had lost its commercial promise in the wake of Rain Man (1988).

-The disco and strip scenes were shot in the Ambassador Hotel, Los Angeles, California, as was the archive footage (1968) of Robert F. Kennedy, after he won the California Primary. RFK was gunned down in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel just minutes later.

-Robert Zemeckis decided to leave out several planned effects shots. One shot in particular involved Forrest running into Martin Luther King and his supporters. Forrest distracts several dogs trying to attack King and his supporters by playing fetch with them and rendering them harmless to King and himself as well as his supporters.

-While playing at the nightclub, Jenny goes under the name of Bobbie Dylan. The song she sings is "Blowin' In The Wind" by Bob Dylan.

-With every transition of Forrest's age, one thing remains the same- in the first scene of each transition he wears a blue plaid shirt.

-All of the boat scenes, including the hurricane scene, were shot on location in the waters off the coast of South Carolina. A jet engine was used to generate the hurricane winds. The still/news reel shots of the trawlers on land are news shots of the aftermath of Hurricane Hugo in South Carolina 1989.

-Attention to detail: When Gump calls to report the Watergate burglary, the security guard answering the phone says, "Security, Frank Wills." This was the actual guard on duty during that night, and was the person who discovered the break-in.

-The Doors have more songs in the movie than any other band with a total of six. These are, "Soul Kitchen" (in one of the Vietnam scenes), "Hello, I Love You" (first song in Gump's first ping pong sequence), "People Are Strange" (second song in Gump's first ping pong sequence), "Break On Through" (third song in Gump's first ping pong sequence), "Peace Frog" (during a New York scene with Lt.Dan) and "Love Her Madly" (when Jenny is leaving the hotel room with a black eye after presumably whoring herself).

-The movie's line "Mama always said life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get." was voted as the #40 movie quote by the American Film Institute (out of 100).

-In 2007, the American Film Institute ranked this as the #76 Greatest Movie of All Time.

-Chippewa Square, the setting for the famous bench scene, does not actually have any benches on the outside of the square that faces the street, only inside the square. The bench was placed there for that scene only by the production team.

-Robert Zemeckis used the paintings of Norman Rockwell as the design inspiration for the town of Greenbow, Alabama. The scene where Forrest sits in the hallway of his school while his mother talks to the principal is a direct re-creation of Rockwell's painting "Girl with a Black Eye".

-The vintage microphones that Forrest speaks into while in DC and the sound rig that the uniformed man pulls cables out of were all provided by Brandywine Electronics, LTD (now known as BEL.com) and are still on display in its offices in New Castle, DE.

-Jenny's last name, Curran, is never said in the film. The only places you can find it are on the back of an envelope that Forrest mailed to Jenny while he was in Vietnam, and on the letters that are returned to him in the hospital.

-During the ping-pong matches, there was no ball; it was entirely CGI, animated to meet the actors' paddles.

-Contrary to popular belief, the feather was not entirely CGI. The effects team digitized film of a real feather blowing and twisting in front of a blue-screen. This was then edited into segments, which the computer could link and morph together, allowing the "virtual" feather to move however the filmmakers needed. Thus, there was a real feather, but its performance in the movie was computer-based. This is demonstrated in the DVD supplementals.

-Greenbow, Alabama (Forrest's town) is fictional. However, there is a Bayou LaBatre (Bubba's town) in Alabama.

-Almost all of John Lennon’s dialog is from his song "Imagine" ("No possessions", "No religion too", "It's easy if you try...”).

-The movie was named as one of "The 20 Most Overrated Movies Of All Time" by Premiere.

-Based on the scripted line of Forest Gump, "I had run three years, two months, fourteen days and sixteen hours" and Forest having left his front porch in Green Bow, Alabama early the morning of July 5, 1976 because he "felt like running" - his entire transcontinental running marathon commenced on July 5, 1976 at 7:00 AM EDT (approx.) in Greenbow, Alabama and terminated on September 19, 1979 at 8:00 PM MDT (approx.) in Monument Valley, Utah.

-Sally Field is only ten years older than Tom Hanks.

-Forrest's favorite book is "Curious George" by H.A. Rey.

-The shrimp boat used in the film now resides in the moat surrounding the Planet Hollywood restaurant in Downtown Disney, at the Disneyworld Resort in Florida. Also, one of the ping-pong paddles used in the film is signed by Tom Hanks and hung up on one of the walls inside the restaurant.

-Forrest Gump is in the 9th Infantry Division, as is shown in the Vietnam scenes by the patch on his shoulder (the top is red and the bottom is blue on the color versions of the patch).

-This took only 66 days to pass the $250 million mark at the box office.

-The fastest grossing Paramount film to pass the $100 million, $150 million and $200 million marks (as of February 2008).

-The traffic flow around squares in Savannah is normally counterclockwise. The flow was reversed for the movie in order to have the bus doors open into the square.

-Tom Hanks wasn't paid for the film. Instead he took percentage points which ultimately netted him in the region of $40 million.

-Author Winston Groom had a 3% share in the film's profits.

-Despite earning over $350 million at the box office, Paramount claimed that they were still $62 million out of profit due to the costs of promotion, distribution and interest.

[LuLu Rogers]

Facts about Forrest Gump

-Greenbow, Alabama (Forrest's town) is fictional. However, there is a Bayou LaBatre (Bubba's town) in Alabama.


I always found this interesting, because there is a Greensboro, Alabama and I always thought that was his home town in the movie. :crazy:

[JamesG]

Facts About Rambo (2008)

- The fourth installment in the Rambo series and the first Rambo to be directed by Sylvester Stallone.

- Stallone had wanted to make this before Rocky Balboa but MGM green-lighted Rocky first to he had to put Rambo on hold.

- James Brolin was in talks to play Richard Crenna's role of Col. Trautman but it was decided not to use the character; Crenna died in 2003.

- The film is currently banned in Myanmar (Burma) and it is a very hot bootleg item in the country since that is where the film takes place. Burmese freedom fighters have used quotes from the film as battle cries and Stallone takes great pride in it.

- The Burmese dictator in the film is a freedom fighter in real life and he risked the arrest and possible murder of his family and himself by taking part in the movie.

- The death toll in this film is the greatest of all the Rambo films with 236 kills.

[Liza]

Some facts about Separate Tables:

The movie was based on one 2-act play, in which the same actors portrayed the David Niven/Burt Lancaster roles and the Deborah Kerr/Rita Hayworth roles.

Wendy Hiller tried to get out of filming, as she thought her role was too small and no one would notice her. The director convinced her to "sleep on it." She stayed and won the Oscar for it.

The film was nominated for several academy awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor & Actress. Niven won for Best Actor, Hiller won for Best Supporting Actress. It lost Best Picture to Gigi.

Vivien Leigh was originally supposed to play the Rita Hayworth role, but dropped out when her husband Laurence Olivier decided not to direct the film.

David Niven and Deborah Kerr made two films together in 1958: Separate Tables and Bonjour tristesse. They went on to make three more:Eye of the Devil, Prudence and the Pill, and Casino Royale.


148381

[JamesG]

Facts About I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997)

- Very loosely based on the novel by Lois Duncan of the same name. Duncan has openly stated that she hates the film for drastically changing her story and making it into a slasher film.

- Screenwriter Kevin Williamson wrote this before SCREAM and could not get it picked up. After SCREAM became a hit his Last Summer script was bought.

- Screenwriter Kevin Williamson has stated that he based the killer in the movie from his father who was fisherman. He remembered from when he was a kid his father coming home at the door wearing a black raincoat and hood and decided to use that "scary appearance" in the movie.

- The killer in the film was played by Muse Watson who is most known in recent years as playing D.B. Cooper (Charles Westmoreland) in Prison Break Season 1.

[browneyes106]

Facts About I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997)

- Very loosely based on the novel by Lois Duncan of the same name. Duncan has openly stated that she hates the film for drastically changing her story and making it into a slasher film.

- Screenwriter Kevin Williamson wrote this before SCREAM and could not get it picked up. After SCREAM became a hit his Last Summer script was bought.

- Screenwriter Kevin Williamson has stated that he based the killer in the movie from his father who was fisherman. He remembered from when he was a kid his father coming home at the door wearing a black raincoat and hood and decided to use that "scary appearance" in the movie.

- The killer in the film was played by Muse Watson who is most known in recent years as playing D.B. Cooper (Charles Westmoreland) in Prison Break Season 1.

I remember reading the book a few months after the movie came out and I was surprised how different it was from the movie. The book is good though. I also liked Killing Mr. Griffin another book by Duncan and it was later made into a TV movie.

[JamesG]

Facts About The Karate Kid (1984)

- Ralph Macchio was 22 years old when he made the movie, not a kid.

- Mr. Miyagi was from Okinawa, Japan and he served in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team of the United States Army during WWII.

- Pat Morita at first didn't get the role of Mr. Miyagi because they didn't want any comedians for the part. They realized he was perfect for the role when he screen-tested for it.

- Legendary actor Toshirô Mifune originally was in talks to play Mr. Miyagi. It was said he was great in the auditions but that he played the role like that of a samurai warrior which was too serious for what they were looking for.

- The first feature film of Elisabeth Shue (Daniel's mother)

- The yellow car used for the wax on/wax off training scene was given to Ralph Macchio.

[JamesG]

Facts About Daredevil (2003)

- Ben Affleck was given the role of Matt Murdoch/Daredevil after Kevin Smith suggested him for the role.

- Stan Lee, Frank Miller, and Kevin Smith have cameos in the film.

- The first American film that Colin Farrell (Bullseye) uses his natural Irish accent in.

- Rapper Coolio's role of "Turk" was cut from the final film though he appeared in the film's trailers.

- After wrestlers who auditioned did very poorly they had no choice but to cast Michael Clarke Duncan as "The Kingpin". "Kingpin" in the comic books was a white guy.

- The characters in Spider-Man and Daredevil coexist in the comic book universe. Since licensing rights were given to two separate companies all references to the other had to be taken out and its characters could not appear in the other.

- In 2005 Jennifer Garner got her spin-off feature Elektra.

[browneyes106]

Facts about Christmas Vacation
Clark and Eddie drink from "Marty Moose" glasses, the theme-park character from the first Vacation film, Vacation (1983).

The movie is based on John Hughes' short story "Christmas '59", the second Vacation story to be published in National Lampoon's Magazine (the first was "Vacation '58", which was the basis for the first Vacation movie). The Christmas story was printed in December 1980.

Frank Capra III, the grandson of It's a Wonderful Life (1946) director, Frank Capra, was the Assistant Director of Christmas Vacation (1989).

The Griswold's neighbor's house is the same house Murtaugh and his family lived in all the Lethal Weapon movies. The houses on this street are on the Warner Brothers Studios back lot.

The house front from "Bewitched" (1964) and "The New Gidget" (1986) appears in the home movie that Clark is watching in the attic.

The movie that Russ is watching when his grandparents arrive is It's a Wonderful Life (1946).

After Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase) unsuccessfully attempts to demonstrate his handiwork with the house Christmas lights to his family, he asks his son, Rusty (Johnny Galecki), to help him check all the light bulbs again. Rusty looks at his bare wrist, pretending to have a watch, and excuses himself. Looking at a bare wrist and pretending to have a watch is one of Chevy Chase's trademark gags.

Final screen appearance of Mae Questel, who's film career began in 1930 as the voice of Betty Boop.

The old Dodge pickup that tailgates Clark and the family in the opening scenes of the movie was previously used as 'Kurt Russell''s work truck in the movie Overboard (1987).

The label on the home movie reel that Clark finds in the attic is labeled "Xmas '59". This is a reference to the name of the short story the movie is based on, "Christmas '59".

[JamesG]

Facts About The Mask of Zorro (1998)

- Characters in the movie are based on real people:

Joaquin Murieta and Three-fingered Jack were real life bandits in Northern California at the time of the 1849 Gold Rush. Joaquin Murieta was a Mexican born in Sonora who moved to California to find his fortune. But after being beaten and robbed by American gold miners, he swore that he would avenge his dishonor. He was the lead in a group of bandits in the California wilderness, killing anyone who stood in their way. His life was the stuff of legend, used by Mexicans as a source of patriotism and by Americans as reason enough to hang anyone who spoke Spanish.

Three-fingered Jack was actually a Mexican by the name of Manuel Garcia, who was Murieta's side kick. Murieta was supposedly killed on July 18, 1853 by Captain Harry Love who preserved Murieta's head in a jar of alcohol, along with Three-fingered Jack's hand as proof that the bandit was dead.


- Robert Rodriquez was originally attached to direct but the studio dismissed him for his more violent and R-rated tone he had planned.

- Raul Julia died before he could take the role of Diego de la Vega. Anthony Hopkins took the role.

- In 2005 the sequel, The Legend of Zorro, was released and it was less critically acclaimed.

[JamesG]

The 1998 film Armageddon contains so many factual/scientific inaccuracies that NASA uses it as a training tool for students.

They are told to pick out how many scientific errors they are able to find in the movie and the most one student found was 168.

[JamesG]

Deceased movie critic Gene Siskel walked out on three films during his career:

- The Million Dollar Duck (1971)

- Maniac (1980)

- Black Sheep (1996)

[LuLu Rogers]

Deceased movie critic Gene Siskel walked out on three films during his career:

- The Million Dollar Duck (1971)

- Maniac (1980)

- Black Sheep (1996)


Maniac is tough to watch. I love horror flicks, but this one was rough, especially the scene on the boat *shivers* :eek:

[Jessica]

Facts about the film Poltergeist

When Carol Anne says They're Here, her lips appear to say They're all here.

[Liza]

Deceased movie critic Gene Siskel walked out on three films during his career:

- The Million Dollar Duck (1971)

- Maniac (1980)

- Black Sheep (1996)

Ebert walked out of a movie... what was it... set in ancient Rome... oh yeah, CALIGULA.

Can't blame the man on that one.

[JamesG]

Ebert walked out of a movie... what was it... set in ancient Rome... oh yeah, CALIGULA.

Can't blame the man on that one.

Well I don't agree with majority of his reviews. :D
Caligula's a classic.

[Liza]

Facts About The Mask of Zorro (1998)

- Raul Julia died before he could take the role of Diego de la Vega. Anthony Hopkins took the role.

Wow, I didn't know that. Raul Julia would have been WONDERFUL! Absolutely perfect as the original Zorro - maybe even an Oscar nod (akin to Ledger's Joker). Too bad, he died far too young, and long before his time.

http://i42.tinypic.com/or58b6.jpg

[JamesG]

Wow, I didn't know that. Raul Julia would have been WONDERFUL! Absolutely perfect as the original Zorro - maybe even an Oscar nod (akin to Ledger's Joker). Too bad, he died far too young, and long before his time.

http://i42.tinypic.com/or58b6.jpg

Yeah, his early death was a shame.

Even worse that his last feature flick had to be that Street Fighter movie.

[Liza]

Well I don't agree with majority of his reviews. :D
Caligula's a classic.

You porno lover, you! :p

[JamesG]

You porno lover, you! :p

heh.. depends on the porn.

[browneyes106]

Facts about Groundhog Day

-In one scene, Connors throws himself from the bell tower of a high building. This building is actually an opera house in Woodstock, Illinois. Local legend has it that a ghost of a young girl haunts the building since a girl once fell off of the balcony section inside the opera house and died.

-Not filmed in Punxsutawney, but actually in Woodstock, Illinois (just 45 miles from "Bill Murray's hometown of Wilmette). There is a small plaque that reads "Bill Murray stepped here" on the curb where Murray continually steps into a puddle.

-The interiors of Bill Murray's room at the bed and breakfast were filmed in an empty warehouse in Cary, Illinois.

-The scene where Phil picks up the alarm clock and slams it onto the floor didn't go as planned. Bill Murray slammed down the clock but it barely broke, so the crew bashed it with a hammer to give it the really smashed look. The clock actually continued playing the song like in the movie.

-Debbie and Fred's last names are given briefly as "Kleiser".

-The lines Andie MacDowell quotes in the café - "unwept, unhonoured, and unsung" - are from Sir Walter Scott's "Lay of the Last Minstrel", Canto vi, Stanza 1, which begins with the famous line, "Breathes there a man with soul so dead...”

-Early drafts of the script explained the cause of Phil Connors' weird experience: a disaffected ex-lover called Stephanie cast a spell on him to teach him a lesson.

-The French poem Phil recites in the German restaurant was written by Danny Rubin, based on the lyrics of Jacques Brel's "Bachelor's Dance". Translated into English the poem reads: The girl I will love / is like a fine wine / that gets a little better / every morning.

-In the penultimate encounter between Connors and annoying insurance salesman Ned Ryerson, Bill Murray was ad-libbing when he tells Ned, "I don't know what you're doing later..." and causes Ned to run away.

-Tori Amos was considered for the role of Rita.

-Premiere voted this movie as one of "The 50 Greatest Comedies Of All Time" in 2006.

-Bill Murray was bitten by the groundhog twice during shooting.

-Bill Murray and Harold Ramis have both been honorary grand marshals for the Groundhog Day celebrations in Punxsatawney, PA.

-Phil at the piano teacher's house, when he is fumblingly playing Sergei Rachmaninoff's "Rhapsody on a Theme by Paginini", is actually Bill Murray playing. He does not read music, but he learned that much of the song by ear. Sergei Rachmaninoff's "Rhapsody on a Theme by Paginini", specifically its 18th Variation, was also used in another time fantasy movie, Somewhere in Time (1980).

-At one point in chase scene involving the red Cadillac Eldorado, Bill Murray and friends were to race along the sidewalk in front of the movie theater, barely missing the ticket booth, which was still occupied. The scene was filmed, but left on the cutting room floor.

-Director Harold Ramis originally wanted Tom Hanks for the lead role, but decided against it, saying that Hanks was "too nice".

-Bill Murray quotes lines from a poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "Work Without Hope": "All Nature seems at work; slugs leave their lair, The bees are stirring; birds are on the wing, And winter, slumbering in the open air, Wears on his smiling face a dream of spring; And I, the while, the sole unbusy thing, Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing."

-On the DVD, Harold Ramis states that the original idea was for him to live February 2nd for about 10,000 years. Later he says that Phil probably lived the same day for about 10 years.

-In the original version of the script by Danny Rubin, Phil Connors was already trapped inside Groundhog Day at the start of the story. We joined him on a typical day, with the audience wondering how he knew everything that was going to happen. Harold Ramis promised not to change this aspect of the script, but ultimately decided to do so.

-According to director Harold Ramis, most of the times when he tried to explain a scene to Bill Murray, Murray would interrupt and ask, "Just tell me - good Phil or bad Phil?"

-When Phil and Rita are throwing cards into the hat, Phil advises Rita to "be the hat". This is an ad-libbed reference by Bill Murray to Caddyshack (1980) (also directed by Harold Ramis and starring Murray), in which Chevy Chase's character advises the main character to "be the ball" while tutoring him on golf.

-When Phil is explaining to Rita his experiences he first says "I have been stabbed, shot, poisoned, frozen" and so on. Those were all methods used by the assassins of Russian mystic Grigory Rasputin, but (with the exception of electrocution) were not seen done to Phil.

-Originally, Phil was supposed to murder the groundhog in his lair. This was changed, however, since it seemed too much like Caddyshack (1980).

-The scene where Bill Murray gets out of the news van and talks to the state trooper was filmed on the Amstutz Expressway under the Grand Avenue overpass just outside of downtown Waukegan, IL. You can see the Waukegan business district in some of the shots. The Amstutz Expressway was also used for the filming of the big chase scene in the The Blues Brothers (1980).

-In the "Jeopardy!" (1984) sequence, the second player we see is Jim Scott, a five-time "Jeopardy!" Champion who won his fifth game on the October 1, 1990 broadcast. He went on to win the Tournament of Champions contest that season.

-The song that plays over parts of the opening and closing credits is "Weatherman", co-written by 'George Fenton (I)' and director Harold Ramis.

-Harold Ramis has stated that the inspiration for this movie was NOT the 1905 novel "The Strange Life of Ivan Osokin" by P.D. Ouspensky, but many others think that it was. Ramis made this denial within his contributions to a jacket blurb for one edition of the Ouspensky book. In the book, Osokin is given the opportunity to live his life over again by a magician... and Osokin takes him up on the offer, only to make the same mistakes all over again. Eventually he reaches the point in time where he met the magician, who explains to Osokin that he cannot change the recurring wheel that is "this trap called life"... and that Osokin must learn to sacrifice in order to escape it, to find his salvation.

-The idea comes from 'The Gay Science', a famous book by Friedrich Nietzsche. In his book, Nietzsche gives a description of a man who is living the same day over and over again.

-Among Phil's books in the coffee shop are "Treasury of the Theatre: From Agamemnon to A Month in the Country" by John Gassner (Simon & Schuster, 1964), and "Johann Strauss: Father and Son, a Century of Light Music" by H.E. Jacob (Greystone Press, 1939). The classical piano piece that draws his attention in the same scene is Mozart's Piano Sonata No. 16 in C major, K. 545.

-Writer Danny Rubin said that one of the inspirational moments in the creation of the story came after reading "Interview with the Vampire," which got him thinking about what it would be like to live forever.

-Danny Rubin and Harold Ramis both said that they avoided exploring the truly dark side of Phil's time lapsing in which he could do truly horrible things without consequence (i.e. murder, torture, etc.).

-Supposedly Paul Lynde was the inspiration for one of the film's more famous lines. After a high-speed chase through the San Fernando Valley one night when he was driving recklessly while intoxicated, Lynde crashed his car into a mailbox. The police came to the car, guns drawn, and he lowered his window and said, "I'll have a cheeseburger, hold the onions, and a large Sprite." Another account has the scene inspired by an incident involving comedian Shecky Greene in Las Vegas. One night, while intoxicated, he drove his car into the big fountain in front of Caesar's Palace. As bystanders pulled him out, with water from the fountain raining down onto his car, he shouted, "Clean the floor mats and no hot wax!"

-According to an interview with Harold Ramis, he and Bill Murray argued over the tone of the film. Murray wanted the film to be more philosophical while Ramis wanted it to be more comedic. The two argued throughout the production and have not spoken to each other since.

-Ranked #8 on the American Film Institute's list of the 10 greatest films in the genre "Fantasy" in June 2008.

-Harold Ramis considered Chevy Chase, Steve Martin and John Travolta for the role of Phil Connors, but he considered them as "far too nice" compared to Bill Murray.

-The scenes showcasing Bill Murray filming his weather predictions at the news station, along with the introduction of Andie MacDowell's character were not conceived until the editing process. They had to go back and shoot them to be edited in later.

-The interior scenes of the Cherry Street bed and breakfast were not filmed inside the actual house. The only times the crew entered the house at all were to turn on lamps for the proper lighting effects needed for the exterior shots.

-Unlike the scenes for the bed and breakfast, the scenes at the piano teacher's home were indeed filmed inside the actual house, right in the front room as it appears in the film.

-The house that was used for the piano teacher's home is less than a block away from the house used for the bed and breakfast. Though not visible in the film, it is actually located on the street that Phil sees directly proceeding from his room window just a few houses down on the left-hand side.

-Chosen to be preserved by the National Film Registry in 2007.

-The "clocks" restaurant in Woodstock, IL is now a Starbucks.

[JamesG]

Facts About Gettysburg (1993)

- The first theatrical release of Turner Pictures.

- Was originally going to be a tv-movie for ABC but after the tv-movie Son of the Morning Star (a General Custer epic) flopped ABC didn't want Gettysburg.

- It was then decided to try to make it a tv mini-series on the Ted Turner Network (TNT) but Turner felt this project was too great of importance for television and New Line picked it up.

- The film featured over 13,000 Civil War re-enactors who volunteered to be a part of the movie. They paid their own way using their own wardrobes and equipment.

- Upon original theatrical release the film opened at only 124 theaters. Strong reviews and word of mouth made it get up to 248.

- The film is a little more than 4 hours so theaters had to limit its viewing to 2 screenings per day. What was impressive was that the film still made the top 10 list.

- Tom Berenger (Gen. James Longstreet) loved the film so much that he said it was his best film and the one that he has watched the most, opened the restaurant "Longstreet's Irish Pub" in North Carolina, and made a short-lived production company named First Corps Endeavors.

- Sam Elliot (Gen. John Bufford) was so in character that off the set he only responded to salutes and would address people by their ranks.

- In a rare incident swaying from historical accuracy director Ronald Maxwell decided to have British Col. Fremantle appear similiar to a Redcoat and drinking tea. This was done so the audience would not be confused as the real British Colonel never wore his uniform during his trip to America.

- The final film of Richard Jordan (Gen. Lewis A. Armistead)

- The film aired on TNT in 1994. More than 23 million viewers tuned in for the 2 night broadcast making this the most watched film on basic cable.

[Liza]

Facts About Gettysburg (1993)

- Sam Elliot (Gen. John Bufford) was so in character that off the set he only responded to salutes and would address people by their ranks.

Elliot spent the entire length of the shoot at a local bed and breakfast, just outside of Gettysburg. (Most of the cast had opted for more expensive accomodations). All of the locals were impressed by his choice, and still talk about how friendly he was.

[JamesG]

SpaceCamp (1986)

- The real-life Challenger explosion caused the film's release to be pushed back for months.

- When it finally came to theaters it grossed less than $10 million.

- A malfunction depicted in the movie was based around the solid rocket booster which caused the Challenger to explode.

- The film debut of Joaquin Phoenix.

[JamesG]

Child's Play (1988)

- Chucky holds the soul of a serial killer Charles Lee Ray; Charles Manson, Lee Harvey Oswald, and James Earl Ray.

- Brad Dourif has voiced Chucky in all of the films in the series as well as playing Charles Lee Ray.

- The original script was meant to toy with the audience to make them think if the doll is really alive or Andy Barclay (the kid) is the actual killer.

- Catherine Hicks (Karen Barclay) met her husband on the set of Child's Play; special effects make-up artist Kevin Yagher. They have been married since 1990. Hicks is perhaps most known for her role as Annie Camden on 7th Heaven.

[Schmoopie]

Sleepless In Seattle (1993)

The restaurant where Tom Hanks gets advice from Rob Reiner about dating post-Jimmy Carter era is called "The Athenian Inn" and is located in Seattle's Pike Place Market. Awesome restaurant with a huge menu. There is a picture of Rob and Tom in the front window and the bar stools where they sat have gold plates with each of their names, showing where they were seated.

The gate where Sam (Hanks) sees then-girlfriend Victoria off and then unknowingly sees Meg Ryan is N7 and it's a real gate at Seatac Airport!

The houseboat Sam and Jonah live in is on Lake Union. They only used the first floor for filming and the second floor was a set.

When they filmed the movie, it was during the summer, but since they wanted it to appear to be Christmas, they had all the nearby residents put up Christmas lights. They paid people to walk around in Eddie Bauer parkas and they had to "make" it rain, since it was dry while filming!

I took a tour of the Sleepless in Seattle house boat a couple of years ago. It was really cool and it looks a little different than in the movie. Actually I thought the movie version (especially the kitchen) looked better!

The scenes of the Empire State Building weren't filmed in NYC, but on a soundstage in Seattle. That was a shock to find out, because it looks so authentic!

[Cactus Jack]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_kane#Reception

[Schmoopie]

Thanks, Browneyes, for all the Groundhog Day facts! I should sit down and watch my DVD copy with the commentary. It's one of my all-time favorite movies!
Facts about Groundhog Day

-Harold Ramis considered Chevy Chase, Steve Martin and John Travolta for the role of Phil Connors, but he considered them as "far too nice" compared to Bill Murray.

I am SO glad they didn't pick Chevy Chase as Phil Connors. No way will I ever see a movie with him in it. I cannot stand Chevy Chase!


-The "clocks" restaurant in Woodstock, IL is now a Starbucks.
Why does this not surprise me?:rolleyes:

Andrea

[Liza]

"Over the Rainbow" was nearly cut from The Wizard of Oz. However, the reprise of the song which took place at the Witch's castle was cut. These were the lyrics:

Someday I'll wake
And rub my eyes
And in that land
Beyond the skies
You'll find me...

Disney producers planned to cut out "Part of Your World" from The Little Mermaid.

[Torgo]

Deceased movie critic Gene Siskel walked out on three films during his career:

- The Million Dollar Duck (1971)

- Maniac (1980)

- Black Sheep (1996)

I like all three films.

[Torgo]

Tom Casiello who played the youngest brother in the ultra ultra low budget shot-on-video '88 flick "The Woodchipper Massacre" went on to an Emmy winning soap opera writing career, and has written for Young and the Restless, Days of Our Lives, As The World Turns, and One Life To Live.

Child actor Sammy Snyders- who is most famous for his role as Jamie in the '81 horror film "The Pit", now runs is own dancing school.

There was a planned sequel to "Maniac"(and remake of 1975's The Psychopath)- "Maniac 2: Mr Robbie", it was to be directed by Buddy Giovinazzo(Combat Shock), and star Joe Spinell as Mr Robbie. A 10 minute promo reel was shot, but Spinell passed away before the full length sequel could be made.

[browneyes106]

Thanks, Browneyes, for all the Groundhog Day facts! I should sit down and watch my DVD copy with the commentary. It's one of my all-time favorite movies!


I am SO glad they didn't pick Chevy Chase as Phil Connors. No way will I ever see a movie with him in it. I cannot stand Chevy Chase!


Why does this not surprise me?:rolleyes:

Andrea

I like Chevy Chase but I think he would be the wrong person to play Phil. I couldn't Travolta being Phil either.

[JamesG]

Charlie's Angels (2000)

- The script was re-written at least 30 times until one deemed "acceptable" by the producers and director.


- An argument between Bill Murray and Lucy Liu shut down filming for a day. Bill Murray did not reprise his role for Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle.


- Tim Curry's first line, "Over my dead body", is one of his trademark lines from his role as Wadsworth in Clue (1985).


- When Bosley is a prisoner in the tower there is one shot of him sitting and throwing a baseball against the wall, a reference to Steve McQueen in The Great Escape (1963).


- Bill Murray's line about once having had a long talk with a squirrel is a reference to his roles in Caddyshack (1980) and Groundhog Day (1993).


- At the beginning of the movie, we are shown clips from the Angels' previous cases. In one, the Angels are seen in prison clothes, chained together. Lucy Liu and Drew Barrymore each pull in different directions, and Cameron Diaz, who is in the middle, shouts "I am not a yo-yo!" This scene is an exact replica of one from the original TV series.


- Also in the beginning montage is a scene of Drew Barrymore dressed as Harry Potter who is a big fan of the books. This came out a year before Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone when Harry Potter wasn't "big" yet.


- Alex's role was originally offered to Angelina Jolie who turned it down after admitting she was not a fan of the original series. It was then offered to Jada Pinkett Smith who declined it to film Bamboozled (2000) instead. Thandie Newton was finally cast but had to leave due to schedule conflcits with Mission: Impossible II (2000). The role was eventually taken by Lucy Liu.


- The Thin Man (Crispin Glover) doesn't say a word throughout the entire film.


- When shown as an in-flight movie airlines remove the opening scene of the angels retrieving a bomb from a 747, opening the emergency door, and parachuting out.


- When Dylan falls outside the kid's house, the two kids are playing Final Fantasy VIII which is not a two player game.


- The original cast of "Charlie's Angels" (1976) - Jaclyn Smith, Kate Jackson and Farrah Fawcett - were invited to make cameo appearances, but declined. Reportedly, Fawcett said she'd only do it if she were allowed to be the voice of Charlie, and Jackson insisted on playing the villainous role that eventually went to Kelly Lynch. Ultimately, John Forsythe and Smith did appear in the sequel, Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle (2003)


- The girls trained with martial arts master Yuen Woo-Ping for three months, eight hours a day. He appeared in a cameo in the beginning of the film teaching two young women how to say "Thank You" in Cantonese on a flight.


- The speaker sitting on Bosley's desk, through which the Angels hear Charlie's assignments, is almost the same as the one used in the TV series. The speaker in the original series had a small "Bell" in the lower corner, the movie version did not.


- Drew Barrymore bought the screen rights to "Charlie's Angels" (1976) prior to the movie being filmed - a decision that earned her an estimated $40 million for the first film and a possible $80 million for the second.


- Although the "bad guys" use guns in the film, the Angels do not. Drew Barrymore, who was also one of the producers, insisted that the Angels be able to do all their fighting without firearms.


- Tom Green appeared in a small role in the film who was Drew Barrymore's boyfriend at the time.

[JamesG]

Hellboy (2004)

- Director Guillermo del Toro wanted to do Hellboy for a long time but could not get the financing and studio support. After the success of Blade II he was given the choice of Blade III or Hellboy and he decided on Hellboy.


- The studio wanted Vin Diesel to play "Hellboy". They changed their minds after seeing Ron Perlman's work in Blade II.


- Doug Jones', who played "Abe Sapien", voice was dubbed over by David Pierce. Pierce decided to go uncredited because he felt that the role was Jones' and not his. In the 2008 sequel, Hellboy II: The Golden Army, Doug Jones' voice was used.


- Some minor altercations were used for the "Hellboy" make-up from Perlman's life mask from the television series Beauty and the Beast.

[JamesG]

Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008)

- The first major motion picture for Seth MacFarlane.


- Luke Goss, "Prince Nuada", was also in Guillermo del Toro's Blade II with Ron Perlman.


- Though they don't share any screentime this was the first project that Ron Perlman and Roy Dotrice appeared in together since the tv series Beauty and the Beast.


- Rupert Evans, "Agent Myers", could not come back for the sequel because he was doing a play in London.


- Doug Jones played "Abe Sapien", "Chamberlain", and "The Angel of Death".

[JamesG]

Brüno (2009)

- Entertainment blog website Defamer.com jokingly reported the title would be "Bruno: Delicious Journeys Through America for the Purpose of Making Heterosexual Males Visibly Uncomfortable in the Presence of a Gay Foreigner in a Mesh T-Shirt". Numerous movie websites around the world reported this to be the actual working title.


- Was originally given an NC-17 rating and Sacha Baron Cohen edited it to get an R.


- To prepare for the "Brüno" character Sacha Baron Cohen worked out daily, removed all of his body hair, and had his hair styled.


- After the death of Michael Jackson a scene with La Toya Jackson being interviewed by "Brüno" was cut from the film.


- A young cadet who had seen Borat recognized Sacha Baron Cohen in the Alabama National Guard who then alerted senior officials to get him removed.


- Is currently the highest opening-weekend grossing film with an openly gay character lead. It was previously The Birdcage (1996).

[JamesG]

Halloween II (1981)

- The movie debut of Dana Carvey. He played an assistant to a news reporter.


- Dick Warlock, who played Michael Myers "The Shape", is currently the shortest person to play Michael Myers. He is 5'9" and wore lifts to appear taller.


- Jamie Lee Curtis wore a wig because the film takes place right after the original 1978 film ended. By this time she sported a shorter hairstyle.


- The kid with the boom box who walks into Michael Myers was played by "The Shape's" son Lance Warlock.


- John Carpenter turned down the offer to direct but he wrote the screenplay and was a producer.


- The hospital it was filmed at was the Morningside Hospital in Los Angeles. It had recently closed before the movie was filmed there and has since been torn down.


- Michael Myers' mask was the same one used in the original film. It looks different here because the latex had decayed in the years between films and it fits Warlock's head differently. All the subsequent sequels used different masks.


- Director Rick Rosenthal would return to the franchise in 2002 directing Halloween: Resurrection.

[LuLu Rogers]

- Director Rick Rosenthal would return to the franchise in 2002 directing Halloween: Resurrection.


Did you hear about Rick's original idea for Resurrection? He wanted to have like 5 different endings and show them in different theaters without telling the audience which one was in which theater. I think that would've been awesome myself, though I have to say, Resurrection is my least favorite in the series.

[JamesG]

Did you hear about Rick's original idea for Resurrection? He wanted to have like 5 different endings and show them in different theaters without telling the audience which one was in which theater. I think that would've been awesome myself, though I have to say, Resurrection is my least favorite in the series.

Yes, I had heard about that different ending idea. It could have been interesting.

That's also my least favorite one. What a weak way to end the original series.

[LuLu Rogers]

Yes, I had heard about that different ending idea. It could have been interesting.

That's also my least favorite one. What a weak way to end the original series.

I know, especially after the ending of H20, it just seemed so final to me. Then they explain it away in Resurrection, "it was some random guy" right, why didn't he scream at Jamie that she had the wrong guy before she chopped his head off, was he mute? LOL :crazy:

[JamesG]

I know, especially after the ending of H20, it just seemed so final to me. Then they explain it away in Resurrection, "it was some random guy" right, why didn't he scream at Jamie that she had the wrong guy before she chopped his head off, was he mute? LOL :crazy:

Well they show that Michael crushed that dude's vocal cords.

However, that doesn't explain why in H20 this guy does the classic Michael Myers sit-up and neck turn after he flies out of the van.

[LuLu Rogers]

Well they show that Michael crushed that dude's vocal cords.

However, that doesn't explain why in H20 this guy does the classic Michael Myers sit-up and neck turn after he flies out of the van.


Huh, I must have missed the crushing part, LOL, of course, I've only seen it on tv, so they may have cut that part.


Yeah, it just seemed like a lame way to do a new movie. And Busta Rhymes punching Michael? Come on! :crazy:

[JamesG]

Huh, I must have missed the crushing part, LOL, of course, I've only seen it on tv, so they may have cut that part.

Yes, they show it in the beginning of the film.
You can watch it here if you want. - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_jMKRDdERE

[LuLu Rogers]

Yes, they show it in the beginning of the film.
You can watch it here if you want. - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_jMKRDdERE


Awesome! Thanks for that, it totally makes sense now. The version I saw on tv only showed the part where they pulled the mask off the guy. It made no sense to me at all.

[JamesG]

Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982)

- The movie was a failed experiment by John Carpenter. At this point he was done with Michael Myers and wanted to turn the franchise into a Halloween anthology with different tales surrounding Halloween. After the negative box office sales and negative fan response Michael Myers was brought back.


- The film's original director, Joe Dante, approached Nigel Kneale to write the film while Kneale was temporarily living in Hollywood writing the remake of Creature from the Black Lagoon for director John Landis that was never made due to budget cost.
Dante wanted a new and different story than the two previous films in the series, so he suggested Kneale write a treatment around the word Halloween. The producers liked the idea, and after Joe Dante moved on to another project, producer John Carpenter's regular collaborator, Tommy Lee Wallace, came in as the new director.
Kneale initially blamed the drastic changes to his script on executive producer Dino De Laurentiis not understanding his dialogue when it was translated to Italian.
Kneale requested his writing screen credit be removed once his comical mystery screenplay was rewritten by an uncredited Carpenter, and then later Wallace (who received sole screen credit as writer), to include more gore and simplify the story.


- A tv spot for Halloween (1978) plays on a bar television set in the film.


- The voice of the operator on the phone talking with Tom Atkins is Jamie Lee Curtis'.


- The novelization of the film became a best seller and was even reissued two years after the film's release in 1984.


- Around the time of the film's release the skull, witch, and pumpkin masks from the film were sold at retail stores.

[JamesG]

Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988)

- John Carpenter was originally going to come back but he wanted to do a more psychological type film as opposed to the standard slasher type. His idea was rejected and Carpenter was not on board for this film.


- Stuntman Tom Morga did uncredited work as a bandaged Michael Myers early on the film. It was then decided that the studio wanted a bigger person so Morga was dismissed and George Wilbur was brought on to do the rest.


- Mike Lookinland of The Brady Bunch was a production assistant and his wife, Kelly, played the dead waitress in the gas station.


- The drugstore in the film was also used in Stephen King's The Stand as well as appearing in Halloween 5.


- Danielle Harris' character "Jamie" is a homage to Jamie Lee Curtis.


- George Wilbur would return as Michael Myers again in 1995 for Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers.

[LuLu Rogers]

I think it's cool that George is the only one who played Michael twice. Even though Halloween 5 wasn't that great, I think Don Shanks is probably my favorite Michael, along with Brad Loree.

[JamesG]

I think it's cool that George is the only one who played Michael twice.

There's also Tyler Mane from Rob Zombie's two movies.

[LuLu Rogers]

There's also Tyler Mane from Rob Zombie's two movies.


I don't dislike Zombie's movies, but I don't count them as part of the Halloween franchise. He just took the story and made it his own, it's really nothing like a Carpenter/Akkad Halloween.

[JamesG]

I don't dislike Zombie's movies, but I don't count them as part of the Halloween franchise. He just took the story and made it his own, it's really nothing like a Carpenter/Akkad Halloween.

You're right, Zombie's movies are not part of the franchise because his is a separate franchise. Still, he played Michael more than once.

[LuLu Rogers]

You're right, Zombie's movies are not part of the franchise because his is a separate franchise. Still, he played Michael more than once.

True ;)

[JamesG]

Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (1989)

- Looking back on it many of the cast and crew agree that this film was done "too soon and too fast" and they probably should have waited before rushing to make a sequel after the success of Halloween 4.


- Don Shanks, who played Michael Myers "The Shape", also played the "Man In Black". The writers at the time even didn't know where they were going with the character and had Shanks play him because he was rumored to be a Myers' relative at the time.


- The scene where Michael Myers wears a different mask driving the car was originally going to have him wear a President Reagan mask. It was then decided not to do that to avoid anything political in the film.


- Though the Myers' house appears in Halloween 5 anyone can tell that it was clearly not the same one used in the original; resembling a gothic mini-mansion. The original house would be used in the next installment.


- Producer Moustapha Akkad regretted having to kill off Rachel played by Ellie Cornell.


- Donald Pleaseance "Dr. Loomis" really hit Don Shanks with a 2x4 breaking his nose.

[LuLu Rogers]

I love Don Shanks, but Halloween 5 sucked. It was too rushed and the director was terrible. ohno:

[JamesG]

Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995)

- As a result of Donald Pleasence's "Dr. Loomis" death, as well as creative differences between Joe Chappelle (director) and the producer, and an allegedly bad test screening of the original work re-shoots were done as well as lots of editing, to the anger of most of the cast and crew.


- The original print of the film has never been officially released but it has long circulated in bootleg circles for years called "The Producer's Cut".


- Danielle Harris refused to come back due to the studio not giving her the amount of money she wanted.


- Brian Andrews "Tommy Doyle" from the original Halloween could not be found at the time to reprise his role. Taking the role was a then upcoming Paul Rudd.


- Howard Stern turned down the role of shock-jock "Barry Simms".


- This was the first Halloween to be produced by Dimension films.


- Donald Pleasance's last Halloween film. His final film was released one year after his death.

[LuLu Rogers]

Which do you like better James, P-cut or Theatrical version?

[JamesG]

I love Don Shanks, but Halloween 5 sucked. It was too rushed and the director was terrible. ohno:

Yeah that was some Swedish guy and he was bad. All he's done since were foreign television films.

[JamesG]

Which do you like better James, P-cut or Theatrical version?

The Producer's Cut.

It explained a bit more about the curse and what was going on. I also liked how that version ended.

[LuLu Rogers]

The Producer's Cut.

It explained a bit more about the curse and what was going on. I also liked how that version ended.


I'm with you, although I have to say that I really liked the scene in the theatrical when Michael kills all of those people in the hospital and the lights are flashing and there's blood everywhere, I just thought that was a cool scene for some reason. Otherwise though, I like the Producer's Cut much better.

I'm a Halloween fanatic, can you tell? ;)

[LuLu Rogers]

Yeah that was some Swedish guy and he was bad. All he's done since were foreign television films.

A lot of the characters sucked too, some pretty bad acting. The only redeeming qualities for me are Don Shanks and of course Donald Pleasance, but that's about it.

[JamesG]

Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998)

- In a move that displeased some fans it was made to focus on Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) and as a result this film was made as a direct sequel to Halloween II ignoring parts 4-6.


- Kevin Williamson originally included in the script a scene that would include references to parts 4-6. It was to have a college student give an oral presentation on "The Haddonfield Murders" mentioning moments from those movies.

"Laurie Strode" was in witness protection since she was "killed in a car accident" and was the teacher of the student giving the presentation. After the student finished "Laurie" then goes to the bathroom and vomits.

It was then decided not to include this bit and instead they made "Laurie" go into witness protection to hide from Michael Myers.


- The movie debut of Josh Hartnett.


- P.J. Soles was originally approached to play "Laurie Strode's" secretary in the school. She didn't take the part because she was unsure about returning to the franchise as a new character.

The role then went to Jamie Lee Curtis' mother, Janet Leigh, which would be her last theatrical film.


- One scene in the movie Scream 2 is playing on a television set. In Scream the original Halloween played on a televison set.


- One scene has Janet Leigh leave the school in the famous "Psycho car".


- Michael Myers wears two different masks in the film. In the middle of production it was decided to use a different mask so scenes had to be reshot. Certain scenes even use noticeable digital masks.


- When "Dr. Loomis" recites his "famous speech" during the opening credits that was not Donald Pleasance's voice. Instead a new sound-alike actor was brought in to recite the lines.

[browneyes106]

Move Facts About Airplane

David Letterman screen-tested for the role of Ted Striker.

Lloyd Bridges as Steve McCroskey spoofs his role as Jim Conrad in the TV series "San Francisco International Airport" (1970).

Rex Kramer and Steve McCroskey were also character names in The Kentucky Fried Movie (1977).

William Tregoe, who plays Jack Kirkpatrick, the TV anchorman ("I say, let 'em crash"), plays an almost identical character in the "Count/Pointercount" segment of The Kentucky Fried Movie (1977). His character name is the similar-sounding John Fitzsimmons, and he is arguing for "count." Both roles parody James J. Kilpatrick on "60 Minutes" (1968).

The airplane model used for the flying shots hangs in the museum at the Studios at Los Colinas (Texas).

All the exterior shots of the plane while flying use a sound track of a propeller plane although it is a jet because the studio would not let the producers use a propeller plane in the movie.

Final film of Ethel Merman.

Jill Whelan, who plays the sick child, also played the daughter of Capt. Stubing (Gavin MacLeod) on "The Love Boat" (1977). Joyce Bulifant, who plays her mother, played MacLeod's wife on "Mary Tyler Moore" (1970).

The entire production took just over a month. Robert Hays was doing the television show "Angie" (1979) at the same time.

The Boeing 707 used in the movie was a re-painted TWA airliner.

The film is mostly a parody of Zero Hour! (1957), a film that had a main character named Ted Stryker and such famous "not meant to be funny" lines like "We have to find someone who can not only fly this plane, but who didn't have fish for dinner."

The Jaws (1975) spoof in the beginning of the film was made of layers of cotton on a piece of plywood with a hidden wire track for the airplane to "fly" around.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's role was originally to be played by Pete Rose, but he was playing baseball at the time of the filming, so the part went to Kareem. He was offered $30,000 to appear in the film, but he asked for $35,000 to buy an oriental rug.

"Stayin' Alive" was sped up for the dance scene of the film. Permission from The Bee Gees had to be obtained to speed it up.

The film was specially geared to spoof the "Airport" series, but chiefly spoofs Airport 1975 (1974), where Karen Black is a stewardess forced to pilot a plane after both pilots are incapacitated, Linda Blair is a girl needing a kidney transplant, and Helen Reddy plays a singing nun.

Universal threatened to sue when they found out that the directors were trying to get Helen Reddy to repeat her role as the singing nun from Airport 1975 (1974). George Kennedy from the original Airport movies was also being courted for the film but thought better of running afoul of Universal.

The video game played by the air traffic controllers is the Atari 2600's Basketball (1978) (VG).

Director Cameo: [Jim Abrahams] as the second religious zealot who is pushed aside by Rex Kramer upon his arrival in the Chicago Airport terminal.

Singer/songwriter Barry Manilow was considered for the role of Ted Stryker before Robert Hays was hired.

The casting of professional basketball player Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as a member of the flight crew was a reference to pro football player Elroy 'Crazylegs' Hirsch's role as a pilot in the serious airplane disaster film Zero Hour! (1957)

The producers bought the rights to the movie Zero Hour! (1957), the film that this movie is based on.

To get inspiration for the ZAZ Kentucky Fried Theatre skits, the Zucker brothers and Jim Abrahams would leave a videotape running all night, recording late night television with the aim of spoofing the commercials. One night they recorded the film Zero Hour! (1957), which ultimately acted as the main inspiration for Airplane! (1980).

The first draft for the movie was written in 1974. Even then, Robert Stack was first choice for the part of Rex Kramer.

Film debut of Julie Hagerty.

The doctor role was Leslie Nielsen's first comedic part. He later said he was delighted to get the offer, fearing that he was getting too old for anything but "elderly grandfather" parts.

Co-writer/director David Zucker said that years after the movie's release, Woody Allen came up to him at a New York Knicks game and told Zucker how much he loved the movie. Zucker said that, since he and the movie's other writer-directors were heavily influenced by Allen's early comedies, Zucker was very touched.

According to Jim Abrahams and the Zuckers in the DVD commentary, when pitching the movie to Robert Stack, they told him to do "Eliot Ness" in reference to Stack's signature character on "The Untouchables" (1959). Capt. Kramer's speeches were specifically written with the intention of hiring Stack and mocking Ness' "big speeches". Rather than being offended, Stack understood the joke and took the role. Coincidentally, Barbara Stuart', who plays Kramer's wife, had a guest role in an "Untouchables" episode, "The Untouchables: The George 'Bugs' Moran Story (#1.4)" (1959).

According to Jim Abrahams and the Zuckers on the DVD commentary, the film was originally written to be a "movie within a movie" for a sequel to The Kentucky Fried Movie (1977), but when the movie was aborted, they expanded the story to this full-length feature.

The film cost $3.5 million and only took 34 days to make.

Most of the jive talk between the two black passengers was improvised by the actors, as the ZAZ team weren't sufficiently "conversant" in black street language.

In the Italian version, the talk between the two black passengers was dubbed in Neapolitan dialect.

In the German version, the talk between the two black passengers was dubbed in heavy Bavarian dialect (with subtitles in standard German).

CASTLE THUNDER: Heard every time lightning flashes during the storm sequence.

Despite featuring a spoof of the beach scene of From Here to Eternity (1953), none of the three directors had actually seen the original film.

Ethel Merman insisted on bringing her own hairdresser to set.

Otto, the automatic pilot, ultimately disintegrated after spending several years in Jerry Zucker's garage.

The singing nun is Maureen McGovern who sings the theme song to the sitcom "Angie" (1979) which Robert Hays was co-starring in at the time of filming.

The obligatory copyright notice at the end of the film which warns against piracy or unauthorized duplication ends with the comment "So there!"

According to his autobiography, Christopher Lee turned down the role of Dr Rumack.

The music for the love scenes with Elaine and Ted was taken from The Hunters (1958) where Robert Mitchum plays a fighter pilot and May Britt his lover.

The movie's dialog between Stryker and Rumack ("Surely you can't be serious" "I am serious, and don't call me Shirley") was voted as the #79 movie quote by the American Film Institute (out of 100).

Premiere voted this movie as one of "The 50 Greatest Comedies Of All Time" in 2006.

The Mustang used in the scene where Rex is being brought to the airport was owned by Robert Hays. He got paid $35 a day for its use and they used it for two days.

In the scene where the husband turns on the air for his sick wife, you see in the background a man wearing a large beard, it was supposed to fly off in the wind, but the adhesive they used wouldn't let the beard come loose. The man can be seen moving his face back and forth and scrunching his face trying to help it come off.

The picture of the boy in the spinning newspaper that has the headline, "Boy Trapped In Refrigerator Eats Own Foot", is Billy Koch, the grandson of producer Howard W. Koch. His grandfather called him up one day and asked him for a photo of himself, so Billy grabbed his second grade school photo. It was only after the film came out that he found out why his grandfather wanted the photo.

In the scene with Johnny and Steve McCroskey, McCroskey says "Get me someone who won't crack under pressure." Johnny responds "How about Mister Rogers?" If you look carefully that was dubbed in after. 'Airplane!' was shot in August 1979. Stephen Stucker (Johnny) actually said "How about Mamie Eisenhower." The former First Lady died a few months later (in Nov. 1979) so the producers corrected it by dubbing in "Mister Rogers" out of respect for the Eisenhower family.

A disco station in the film is called WZAZ, a reference to filmmakers David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker. The same initials appear on one of the microphones in the scene with the reporters in the control tower.

When Striker takes control of the airplane, among the "voices" he hears is the announcement "Now batting for Pedro Borbon, Manny Mota... Mota... Mota..." Manny Mota was a pinch hitter for the Dodgers and Pirates - and was never on a team with Pedro Borbon.

Director Cameo: [Jerry Zucker and David Zucker] appear as the ground crew at the beginning of the film (they're the ones that direct the plane into the window of the terminal).

To get the film green-lighted by Paramount, Jim Abrahams, David Zucker and Jerry Zucker pitched it as "Animal House (1978) on a plane"--which, of course, was far from the truth, but the only way they could get the studio execs to understand it was a zany comedy.

The argument between the two P.A. voice-overs about an abortion comes from "a cheap, dime-store novel" according to the trivia track of the DVD version. That "novel" is actually Arthur Hailey's "Airport" (which inspired the movie Airport (1970)).

The film's title in Germany was "The Incredible Trip in a Crazy Airplane".

According to the soundtrack album cover (Regency Records, 1980), Johnny's last name is Hinshaw. This can actually be heard clearly in the movie, when McCroskey is speaking to the reporters and tells "Hinshaw" to take over. Johnny then steps in and describes the "pretty white airplane" to the press.

In a 2008 interview on the Today Show, Peter Graves said he was initially insulted and offended by the script for Airplane! (1980), but was convinced by friends and colleagues to do the movie.

In a 2008 interview on the Today Show, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar told the story of being on a European flight and asked to sit in an empty seat in the cockpit during takeoff so the crew could say they flew with Roger Murdoch.

The film's title in Argentina was "And where is the pilot?" (in Spanish: "¿Y donde está el piloto?")

Captain Oveur's suggestive (and therefore inappropriate) questions to Joey are a parody of Peter Graves' TV series "Fury" in which Graves portrayed a "father figure" to a troubled young boy named Joey.

The Italian title of the movie is 'The Craziest Plane In The World' ('L'Aereo Più Pazzo Del Mondo').

In the DVD commentary, Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, and Jerry Zucker had all expressed disappointment that some of the in-movie jokes (such as the thrown spear and the watermelon falling on the desk) did not get as much of a reaction from audiences as they were hoping for.

[JamesG]

Halloween: Resurrection (2002)

- Since this was a sequel to Halloween H20: 20 Years Later this one also ignored parts 4-6.


- Was originally titled "Halloween: The Homecoming".


- Jamie Lee Curtis reprised her role on the condition that "Laurie" would be killed off; wanting to end her involvement with the franchise.


- Director Rick Rosenthal had an idea that four different endings be filmed (all involving the fate of Busta Rhymes) and nobody would know what ending they were going to see in the theater and what ending was "real".

The studio rejected this idea and they settled on one theatrical ending. The other three can be found on the DVD release.


- Tyra Banks was killed off-screen as a reference to "Mrs. Alves" from Halloween II who was killed off-screen.

[JamesG]

Halloween (2007)

- Before Rob Zombie was given the go to do a remake they originally were planning on doing a "Halloween 9".


- Another idea that never happened was to a "VS." movie with Michael Myers crossing Hellraiser's Pinhead. Negative fan reception stopped this from happening.


- Around 2005 there was a contest held on Halloween's official website where the winner would receive a walk-on role in "Halloween 9". Since Part 9 never happened Rob Zombie gave the winner, Heather Bowen, her prize for this movie.


- Also adding to "Halloween 9" never happening were the deaths of Moustapha Akkad and Debra Hill in 2005.


- Danielle Harris was the only person in the film that was involved with the previous franchise. She played a different character.


- Rob Zombie personally notified John Carpenter that his film was being remade and that he will be the director. Carpenter gave Zombie his support and told him to make it his own.


- Rob Zombie casted some people who appeared in The Devil's Rejects:
Sherri Moon Zombie
Tyler Mane
Bill Moseley
Sid Haig
Leslie Easterbrook
William Forsythe
Tom Towles
Danny Trejo
Ken Foree
Lew Temple
Daniel Roebuck

[JamesG]

Detroit Rock City (1999) was the first movie to be released on DVD before being put to VHS.

[Liza]

Dark Shadows remains the only soap opera to be turned into a feature length film.

151645

[JamesG]

Donnie Darko (2001) had three future stars in very small roles:

1. Seth Rogen - comedian
2. Ashley Tisdale - the High School Musical series
3. Jerry Trainor - iCarly

[Liza]

Christian Bale was nearly cast as the lead in Titanic.

Leonardo DiCaprio was nearly cast as the lead in American Psycho.

In Gangs of New York Leonardo DiCaprio (an American) plays an Irishman. Daniel Day Lewis (an Irishman) plays an American who hates Irishmen.

The remake of The Producers is a movie based on a play based on a movie about a play.

When the 1956 version of Anastasia was being made, the producers had to ask the real Anna Anderson for permission to use her assumed name - in the movie of a woman who wants to be known by her real name.

The Sound of Music was based on a show that was based on a movie that was based on a book that was based on true events.

The 1999 version of The King and I was a remake of a movie, which was itself an adaptation of a show, which was based on a film, that was based on a book, that was based on a different book, that was inspired by true events.

[browneyes106]

Christian Bale was nearly cast as the lead in Titanic.

Leonardo DiCaprio was nearly cast as the lead in American Psycho.

In Gangs of New York Leonardo DiCaprio (an American) plays an Irishman. Daniel Day Lewis (an Irishman) plays an American who hates Irishmen.

The remake of The Producers is a movie based on a play based on a movie about a play.

When the 1956 version of Anastasia was being made, the producers had to ask the real Anna Anderson for permission to use her assumed name - in the movie of a woman who wants to be known by her real name.

The Sound of Music was based on a show that was based on a movie that was based on a book that was based on true events.

The 1999 version of The King and I was a remake of a movie, which was itself an adaptation of a show, which was based on a film, that was based on a book, that was based on a different book, that was inspired by true events.

I remember there were several articles back in '98 about Leo considering the American Psycho role.

[JamesG]

The Blair Witch Project (1999)

- The movie's marketing is one of the main reasons for the film's success; consisting of fake news articles, made up myths, mockumentaries being made as if they were real, and the unknown actors being listed as "Missing".


- Even though it is widely known now that the film is 100% not true some people refuse to believe it and still travel up to Maryland to find out about "The Blair Witch".


- The three leads in the movie were totally unaware that "The Blair Witch" was made up by the film's directors. They all assumed it was a real legend from Maryland and found out after filming that it was completely made up.


- To add to the tension and make the actors feel unease the crew would hide their food and items while they were sleeping, throw random objects in the middle of the night to wake them up, and created a make-shift altar that the actors "discover" in the movie.


- The three lead actors did not get along well during filming and most of their arguments about where to go in the woods were real.
The actors and crew were told that they would never personally interact with each other, to add to the realism of being alone in the woods, except for emergency situations.
The arguments between the actors went on without interruption.


- The 1999-2000 hunting season went down during this time due to the amount of fans flocking to the woods and scaring the animals away.


- At the time of release it became the most successful independent motion picture of all time. In 2002 it was beat out by My Big Fat Greek Wedding.


- Was shot in only eight days.

[phoebe7165]

I remember there were several articles back in '98 about Leo considering the American Psycho role.

I also heard that Leo was supposed to play Dirk Diggler in Boogie Nights, but turned it down to, as Paul Thomas Anderson put it, do a little movie called Titanic.;)

[Liza]

In keeping with the news today, some facts about Roman Polanski films:


Rosemary's Baby was adapted from the novel by Roman Polanski himself. Writer Ira Levin was so pleased with the screenplay, he said it was the most faithful adaptation of a book he'd ever seen.

Sharon Tate had a bit part in the party scene in Rosemary's Baby but her scenes were cut.

The only time Roman Polanski shared the screen with his famous wife was in The Fearless Vampire Killers.

Rosemary's Baby was filmed in the famous Dakota, where John Lennon lived and was later shot.

Mia Farrow was married to Frank Sinatra at the time of filming Rosemary's Baby. He asked her to give up the part and she refused. He then served her with divorce papers in front of the entire crew.

Chinatown was the first (and only) film Polanski made in the United States following the death of Sharon Tate.

Chinatown was originally meant to be the first of a trilogy of films featuring Jake Gittes.

Tess was dedicated simply "To Sharon" as the book Tess of the D'Urbervilles was the last book Sharon Tate read before being murdered by the Manson family.

The Pianist bears striking similarities to Polanski's own experience as a child during World War II. He and his father survived, his mother, a Roman Catholic, was murdered in Auschwitz.