33 Random Bits of Movie Trivia That Went Through Dozens of Rewrites

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33 Random Bits of Movie Trivia That Went Through Dozens of Rewrites
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We don’t want to sound all self-important, but in the movie fact game, we’re kind of a big deal. Our brains are like studio executives who have the power to greenlight or axe every fact that comes across our desk. 

Not every fact can make it in this business, and we don’t mind being the people to send the lame ones packing. You might think that sounds harsh, but when you see this list of talent-soaked bangers, you’ll thank us.

Lord of the Rings

A region of Middle-earth was partly inspired by WWI battlefields. Tolkien, who was in WWI, said that the Dead Marshes (on the path to Mordor) owe something to Northern France after the Battle of the Somme. CRACKED.COM

Wonder Woman

Wonder Woman was inspired by the creator's poly marriage. Не lived with two wives for decades, and had two children with each of them-and he also partly based Wonder Woman on each of them. CRACKED.COM

Before Sunrise

Richard Linklater's Before Sunrise was based on an encounter he'd had. SHONEN KNIFE He'd met a woman, Amy Lehrhaupt, and spent a night with her-and he eventually turned the memory of that into Before Sunrise. CRACKED.COM

Mad Max

George Miller's time in a Sydney emergency room inspired Mad Max. He's a medical doctor who spent time in a hospital emergency room in the '70s - there, he says, he saw a lot of real road trauma. CRACKED.COM

Godzilla vs. Kong

Director Adam Wingard's cat apparently influenced Godzilla vs Kong. That's judging by an Instagram photo of his cat, which he captioned with There is a lot of her inspiration in my version of Godzilla and King Kong. CRACKED.COM

Luca

Pixar's Luca is kind of based on the director's own childhood in Italy. PESCHERIA Enrico Casarosa says that he was inspired by how he'd spent his childhood in Cinque Terre with a friend, Alberto, who was a troublemaker. CRACKED.COM

Marriage Story

Marriage Story was kind of inspired by the creator's own divorce. But Noah Baumbach's divorce from Jennifer Jason Leigh was only part of it - he also mined his friends' and family members' experiences for material. CRACKED.COM

E.T.

ET was heavily based on Steven Spielberg's childhood experiences. Specifically, his parents' divorce - in fact, the movie started out as a story about two parents divorcing and how that affected their child. CRACKED.COM

Con Air

Con Air Nicolas Cage did his own stunts. There were explosions five feet behind me, Cage said, flaming helicopters dropping right behind me, ball-bearing bullets over my head. So there was a level of intensity, fear, you might say. CRACKED.COM

Malignant

Malignant The opening credits spoil the movie. The sequence shows some documents that detail the movie's biggest reveal. No, we won't tell you what that is-go spoil yourself if you want to. CRACKED.COM

Jack Reacher

CRACKED.COM Jack Reacher Dwayne Johnson auditioned for the title role. Johnson lost the role to Tom Cruise despite being physically much closer to the character. Не has revealed that that was one of his biggest disappointments in Hollywood.

Seabiscuit

CRACKED.COM Seabiscuit Seabiscuit was played by ten horses. The multiplicity of horse actors was to get a good performance for the cameras and not tire a single horse out. Plus, some horses were better behaved than others for quieter, dialogue-heavy scenes.

Willow

CRACKED.COM Willow It was the largest casting call for little people ever. According to star Warwick Davis, the movie hired between 225 and 240 little person actors.

Men in Black

CRACKED.COM Men in Black Vincent D'Onofrio's performance was helped by basketball gear. To create his human/bug hybrid walk, D'Onofrio put on a pair of braces of the kind basketball players wear, and locked them so he couldn't bend his legs.

Ratatouille

Ratatouille None of the human characters have toes. To save time, the artists and animators at Pixar didn't make any toes for the human characters, which is odd given Pixar's reputation for fine details in their films. CRACKED.COM

A Few Good Men

Aaron Sorkin wrote the first draft on cocktail napkins. Sorkin was working as a bartender while listening to his sister, a Navy JAG Corps member, discuss a case she was working on. Не wrote a version of that story on some napkins at the bar until he could borrow his roommate's computer. A Few Good Men CRACKED.COM

The Terminator

CST3-KBL The Terminator The movie came from James Cameron's nightmare. Cameron was in Rome, Italy doing the final cut of Piranha II, when he was stricken with a 102-degree fever. As he tossed and turned at night, he dreamt of the unstoppable robot. CRACKED.COM

Avengers: Endgame

Avengers: Endgame Only Robert Downey Jr. had the full script. In order to prevent leaks, the cast was only given parts of the script relevant to their characters- aside from RDJ, who had been on the Marvel train from the beginning. CRACKED.COM

Dark River

For Dark River, Ruth Wilson learned to shear sheep, gut rabbits, and castrate lambs. She spent three weeks on a rundown farm, with sheep S**t everywhere to learn those skills. Once shooting ended, she said she didn't want to see sheep ever again. CRACKED.COM

Chaplin

Robert Downey Jr. learned to play tennis left-handed for Chaplin. I didn't have to, but it was an opportunity to really go for broke and nail the character as much as I could, he says. Plus, he started over learning tennis once he found out, while being trained as a right-handed player, that Chaplin was left-handed. CRACKED.COM

Saoirse Ronan

Saoirse Ronan, who had never played the piano, mastered a ludicrously difficult Beethoven piano sonata for Byzantium. She pulled it off in 12 weeks, which her teacher found miraculous. One section alone, which requires crossing the right hand with the left, is hard to master even for a piano player with years of experience. CRACKED.COM

The Notebook

For his role in The Notebook, Ryan Gosling learned how to build furniture. Built by Ryan Gosling The table in the dinner scene is his work. Before shooting started, he moved to Charleston, SC, and apprenticed with a cabinet maker for two months. CRACKED.COM

Adam Driver

For Paterson, in which he plays a bus driver, Adam Driver passed a bus driving course. EXACT FARE REQUIRED - MOOCHY - - - BUT - - - - - - ... .. POLICE - ... DE - Jose - POR An actor has no control during filming, he says, and being able to drive his character's bus helped him feel more in control. CRACKED.COM

My Cousin Vinny

MY COUSIN VINNY CRACKED.COM The film was set in the fictional town of Wazoo, Alabama, but as Joe Pesci and Marisa Tomei pull into town, there's no mistaking the Jasper County Courthouse in Monticello, GA.

Lord of the Rings

When Viggo Mortensen screamed and fell to his knees in The Two Towers, he was in real pain. It wasn't his way of playing Aragorn's anguish at the (presumed) death of two hobbits - it's just because, when he hit the helmet on-screen, he broke both of his toes and probably couldn't keep standing anymore. CRACKED.COM

Logan

The dinner scene in Logan was supposed to be pretty different. The actors involved improvised most of what ended up on-screen. CRACKED.COM

Casino Royale

Daniel Craig just happened to hit a sandbank on the beach in Casino Royale. In the script, Bond would float off - Craig tried to do that, but hit a sandbank, so he got up and walked out of the water. Which gave us his iconic shot in blue shorts. CRACKED.COM

Doctor Strange

Benedict Cumberbatch had the idea to make Doctor Strange's cloak wipe his tears. CRACKED.COM

Midnight Cowboy

Dustin Hoffman slamming the car in Midnight Cowboy wasn't scripted. They tried and failed to get the scene right 15 times and, just when the actors' timing started to work, a cab nearly ran them over. So Hoffman shouted I'm walkin' here! and slammed the car. CRACKED.COM

Deadpool 2

Deadpool breaking Cerebro wasn't in the Deadpool 2 script -- it was an accident, and they used that take. CRACKED.COM

Alien: Covenant

The transmission in Alien: Covenant was originally a prayer. But Ridley Scott it was too corny and used a John Denver song instead. CRACKED.COM

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

Yondu was supposed to get saved in Guardians of the Galaxy 2. James Gunn wanted to keep him alive mainly so Michael Rooker could come back in the next sequel, but Yondu surviving felt wrong, and Gunn's ultimate commitment is to the story, so he killed off Yondu. CRACKED.COM

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

When Lisbeth meets Bjurman for the first time in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, she wasn't supposed to sound any different. She just had a cold, and David Fincher was worried her voice would sound too weird, but he loved how it turned out because she sounded real and fragile in that moment. CRACKED.COM

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