Weird Facts About Famous Movies

[n_huffhines]

I'm watching the episode of Movies That Made Us about Jurassic Park. Everything was supposed to be animatronic or stop motion and some dude, who wasn't supposed to be working on this, designed a CG T-Rex. When he was presenting one of his projects to a producer, he had video of his CG T-Rex up on his computer so that everybody in the meeting would ask "what's that?" His plan worked and he put the stop motion expert out of business basically overnight.

Supposedly when Spielberg saw the first finished footage of the T-Rex running he cried. He rewrote the end sequence of the movie to include the final battle with the T-Rex vs. the velociraptors because this new technology was making anything possible.

 

[VolsSportsFan]

I think it's common knowledge that Tom Selleck was the first choice to play Indiana Jones in "Raiders of the Lost Ark" but couldn't get out of his Magnum P.I. contract to make the movie. What probably isn't known is how much different that character would have been... much more of the scholarly, nerdy professor type instead of the rugged action hero. There is a screen test with Selleck as Indy and Sean Young as Marian on YouTube that looks kinda cheesy. Speilberg and Lucas caught a break with Selleck not being able to do it. Harrison Ford was much better.

In an alternate universe, Selleck was Indiana Jones and Burt Reynolds was Han Solo, and nobody knows who Harrison Ford is.

 

[RDU VOL#14]

Listening to the XM 84 The First Team today with Rick Neuheisel and he was telling the story about how Katherine Bigelow brought him in as the “football advisor” on Point Break. He said his job was to teach Johnny Utah how to throw a football. He said after a couple of hours he came back to her and told her it was useless bc Keanu couldn’t throw a football worthy of being an All-American from Ohio State. Apparently all the spirals in the beach football scene were thrown from Neuheisel.
He also said that Gary Busey was hanging around the shoot, and even though he’s not in the scene, he was running up to people saying “snap the sternum” and then tackling people which almost cause a couple of fights. Busey, as we all know is certifiable.

Thought that was a fun story, and also somewhat sad that Keanu can’t throw a good ball.

 

[walkenvol]

Listened to the Rewatchables podcast about No Country for Old Men (and then rewatched it this weekend):

• Some may have forgotten by now, but this was Josh Brolin's late-career big break. He completely f***ed his shoulder in a motorcycle accident just before filming. He thought for sure he'd be out of a job. They wrote in a shoulder wound early in the story, and Brolin kept the part.
• Kelly MacDonald is Scottish and she completely nails the unique southern accent.
• Bill Hader was a guest on the pod and he said Barry is modeled after NCfOM. He said they wanted to match the Coens' tone about violence and treat it with an unglorified approach (for example, no triumphant music, or any music at all). It's weird that both are so different and that this uncinematic but thoughtful idea can work in either show.

MsDonald killed it in this movie. I’ve been surprised to have not seen her more frequently since as I expected that role to propel her career forward as a character actor

 

[Brave Volunteer]

I'm watching the episode of Movies That Made Us about Jurassic Park. Everything was supposed to be animatronic or stop motion and some dude, who wasn't supposed to be working on this, designed a CG T-Rex. When he was presenting one of his projects to a producer, he had video of his CG T-Rex up on his computer so that everybody in the meeting would ask "what's that?" His plan worked and he put the stop motion expert out of business basically overnight.

Supposedly when Spielberg saw the first finished footage of the T-Rex running he cried. He rewrote the end sequence of the movie to include the final battle with the T-Rex vs. the velociraptors because this new technology was making anything possible.

And to this day I think the CGI in the original Jurassic Park is better than a lot of the CGI I see in modern films.

 

[n_huffhines]

I'm reading a book about Jho Low, who was possibly the biggest financial fraud in history. Coincidentally, he financed the Wolf of Wall Street. He had put together countless BS deals that didn't payout, and WoW was his first (and maybe only, I haven't finished the book yet) real big success in any area of business.

Low fooled countless bankers, government officials, royalty, politicians, business partners, the entertainment industry's elite, etc. and the one guy who instantly saw right through him was Jordan Belfort. JB said the red flag was JL threw a $3m party for a production company that hadn't made a single movie yet. He said nobody who makes honest money spends it that way. Low asked JB to make an appearance for him for a fee of $500k and JB declined because he was fresh out of prison and couldn't be associated with a shady guy like JL.

 

[GroverCleveland]

Well crap, I've modeled my whole life after that movie!

The Titans did finish ranked #2 in the country in 1971 to one of the all time great Georgia high school teams, the '71 Valdosta Wildcats who won the state title game 62-12.

 

[Vollifer1949]

Billy Bob Thornton was told to be mean to Kurt Russell. That was all. Thornton ad libbed all his lines in Tombstone.
[VIDEO=]

 

[VolsSportsFan]

SIAP but for Saving Private Ryan, all the main actors had to go through a boot camp except Matt Damon. That was to create a kind of animosity toward Damon that would spill over into the performances.

Also when he was cast, Spielberg picked Matt Damon because he was a virtual unknown. Only by the time the movie came out, Damon was in Good Will Hunting that shot him to fame.

 

[95 Vol Alum]

SIAP but for Saving Private Ryan, all the main actors had to go through a boot camp except Matt Damon. That was to create a kind of animosity toward Damon that would spill over into the performances.

Also when he was cast, Spielberg picked Matt Damon because he was a virtual unknown. Only by the time the movie came out, Damon was in Good Will Hunting that shot him to fame.

My favorite Damon fun fact.

Someone Worked Out How Much Money Has Been Spent Rescuing Matt Damon

 

[Notorious B.E.N]

SIAP but for Saving Private Ryan, all the main actors had to go through a boot camp except Matt Damon. That was to create a kind of animosity toward Damon that would spill over into the performances.

Also when he was cast, Spielberg picked Matt Damon because he was a virtual unknown. Only by the time the movie came out, Damon was in Good Will Hunting that shot him to fame.

Did you hear that first part on Hot Ones? He was on the show 2 weeks ago and the host asked him about that.

 

[VolsSportsFan]

Did you hear that first part on Hot Ones? He was on the show 2 weeks ago and the host asked him about that.

Actually I had watched a special on it way back around when it was released, one of those "first look" things used to hype movies and they interviewed Tom Hanks and he talked about the boot camp. He had previously worked with the guy who put them through the ringer for Forrest Gump and he knew what he was about to get into. The other actors didn't and said they all got their asses kicked and Hanks made an off hand comment about "well everyone but Damon, he didn't have to go."

 

[VolsSportsFan]

Another Damon fun fact that I learned from Stevie Ray's podcast from a few years ago (Harlem Heat wrestler). To prepare for his role in The Rainmaker, which took place in Memphis, Damon took a job as a bartender in Knoxville to help his southern accent. Stevie Ray said after a Nitro or a house show one, him and the Nasty Boys went out drinking. They went to the bar Damon was working and one of the Nasty Boys recognized Damon from his role in School Ties and he started giving him crap because of what Damon's character in that movie did. Stevie Ray said he lost it as him and Damon were both like "dude it was a movie, it wasn't real."

 

[n_huffhines]

The thread started with Damon and here we are again. Fun fact from Good Will Hunting, Robin Williams improvised the memory about his wife farting in bed and Matt Damon's reactions to the ad-lib were genuine.

 

[RDU VOL#14]

Another Damon fun fact that I learned from Stevie Ray's podcast from a few years ago (Harlem Heat wrestler). To prepare for his role in The Rainmaker, which took place in Memphis, Damon took a job as a bartender in Knoxville to help his southern accent. Stevie Ray said after a Nitro or a house show one, him and the Nasty Boys went out drinking. They went to the bar Damon was working and one of the Nasty Boys recognized Damon from his role in School Ties and he started giving him crap because of what Damon's character in that movie did. Stevie Ray said he lost it as him and Damon were both like "dude it was a movie, it wasn't real."

Almost posted this yesterday . At least the part about him tending bar in Knoxville.

 

[KnoxRealtorVOL]

The story of the Burton Batman franchise is fascinating, I wish they would make a documentary about it.

Batman and Batman Returns were well ahead of their time. Burton planned on taking the series much darker and much more adult as they went on, then WB bowed down to the toy companies and tried to push Burton to make them kid friendly and funnier in an attempt to drive toy sales. Burton, along with Michael Keaton, told them to kick rocks.

WB got Joel Schumacher to head up the new direction, and we got the disasters that were Batman Forever and Batman and Robin. Those movies were literally designed to sell toys, which they did.

Schumacher eventually did a public apology to the people before he passed away, apologizing for how awful Batman and Robin was. He all but said “They made me do it”

Tragic tale of what could have been.

 

[n_huffhines]

The story of the Burton Batman franchise is fascinating, I wish they would make a documentary about it.

Batman and Batman Returns were well ahead of their time. Burton planned on taking the series much darker and much more adult as they went on, then WB bowed down to the toy companies and tried to push Burton to make them kid friendly and funnier in an attempt to drive toy sales. Burton, along with Michael Keaton, told them to kick rocks.

WB got Joel Schumacher to head up the new direction, and we got the disasters that were Batman Forever and Batman and Robin. Those movies were literally designed to sell toys, which they did.

Schumacher eventually did a public apology to the people before he passed away, apologizing for how awful Batman and Robin was. He all but said “They made me do it”

Tragic tale of what could have been.

They had nipples on the costumes.

 

[n_huffhines]

It was just Robin, but dear Lord.

 

[Notorious B.E.N]

It was just Robin, but dear Lord.

I can't believe they're making him bisexual.....i would have never imagined he liked women.

 

[n_huffhines]

I can't believe they're making him bisexual.....i would have never imagined he liked women.

I used to collect comics and I'm almost positive one of the Robins was gay, and this was like 25 years ago. Seems weird that this is getting headlines now but maybe I got facts mixed up

 

[VolsSportsFan]

I can't believe they're making him bisexual.....i would have never imagined he liked women.

 

[Jackcrevol]

That reminds me of The Who telling Michael Moore he couldn't use Won't Be Fooled Again for his Bush movie, because they weren't impressed by Bowling for Columbine. The ultimate rock and roll move is to stick it to the lying left*. They are legends

*not trying to pick on the left, just saying it's hard to go against your constituents. That's what made it meaningful

cool.

 

[ABINGDON VOL FAN]

The rape scene in Deliverance was not simulated.

Of course it was.

 

[ABINGDON VOL FAN]

Speaking of Jaws:

Richard Dreyfuss' character, Hooper, dies in the novel and was supposed to die in the film. A second unit team in Australia filmed a real great white attacking a shark cage with a dummy inside that was supposed to stand-in for Dreyfuss. However, the dummy fell out of the cage almost instantly. The footage of the attack was too good to try and recapture, so the script was rewritten so that the character was no longer in the cage while the shark dismantled it.

Sorry to spoil the ending of a 44 year old film.

I knew the character died in the book but was not aware of the 2nd. Good info.

 

[ABINGDON VOL FAN]

In Inglorious Basterds, an elite group of american GI's did not go undercover and successfully blow up Hitler and his top military advisers in a theater.

In Inglorious Basterds, an elite group of american GI's did not go undercover and successfully blow up Hitler and his top military advisers in a theater.