37 Bizarre Inspirations Behind Your Favorite Movies and TV Shows

There’s just a little touch of ‘The Beastie Boys’ in the ‘Star Wars’ universe
37 Bizarre Inspirations Behind Your Favorite Movies and TV Shows

Art begets art. That’s quite the pretentious opening line, but it does seem like creative types end up inspiring other creative types. Paintings, photos, music, movies and TV end up getting the creative juices flowing for up-and-coming creators, and the rest of us benefit greatly. And when art isn’t the inspiration, real-life characters and scenarios step in to spark greatness. 

Here are some very famous ideas that came from all kinds of unconventional places…

Ghost Rider

The inspiration for Nicolas Cage's character in Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance? His pet cobras. Cage explained how his cobras would try to hypnotize him by moving from side to side. His character does the same thing before he attacks. CRACKED.COM

The Simpsons

HA-HAW! YOU DIDN'T know THAT nelson IS JOHN BenDeR! Not only is the Simpsons tough guy based on the Breakfast Club tough guy, but he shares a name with the actor who played him, Judd Nelson. CRACKED.COM

Deadpool

The Deadpool opening scene was inspired by a Philips commercial. Carousel was a 2009 ad for Philips Cinema 21:9 LCD televisions. CE GRACKED.COM

A Christmas Story

CRACKED.COM The leg lamp in A CHRISTMAS STORY was inspired by soda. DRINK NEHI Author Jean Shepherd got the idea for the wonderfully tacky lamp NEW GOLD from an ad for Nehi Soda that featured female legs. (Nehi still QUALITY BEVERAGES exists today - it's called RC Cola.)

Family Guy

CRACKED.COM FAMiLY GUY Peter Griffin's accent, look, and mannerisms came from a security guard named Paul Timmins who worked at the Rhode Island School of Design. The show's creator, Seth MacFarlane, had been a student there and would smoke cigarettes and chat with Timmins a couple times a day.

Midsommar

A Korean movie called Save the Green Planet! inspired Midsommar. The movie is about a rich pharma exec who gets kidnapped by a deranged guy who thinks the exec is actually a hostile alien, and that's just the start. CRACKED.COM

J.J. Abrams

ELLO ASTY IS A BEASTIE BOYS TRIBUTE. PUIL beastie boys: hello nasty REMASTERED EDITION INCLUDES: Bonus disc of b sides unreleased tracks FABENTAL ADVISORY EXPLICIT CONTONT Beastie Boys fanboy J.J. Abrams decided to name one of the Resistance pilots in tribute to them. Не did so by removing the first letters from their 1998 album Hello Nasty. CRACKED.COM

Old School

BRAD PITT EDWIRD NORTON I FUNCHER FiLM MIS CHI AVHT M SOAP CITA en ALE KOR a - PA DE REE - - ла US NG SHIME ... TOTAL 10 - CENTE - C KA amount Old School is just a comedy take on Fight Club. Writer and director Todd Phillips says he was thinking of Fight Club throughout writing the whole screenplay, and it shows: a ton of scenes are ripped straight from Fight Club with a minor twist or two. CRACKED.COM

The Rock

Dwayne Johnson directly inspired a character in Avatar: The Last Airbender. It's The Boulder (well, of course), and they even tried to get The Rock to voice the character-but that didn't work out, unfortunately. CRACKED.COM

Black Panther

Steven Spielberg's Lincoln influenced Black Panther. The challenge scene with M'Baku and T'Challa was directly inspired by it -- Ryan Coogler says he liked how Spielberg made political conversations animated and engaging. CRACKED.COM

The Lord of the Rings

CRACKED.COM The Ents in THE LORD OF THE RINGS were inspired by Shakespeare. No, there aren't talking, walking trees in Macbeth - and that pissed off a young J. R. R. Tolkien, who expected that the prophecy about the woods coming against Macbeth's castle became literally true. So years later, he wrote that into his own book.

The Good Place

The Good Place is heavily based on a 1944 existentialist play by Sartre. His No Exit is about three people who can't stand each other trapped in the afterlife together, with nothing to do but to talk to each other forever. CRACKED.COM

Birds of Prey

Quentin Tarantino's movies kind of ended up inspiring Birds of Prey. a Director Cathy Yan said that the structure of the film was a bit like Pulp Fiction meets Rashomon. CRACKED.COM

Star Wars

COMMANDER CODY, MEET COMMANDO CODY. You were probably puzzled by the fact that there's a random clone trooper called Cody in Revenge of the Sith. Не is a tribute to Commando Cody --a hero from 1950s science fiction serials. CRACKED.COM

Heat

The iconic Robert De Niro shot in Heat was inspired by a 1967 painting. To director Michael Mann, the painting showed somebody who was involved in some life of aggression and action and yet contrast within the mental state because here was a moment of inner loneliness, so he basically made it a shot. CRACKED.COM

Moana

Dwayne Johnson based his Moana character on someone from his family. In a tweet, he explained that my character Maui was partly inspired by my late grandfather, High Chief Peter Maivia of Samoa. CRACKED.COM

Bridesmaids

Melissa McCarthy modelled her Bridesmaids character on Guy Fieri. ЗАНИЦА She even asked the higher-ups if she could wear spiky hair like Fieri's, to really drive the point home, but they told her You can't actually be Guy Fieri. CRACKED.COM

Lady Gaga

Lady Gaga based her role in American Horror Story: Hotel on one murderer. It was Robert Durst, and she said she watched him in The Jinx every day to sort of study the practical nature in which he was devious and evil. CRACKED.COM

Michael Cera

There was a Muppet that was inspired directly by Michael Cera. It's Walter, and his puppeteer said They told me to think about Michael Cera-that if he was a puppeteer he would already have the job. CRACKED.COM

The Good Place

Judge Gen in The Good Place was modelled on none other than The Notorious RBG. Her robe was based on that on Ruth Bader Ginsberg - her actress, Maya Rudolph, said it was an homage to an iconic human being. CRACKED.COM

Korg

Korg from Thor: Ragnarok is based on Polynesian bouncers in New Zealand. Director Taika Waititi met lots of nightclub bouncers who were big and burly, but had super-soft voices - that was the inspiration for Korg. CRACKED.COM

Robert Pattinson

Robert Pattinson based a character on a guy who lived in a hole in Queens. The hole was next to a family house, and the guy would sneak into the daughter's bedroom. R-Patz modeled his Good Time character on him. CRACKED.COM

The Godfather

The inspiration for James Caan's character in The Godfather was Don Rickles. Speaking about it, Caan later said: I was thinking of my friend, Don Rickles. I told everybody, you know, and I started laughing like Don Rickles. CRACKED.COM

Loki

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind partly inspired, of all things, Disney's Loki. LOKI That movie (like, say, Scott Pilgrim), had a lot of elaborate practical sets that look like CGI - and Loki did too, to make its world feel like a real environment. CRACKED.COM

A Star Is Born

Bradley Cooper's character in A Star Is Born was inspired by a real musician. It was Pearl Jam singer Eddie Vedder, and Cooper even went to Washington to shadow him in preparation for the role. CRACKED.COM

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings

Good Will Hunting inspired Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. MARVEL STUDIOS Shang-Chi is a lot like Will Hunting - they both have a big secret, and there's a lot of baggage they need to take care of to fully realize their potential. CRACKED.COM

Terminator 2

James Cameron came up with a key part of Terminator 2 while high and listening to Sting. High on Ecstasy, he was listening to a Sting song with the lyrics I hope the Russians love their children too, and decided to put John Connor as a child in the movie. CRACKED.COM

Succession

The Sulzbergers were part of the inspiration for Succession's Roy family. The Sulzbergers control The New York Times, but they weren't the only inspiration -- the biggest one was probably media mogul Rupert Murdoch. CRACKED.COM

Frank Sinatra

The Godfather's Johnny Fontane was based on Sinatra (who hated that). Sinatra hated it so much that, when he was introduced to Godfather writer Mario Puzo, he just said I don't think so. I don't want to meet him. CRACKED.COM

Good Will Hunting

A scene in Good Will Hunting was based on Matt Damon's brother's life. all'm Dem will When he was visiting MIT, his brother Kyle wrote an elaborate, fake equation on a blackboard in the hall IOF and it stayed there for months. CRACKED.COM

Bee Movie

Bee Movie was inspired by a random joke Jerry Seinfeld once told at dinner. At a dinner with Spielberg, to fill the silence, Seinfeld said that a movie about bees called B-movie would be funny - that got Spielberg really excited. CRACKED.COM

Yoda

Yoda was partly based on Stuart Freeborn, the guy that brought him to life. Freeborn was a Hollywood makeup artist who had worked on the Star Wars franchise and had helped design Yoda, basing him on himself and Einstein. CRACKED.COM

Game of Thrones

CRACKED.COM A Song of Ice and Fire Sam Tarly is a pacific nerd like George R. R. Martin. Martin has said that he resembles Sam way more than any other character in his saga. Tyrion might be who | want to be, but Sam is probably closer to who | actually am. The fat kid who likes to read books and doesn't like to go up a lot of stairs.

The Dodo

CRACKED.COM Alice in Wonderland The Dodo is Lewis Carroll. A lot of the animals in the book represent people the real-life Alice knew, with the dodo as the author himself. It was a play on Dodgson, his real name- as he was a stutterer, he'd sometimes introduce himself as Dodo-Dodgson.

Brian Jacques

Redwall Gonff the Mousethief is a rodent version of Brian Jacques. The author of the Redwall book series has stated that Gonff was based on himself as a kid. Also, Gonff was his favorite character. CRACKED.COM

The Grinch

CRACKED.COM How the Grinch Stole Christmas The Grinch is Dr. Seuss at his grumpiest. Dr. Seuss wrote the book to vent his own frustration with the commercialization of Christmas. I was brushing my teeth... when I noted a very Grinchish countenance in the mirror. It was Seuss!

Stan Lee

CRACKED.COM Spider-Man J. Jonah Jameson is an over-the-top Stan Lee. Lee has admitted that the publisher of the Daily Bugle is an exaggerated version of himself. I thought, ifl were a grumpy, irritable man, which I am sometimes, how would I act?

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