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28 Surprising Inspirations Behind Famous Pop-Culture Staples

Crazed holiday shoppers inspired ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’

28 Surprising Inspirations Behind Famous Pop-Culture Staples

August 15, 2023

When you think of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, wild holiday shoppers probably don’t pop up in your head. However, they’re exactly what inspired the creator to make the film. Here are 27 other fascinating inspirations behind famous pieces of pop culture…

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A horror movie, Jason X, inspired one fight in Godzilla VS Kong. At one point, Kong swings two winged titans around to kill them -- that was based on Jason X's holodeck murder, where Jason swings around two camp counselors in their sleeping bags to kill them. CRACKED.COM — CinemaBlend

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CRACKED.COM Road to Perdition The movie's lighting and mood was influenced by the paintings of Edward Hopper. 1939's New York Movie was a particular source of inspiration. — American Cinematographer

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SUPREME LEADER SNOKE WAS INSPIRED BY THE LINCOLN MEMORIAL. A giant Lincoln sitting in a chair can be pretty intimidating for a kid, and that's what gave the visual effects department the idea for Snoke's look from The Force Awakens. CRACKED.COM — 12 Bizarre Inspirations Behind Star Wars Movie Characters

25

Big Trouble In Little China was heavily inspired by the 1980s movie Zu. Its full name is Zu: Warriors From The Magic Mountain, and it's a Hong Kong action movie that made John Carpenter get started on Big Trouble In Little China. CRACKED.COM — Source

24

Super 8 was based on J.J. Abrams' early filmmaking days. Не 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 kids he didn't know was insane to me, he says. CRACKED.COM — The Hollywood Reporter

23

Cheap, plastic toys from Hong Kong led to D&D monsters. DUNGEONS DRAGONS MONSTER MANUAL Gary Gygax based some of the creatures in D&D's Monster Manual on the toys he found in a Prehistoric Animals pack (some kind of looked like dinosaurs, some didn't look like much of anything). CRACKED.COM — io9

22

In a sense, Game of Thrones is GRRM's fanfiction about his pet turtles. They kept dying, to his great sadness - as they lived in a castle, he made up stories about how they were kings and knights killing each other over a throne. CRACKED.COM — Source

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CRACKED.COM was based off the experiences Michael ER Crichton had at Harvard Medical School. In 1974, Crichton wrote a screenplay based on the experiences he had as a medical school resident in the emergency room. Twenty years later, NBC agreed to pick up Crichton's screenplay, which became the basis of the 15-season, critically acclaimed medical drama, ER. — 22 Eyebrow-Arching Ways Creators' Lives Influenced Their Work

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CRACKED.COM Five Nights at Freddy's has given nightmares to its own creator, SCOTT CAWTHON. One of these nightmares sounds a lot like the fourth game in the series, which is speculated to have been inspired by it, in a feedback loop of creepiness. — Screen Rant

19

David Fincher's Se7en actually inspired a Marvel show - Loki. LOKE LOKI The story is about a mystery, so film noir and detective stories - and especially Se7en - were a big inspiration. Episode 2 even has a reference to the movie. CRACKED.COM — Den Of Geek

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28 Surprising Inspirations Behind Famous Pop-Culture Staples — 22 Real-Life Inspirations For Your Favorite Movie & TV Moments

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Movie: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre Inspiration: Crazy holiday shoppers This is how director Tobe Hooper came up with his chainsaw idea: I was in a department store around the holidays, thinking, 'I just can't wait to get out of this department store.' I looked down and there was a rack of chain saws in front of me for sale. I said, 'If I start the saw, those people would just part. They would get out of my way. A reminder to never go shopping with this guy. CRACKED.COM — 12 Bizarre Influences Behind Famous Movies And Shows

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CRACKED.COM SUPERNATURAL was partly inspired by Jack Kerouac. Kerouac's novel On the Road is about friends Dean and Sal as they travel across America. Supernatural is about brothers Dean and Sam (showrunner Eric Kripke didn't like the name Sal) as they hunt monsters and demons across America. — The Daily Telegraph

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Hawkeye's introduction in Avengers: Endgame was inspired by an obscure Ridley Scott movie. It was Black Rain, a neo-noir 1989 thriller set in Tokyo. BLACK RAIN HDS FOOD 03:02 CRACKED.COM — Film School Rejects

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Matthew McConaughey's Serenity character was based on a real guy. Не went on a boat tour with this tuna captain who was super friendly, until a fish bit-then, nothing existed for him in the world except that fish. CRACKED.COM — CinemaBlend

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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 — Vanity Fair

12

Ferrari's rejection of Ford in Ford VS Ferrari pretty much happened that way. 42 MASE 10 10 PORSCHE PORSCHE 6 E PORSCHE 77 72 Enzo Ferrari's lawyer called the real-life version a tirade that I had never seen or heard before in my entire life and have not done so since. CRACKED.COM — Slate

11

CRACKED.COM Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas Raoul Duke is a barely disguised Hunter S. Thompson. The drug-fueled blend of fact and fiction is based on two different trips to Las Vegas Thompson took in 1971, along with activist Oscar Zeta Acosta. — Ranker

10

ALI TO Sacha persona 99 Baron inspired Cohen's Westwood. by English Ali G DJ Tim Supreme League hour 15 CRACKED COM — Characters Based On Celebs, Really

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Sydney Greenstreet was famous for playing greedy gangsters in movies like Casablanca and The Maltese Falcon. не WAS THe INSPIRATION FOR JABBA THE HUTT. George Lucas instructed his design team to make Jabba alien and grotesque, just like Sydney Greenstreet. CRACKED.COM — 5 Characters Amazingly Based on Real People

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LUCIOUS LYON is JAY-Z (among other people). The Jay-Z story ... very much inspired Lucious Lyon, Empire co-creator Danny Strong has said. Inspiration also comes from Berry Gordy, Quincy Jones, and more. CRACKED.COM — Complex & The Philadelphia Inquirer

7

Wonder Girl was the result of the writer not reading Wonder Woman comics. When DC writer Bob Hanes was putting together Teen Titans, a comic book about superhero sidekicks teaming up, he included Wonder Girl as Wonder Woman's sidekick - but she was actually a young Wonder Woman, and the two only met in the same comic thanks to time travel. CRACKED.COM — 6 Shockingly Dumb Reasons People Invented Famous Characters

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BEETLEJUICE was inspired by bad neighbors. Writer Michael McDowell had neighbors who were extremely annoying. So his partner, Laurence Senelick, suggested flipping the premise of evil spirits preying on poor humans into a story of good ghosts having to deal with the bad people living in their house. CRACKED.COM — The Ringer

5

Sly Stallone's performance in Guardians of the Galaxy 2 drew on Babe. Не wasn't sure how to deliver his line at Yondu's funeral, so he asked James Gunn, who told him to say it in the same way as the line That'll do, pig, in Babe. CRACKED.COM — Film School Rejects

4

CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON - RICHARD CARISON-JULIA ADAMS ROWS LICENSE MORENO - - - - - DEL - ST en -- IEN LE - ENIN OF The Shape of Water was Guilermo del Toro's way of dealing with a childhood disappointment. When he saw the ending of Creature From the Black Lagoon, in which the underwater monster doesn't get the woman it's pursuing, 6-year-old del Toro was shocked --he was hoping they'd end up together. Не decided he'd someday have to correct that, and finally did in 2017. CRACKED.COM — The Hollywood Reporter & Variety

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To pull off playing a British character in The Hustle, Anne Hathaway took inspiration from Stewie Griffin. While Hathaway looked at actresses like Julie Andrews and Joanna Lumley from Absolutely Fabulous to get the accent right, she said it was mostly the famous Family Guy character who influenced her. CRACKED.COM — 15 Iconic Characters' Inspirations

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Pawnee, Indiana CITY OF PAWNEE PARKS & REC HISTORY OF WAMAPOKE INCIDENTS CRACKED.COM Creator Michael Schur said the city was based on his hometown of West Hartford, Connecticut. — AV Club

1

lan Fleming kind of based James Bond on a 17th-century polymath. John Dee was an alchemist, mathematician, and philosopher who spied for Queen Elizabeth --and he'd sign letters to her with 007. 7 was a lucky number in alchemy, and the double O's symbolized his eyes (through which she looked). Fleming found that in a biography of Dee and thought it'd be great for Bond. CRACKED.COM — The World of English

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