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15 Movies Inspired By Things That Happened To The Creators

Maybe Ghostbusters should have an “Inspired by true events” tag.

15 Movies Inspired By Things That Happened To The Creators

March 23, 2021

Turns out, Dan Aykroyd didn’t just develop a more or less random idea into Ghostbusters. He’s so totally into the paranormal, and claims to have had so many paranormal experiences, that he, for all we know, he wrote Ghostbusters as a docudrama (probably). Here’s that story, plus 14 others:

15

SpongeBob's job is inspired by creator Stephen Hillenburg's high school job. ISROVORODBCIS RESTAURANT He was a fry cook and lobster boiler at the Islesford Dock restaurant in Mainec- that's why SpongeBob has a job at the Krusty Krab. — Source: Bangor Daily News

14

Onward is based on how director Dan Scanlon dealt with the loss of his father. He died when Scanlon was one, so Scanlon and his brother tried to create a sense of him as a person from photos, stories, and home videos. — Source: Vanity Fair

13

I May Destroy You

I May Destroy You is partly based on Michaela Coel's own experiences. On the show, Arabella is drugged and sexually assaulted while writing her second book, and that happened to Coel while she was writing the second season of the sitcom Chewing Gum. — Source: Vanity Fair

12

The Seinfeld episode The Revenge was based on Larry David almost-quitting SNL. One Saturday night, he screamed I'm done! I quit! Fuck you! at the producer and stormed off. Later, he realized how much money he had cost himself by doing that, so he just showed up at work on — Source: Vanity Fair

11

Dan Aykroyd is a lifelong believer of the paranormal, and drew on that for Ghostbusters. NoT only did his father, grandfather, and at-grandfather all study the paranormal, but he himself has experienced many, many paranormal events in his life, he says. — Source: Yahoo

10

Steven Spielberg's memories of his parents' divorce inspired E.T. He started writing a story about his mom and dad getting divorced, and when he was shooting Close Encounters of the Third Kind, he thought about what might happen if the alien stayed behind and became friends with a child whose — Source: People

9

The Iron Giant

Brad Bird's loss of his sister partly inspired The Iron Giant. She died of gun violence, and he approached the movie from the angle of What if a gun had a soul? The connection was subconscious when he pitched it, but his feelings about gun violence definitely ended up in — Source: IndieWire

8

Raphael Bob-Waksberg based BoJack Horseman on how he felt after moving to Hollywood. He felt isolated and alienated because he didn't go out too much, and that dichotomy of being simultaneously on top of the world, and also never more alone, was really the beginning of thinking about this character — Source: The Hollywood Reporter

7

The Wire's Omar was partly based on a hitman that creator David simon knew. David Simon Donnie Andrews After Baltimore drug world hitman Donnie Andrews was arrested for murder, Simonc- then a Baltimore Sun reporterc- sent him copies of the Sun in prison. Once Simon made the wire, he hired — Source: The Hollywood Reporter

6

Facts to Guide You

Reservoir Dogs' title came from a video store customer mangling a movie's name. When Tarantino worked as a video store clerk, someone asked for Au Revoir les Enfants but pronounced it like Reservoir Dogs -. apparently, the memory of that stuck with Tarantino for years. — Source: Variety

5

Super 8 was based on J.J. Abrams' early filmmaking days. He and Matt Reeves entered a Los Angeles Super 8 film festival with a movie that got Steven Spielberg's attention, and Spielberg asked the two to restore his own early films. The fact that he was giving these movies to — Source: The Hollywood Reporter

4

How to Train Your Dragon 2 director Dean DeBlois used a personal loss as inspiration. He decided to have Hiccup lose his father in the sequel as, he says, the death of his own father at 19 helped turn him from boy to man, and he wanted a storyline along — Source: The Hollywood Reporter

3

Parasite

Bong Joon-Ho based Parasite on his days as a private math tutor. The family he worked for was super-rich, just like the one in the movie, and he got the job through his girlfriend (now his wife), who was working for them as an English tutor she recommended him. — Source: The Hollywood Reporter

2

WALL-E's premise was inspired by director Andrew Stanton's online shopping experience. He said, I just went with kinda what was happening around me. We were having anywhere from two to a dozen boxes from Amazon show up at my doorstep every other day.a. I just started to think, like, where — Source: The Hollywood Reporter

1

The Matrix grew out of Lilly Wachowski's rage. It was a rage at capitalism and corporatized structure and forms of oppression, and it was about my own oppression, that ! myself to remain in the closet. CRACKED.COM — Source: The Hollywood Reporter

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