31 Random Bits of Movie Trivia We Snuck Into the Theater Under Our Hat

We won’t gouge you for these little brain snacks
31 Random Bits of Movie Trivia We Snuck Into the Theater Under Our Hat

The fine people who work at the cinema won’t mind if you bring these into a screening, but the movie-goers around you will. See, you’re about to learn so much about so many movies that you’re going to want to whisper them to anyone even remotely near you. 

Nobody wants to sit beside the “did you know” guy while they’re enjoying the movie. Resist the urge and just tell them to check out this list for themselves.

Moana

Pixar assembled an Oceanic Story Trust for Moana. The Trust consisted of historians, linguists, tattoo artists, fishermen, and others, all from the South Pacific, who could give input on how the movie portrayed their cultures. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM

Resident Evil

George Romero wrote a rejected script for a Resident Evil movie. It was super-faithful to the game, down to tiny details .. Romero never played it, but he watched a videotape of an assistant playing it. Resident Evil production company Capcom thought it wasn't good, though. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM

Toy Story

When Tom Hanks is too busy to do Woody's voice in Toy Story media, his brother Jim steps in. There are so many computer games and video things and Jim just works on those all year long, says Hanks. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM

Full Metal Jacket

Anthony Michael Hall was supposed to be in Full Metal Jacket. Не negotiated with Stanley Kubrick for eight months, but they couldn't work things out. Hall was fascinated by Kubrick and read everything about him he could, and had really wanted to be in the movie, so he was pretty bummed. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM

Friday the 13th

They killed a real snake in Friday the 13th. They didn't tell the snake's handler that that would happen, and apparently he got really upset and even had to be held back by other crew members. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM

Indiana Jones

George Lucas really, really didn't want Harrison Ford to play Indiana Jones. Ford was already in two of Lucas' movies, and Lucas said I don't want him to be my Bobby De Niro, (De Niro was considered Scorsese's actor). Years later, Lucas said, Не was perfect for the part. I can't imagine anybody else in that part. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM

Wizard of Oz

They didn't use any special effects in the Wizard of Oz color transition scene. When the movie turns from sepia to color, they shot Judy Garland's stunt double in a sepia dress, with sepia makeup on, on a sepia set. When she steps out of the shot, she's replaced by Judy Garland in a blue dress. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM

Harry Potter

Daniel Radcliffe was allergic to the first glasses they gave him for the Harry Potter movies. The skin around his eyes broke out in whiteheads and spots, and it took everyone a week to figure out the nickel silver in the rims was causing that. They quickly made him new ones out of rolled gold. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM

Batman

Coolio was supposed to play the Scarecrow in a Batman movie. Не did his minor cameo in Batman & Robin (at a street race) only because he was supposed to be the villain in Joel Schumacher's next Batman movie - which, of course, didn't happen. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM

Men in Black

Barry Sonnenfeld made the decision to set Men in Black in New York City. In the original idea, the movie took place in Lawrence, Kansas; Las Vegas; and Washington D.C. But Sonnenfeld set it entirely in New York City because, he thought, that's the one place on Earth where aliens could walk around a disguise. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM

Step Brothers

Step Brothers showcases Will Ferrell's and John C. Reilly's musical talents. UPTOWN GiRL In the scene at the Catalina Wine Mixer where Reilly's character plays drums and Ferrell's sings, the actors are really doing that. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM

Star Wars

Mark Hamill's phone number is in A New Hope. In the trash compactor scene, he was supposed to just say a long serial number, so he wanted it to be his own phone number. But Harrison Ford got the line instead, and he started saying his own number. Hamill nagged him to say his, Hamill's, so Ford did that and told him Happy now, you big baby? NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM

Gladiator

Russell Crowe's agent wanted Maximus' death in Gladiator to be fake. Не pitched Gladiator 2 as a movie that would start with Maximus' body being taken behind the arena on a stretcher, then Maximus would get up and high-five the people carrying him, saying Hey, it worked. That way, Crowe could do the sequel. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM

28 Days Later

The highway scene in 28 Days Later required a rolling police roadblock. It was filmed on the M1 highway, and police slowed down cars coming in both directions. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM

Mad Max

Mad Max: Fury Road started out as 3,500 drawings. George Miller and comic book artist Brendan McCarthy worked out the whole movie as a series of 3,500 images. Miller says that that's a fantastic document with which to produce a film that has very little dialogue, where everything is spatial. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM

Se7en

In Se7en, when Victor coughs and wakes up, the SWAT officer's shock is real. The actor thought he was looking at a prop -- they didn't tell him that it was a person buried under layers of makeup. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM

Guardians of the Galaxy

James Gunn's story treatment for Guardians of the Galaxy 2 included a song mix on a CD. Не kept a list of 500 songs he thought Meredith Quill would love, and referenced that list while writing the treatment and script. The CD had the songs he drew on for inspiration. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM

Independence Day

Today we celebrate our Independence Day wasn't in Independence Day's script. The studio insisted that the President end his speech with that line, because they wanted to change the movie's name to Independence Day. Mentioning those words in the movie itself would help, they thought. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM

Groundhog Day

On Groundhog Day, Bill Murray hired an assistant just to troll everyone. The production team couldn't get a hold of him when they needed to, so they asked him to hire an assistant to make things easier. Не agreed, but hired someone who was deaf and only spoke American sign language (which neither Murray or anyone else on set spoke). NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM

The Godfather

The horse's head in The Godfather was real. Francis Ford Coppola didn't like the mockup of the fake head the studio wanted him to use, so his scouts went to a dog food plant and found a horse that was going to be slaughtered. They asked for its head when the time came, and the plant dutifully shipped it to them in a crate full of dry ice. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM

Casino Royale

In the 2006 Casino Royale, Tsai Chin played Madam Wu. She also appeared in You Only Live Twice, in 1967. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM

Pirates of the Caribbean

In Pirates of the Caribbean, Mackenzie Crook had to wear two contact lenses in the same eye. It's uncomfortable, but not painful, he says. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM

The Big Lebowski

The French part of Beyoncé's song Partition is from The Big Lebowski It's almost a direct sample from the French dub of the movie. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM

Denzel Washington

Chadwick Boseman was accepted into an acting program at Oxford and could only afford to go because of a private benefactor That benefactor turned out to be Denzel Washington. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM

Christopher Walken

Christopher Walken initially trained as a dancer. Не has danced in over 50 of his movies. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM

Mad Max: Fury Road

The production of Mad Max: Fury Road moved from Australia because the desert had suddenly disappeared. Broken Hill (normally) There was way more rainfall than usual, so the barren area they'd picked (Broken Hill) was a lot more lush and lively than they wanted, and they moved to Namibia. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM

Tokyo Drift

The Tokyo Drift production had a designated fall guy. They couldn't get permits to shoot on location in Tokyo, so they hired one guy to say he's the director when police showed up. Не spent a night in jail, and director Justin Lin is forever grateful. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM

Borat

For the first Borat movie, Sacha Baron Cohen never washed Borat's suit. Не never wore deodorant when he was filming, either, creating a Soviet-bloc smell the moment he walked into a room. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM

Pulp Fiction

Marlon Brando introduced himself to Samuel L. Jackson by quoting the Pulp Fiction Ezekiel speech. Brando then gave him his number, and when Jackson called, he was told he got a Chinese restaurant. So he asked for Brando, and got him - i it turned out that was Brando's way of filtering phone calls. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM

Star Trek

The Enterprise in The Next Generation had dolphin and whale crewmembers. CETACEAN NAVIGATION LAB CETACEAN LIFEBOAT (1 OF 4) WET/DRY ACCESS LOCK CETACEAN OPS According to a 1991 technical manual, there's a Cetacean Navigation Lab with 12 bottlenose dolphins and two whales who act as supervisors. This is never shown on-screen, but it's occasionally alluded to in dialogue and set design. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM

Avatar

All-new digital musical instruments were created for Avatar's score. Composer James Horner programmed new instrument sounds, and mashed up a ton of existing ones from various parts of the world to get really alien sounds. NOW YOU KNOW CRACKED.COM

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