Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Petr Navovy | Social Media | March 27, 2023
Who doesn't love a bit of good movie trivia? I think it's entirely possible that I've watched the behind-the-scenes features on my special extended edition Lord of the Rings DVD sets more often than the actual films themselves--and that's saying a lot! There's just something really magical about plugging into the actual movie-making process--not including all the exploitative and abusive horrors that are unfortunately so often present throughout it--that can enhance a person's enjoyment of it significantly. Twitter had this topic on its mind the other day when users pondered their favorite bits of behind-the-scenes movie trivia, and we've curated a selection of highlights here below.
Stop talking about Viggo in Two Towers breaking his toe and the Turtle suit movie being shot on 9/11. That second one isn't even true.
— Ethan | John Wick 4 Enjoyer (@funEman_) March 25, 2023
I dunno how obscure it is but it's so funny that Sam Raimi puts the car he lost his virginity in into every single one of his movies in some capacity https://t.co/QihmFhvfRY
— Mr. Chau (@Srirachachau) March 26, 2023
On the set of L'ELEVE (1996), the fellow actors of Jean-Pierre Marielle were served his chewed-up pasta, after he repeatedly spat out his last mouthful onto his plate at the end of each take, only for everyone's pasta to be returned to the communal tureen for the next take. https://t.co/Fl2hWdUUpP
— Caspar Salmon (@CasparSalmon) March 26, 2023
i like the one where siskel & ebert hated Stargate and Independence Day so Roland Emmerich made Godzilla and named the dumb mayor and his assistant "mayor ebert" and "gene" and casted them to look just like them. then ebert gave it 1 1/2 stars lmao https://t.co/bf8myPLPOq pic.twitter.com/vDfS4prBHj
— laura 🦠(@ecto_fun) March 26, 2023
DP William Fraker wanted to center Ruth Gordon in the door frame in this shot in Rosemary's Baby, but Polanski insisted on the framing you see here.
— Michael Stewart (@hpanic7342) March 25, 2023
Fraker never understood why until he sat in the back of the theater and saw the entire audience move their heads to the right. pic.twitter.com/rR6FmmcQ6Q
The one he broke on The Dark Knight was one of only 4 to exist i believe.
— Ethan | John Wick 4 Enjoyer (@funEman_) March 25, 2023
Speed (1994) A 20th Century Fox producer realized they might have a hit movie on their hands when he noticed that, during test screenings, audience members would walk backwards when they needed to go to the bathroom, so they would miss as little as possible.
— Harrison Thompson (@harrisonontwitr) March 25, 2023
SCREAM was originally supposed to be called SCARY MOVIE
— all about lily L o U - L o U • ACC 3 (@eLOUsiv2) March 25, 2023
but a Miramax/Dimension head insisted it be titled SCREAM after Michael Jackson's song of the same name
The blood sucking scene in TCM was real, they were supposed to use a knife to cut a prop tube to shoot out blood from her finger; the prop didn't work so they actually sliced her finger open and sucked the blood from it. Her screaming/reactions are genuine as she did NOT know. 😬 pic.twitter.com/k3vrE6ghFo
— Lord Morphine (@TheKillingBloke) March 25, 2023
George Lucas was one of the cameramen on Gimme Shelter.
— Bergsauce fka klaus_kinski (@klaus_kinski) March 26, 2023
My teacher has a friend that worked on Thor: Love and Thunder. Apparently Taika Waititi was coked out of his mind on set ALL THE TIME. I wish I could say I was joking
— Plastic Stan (@PlasticStannn) March 25, 2023
In the movie "Troy", Brad Pitt played the role of Achilles. During production of the film Brad actually hurt his Achilles Tendon doing a stunt. pic.twitter.com/mxyf33E2mK
— Alabastor Amril (18+ ONLY!) (@AlabastorAmril) March 26, 2023
The "CGI Wireframe" images from the glider scene in Escape From New York (1981) are actually practical effects -- wooden models outlined with strips of glow-in-the-dark tape pic.twitter.com/Ofdy5O6kaO
— Jordan Carmalt Stokes (@Floreustebius) March 26, 2023
When a bunch of guys at pre-fame Pixar pranked the company they were making commercials for, by pretending to drink Listerine mouthwash. This was told by their friend Penn Jillette in the 1992 book How to Play with Your Food pic.twitter.com/CwTA5zL3Nl
— Harryhenry (@harryhenry6) March 26, 2023
I still love the chip removal scene from the extended cut of Terminator 2.
— DC Bradshaw (@curiouspenguin) March 26, 2023
That's a sheet of glass instead of a mirror with a puppet in the foreground and Arnie in the background.
Then you have Linda Hamilton and her twin sister mirroring each other.
Still wonderful :) pic.twitter.com/Eqm14lsS7u
The end of this scene in the original Superman was actually Margot Kidder talking to a recording projected on a screen. This allowed Lois to walk back into the apartment and answer the door to Clark Kent all in a single shot, giving the impression of Superman's incredible speed pic.twitter.com/Lg5cax67ta
— Dave Mc 🇨🇦🇺🇾🇳🇱🇹🇳🇪🇦 (@davemc99) March 25, 2023
The laser effect in the egg chamber in Alien belonged to The Who. The Who had purchased a share of Shepperton Studios where Alien was being filmed pic.twitter.com/rzrwSFuQPG
— ceo John Thee Entwistle fan club (they/them) 🀠(@disco_remix) March 26, 2023
The Old man who stands up to Joker in the Dark Knight is played by Senator Patrick Leahy, a Batman fan. He's cameod in 5 Batman films, and voiced a character in the animated series. His royalties are sent to the Kellogg-Hubbard Library in Vermont, where he read comics as a child. pic.twitter.com/rEJC0lLnPn
— 💛â¤ï¸ðŸ’™ðŸ¤treystar679 (@treystar679) March 26, 2023
For this shot from Murder my Sweet, Edward Dmytryk had a plate of glass placed between the camera & the desk & then reflected Mike Mazurki in the window to make him appear bigger. The plate glass is undetectable, making the large reflection seem to be farther from the camera. pic.twitter.com/4ixK6Zm0PE
— Anders Holmes (@fabricius91) March 25, 2023
The "Blast Doors" in the original Star Wars appear to be four diagonally-sliding doors, but are an ingenious optical illusion made of two oddly-shaped doors sliding horizontally toward each other. pic.twitter.com/c0AmPaAn0L
— The Quizmonster (@Quizmonster) March 26, 2023
I honestly dont know if this is obscure but the trex animatronic in jurassic park was calibrated for a specific weight so every time it rained the animatronic would shake and move on its own. Workers used towels to dry the trex. pic.twitter.com/qqkT88ZA57
— J.H.P 🕷 (@joaohugopires) March 25, 2023
The silencer used by Anton Chigurh for his shotgun didn't actually exist, so The Coen Brothers had one engineered for the film... pic.twitter.com/sSwOS521PH
— Mr.J (@MrJ_2244) March 26, 2023
The burning of Atlanta scenes in Gone With The Wind actually set fire to old movie sets including in one shot the gate from King Kong pic.twitter.com/nAKdYSei40
— Jomalt (@JoMalt2) March 26, 2023
They actually dragged a steamer boat up a mountain in FITZCARRALDO with tractors & native Peruvians. pic.twitter.com/AIvYtQmYLp
— Cʜʀɪsá´›á´á´˜Êœá´‡Ê€ Dᴇʀʀɪᴄᴋ (@UnauthorizedCBD) March 26, 2023
Werner Herzog aimed a rifle at Klaus Kinski when he threatened to quit during the last few days of filming Aguirre (or FITZCARRALDO), indigenous Peruvians volunteered to kill Kinski to calm down Herzog
— Cʜʀɪsá´›á´á´˜Êœá´‡Ê€ Dᴇʀʀɪᴄᴋ (@UnauthorizedCBD) March 26, 2023
When filming King Kong (2005), Andy Serkis chose to wear a makeshift gorilla outfit on set to get into character. On his 1st day playing Kong, most of the cast and crew didn't know what he was doing - then the cameras started rolling, and he scared them all sh**less! (1/2) pic.twitter.com/2tVnnToGHW
— Harrison Fleming (@AmethardH) March 26, 2023
During the filming of Rocky IV, Stallone told Lundgren to hit him for real in a scene. Lundgren hit him so hard it bruised Stallone's heart. He had to go to the hospital and the doctor thought he had been in a car crash. The doctor wouldn't believe him until he saw the footage.
— I saw Elon Musk fellate a dog once (@DStapf63) March 26, 2023
This little jump scare was genuine. When they shot that scene in RotS, Hayden screamed "BOO" scaring the kid actor to get that reaction pic.twitter.com/VYB2zxVsYF
— watchbat (@watchbat) March 26, 2023
Modeling director Yoshihiro Nishimura and his wife had a ramen stand on the set of Attack on Titan pic.twitter.com/cYNc9K8YKX
— Daily Attack on Titan (Movie Ver.) (@DailyAOTMovie) March 25, 2023
Filming of The Empire Strikes Back was delayed in Elstree because Stanley Kubrick was so obsessed with getting the perfect shot that he did over 50 takes of the maze scene in The Shining.
— AJD (@Strawberry62) March 26, 2023
This almost led to Jack Nicholson quitting the film... the 1st take was used in the film.
Apparently the car crash in The French connection was real; someone went round the barricades & they kept the shot 😂 pic.twitter.com/R4BZOVlpiA
— Jeff Barrie (@jeff_barrie_) March 26, 2023
When the script for Die Hard With A Vengeance was vetted by the intelligence services, they had to reinforce security at Wall Street as there was a lot of credibility to the film's heist.
— Timothy Styles (@TimStylesActor) March 26, 2023
The first choice for Dirty Harry was Frank Sinatra, but he had broken his finger in a previous film and couldn't hold the .44 Magnum properly. pic.twitter.com/NzlFVyfW73
— Danny Dinosaur 🦕🦖 (@dannydinosaur) March 25, 2023
for Seance on a Wet Afternoon they shot, surreptitiously, Richard Attenborough riding the Tube. Was going fine until they realized John Gielgud, who was NOT in the movie, happened to be on the same car
— Michael Gebert (@skyfullofbacon) March 25, 2023
Devastator from Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen was so intensive to render and animate (80,000 individual moving parts as opposed to Optimus Primes 10,000) that the computers they used to do so started overheating and one of them set on fire pic.twitter.com/dZ6gMGR1QF
— Qas (@Qino11x) March 25, 2023
Frank oz, was credited as another character in "an American Werewolf in london" while miss piggy (the puppet he controls) was credited as "Herself" pic.twitter.com/jcUI6vIuiA
— UglyTheRagingBean (@theragingbeanyt) March 26, 2023
During the infamous Los Angeles reshoots of Justice League, Jeremy Irons walked off set and called Joss Whedon's rewritten script garbage and proceeded to rewrite his dialogue.
— Ishaan (@IshaanSangha) March 25, 2023
Sean Connery's appearance in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves was kept a secret to the crowd of extras so their reaction would be genuine. Unfortunately, someone shouted "f**k me, it's Sean Connery!" and ruined the take.
— Bodily Head (@bodily_head) March 25, 2023
That Ian McKellen had a breakdown in tears while filming The Hobbit because it was basically all shot in a green screen box and he had to try to act with nothing else around him.
— The Detachable Kid (@KnoxBrewer) March 25, 2023
At the end of "A Hard Day's Night" (1964), the Beatles play to a crowd of screaming teenagers. One of them was thirteen-year old Phil Collins.
— Copperdomebodhi (@Copperdomebodhi) March 26, 2023
For the film version of M*A*S*H, screenwriter Ring Lardner was so upset by what director Robert Altman was doing to "his" script, that he demanded (unsuccessfully) that they remove him from the credits.
— Mike Calcagno (@MikeCalcagno) March 25, 2023
He subsequently won the Oscar for Best Screenplay.
Errol Flynn had the catering crews on some of his films inject his oranges with vodka in order to circumvent the obligatory booze ban upon him.
— Will Nett (@will_nett) March 25, 2023
The big table in the war room in Dr. Strangelove was covered in the same green felt you'd see at a poker table. Kubrick of course knew the film was in B&W but insisted on that to convey the fact that they were gambling with human civilization.
— The Duckman))) (@bigbridontknock) March 26, 2023
Rob Reiner directed Meg Ryan how to better fake an orgasm while filming When Harry Met Sally in front of an extra who was his mother
— Corbin Cox (@cjc6703) March 25, 2023
This guy in Army of Darkness is Michigan State University film professor Bill Vincent. He was Sam Raimi's film professor, so Raimi gave him a cameo in A of D. (He was also my film professor, though I never made it in the industry.) pic.twitter.com/gyrtLfx72u
— Charles Gaba (@charles_gaba) March 26, 2023
For SINGIN' IN THE RAIN, the old MGM Studios was pulling water for their rain rigs from the city... and every day at 5pm they'd have no water pressure. They realized it was because people had come home from work and were watering their lawns. They switched to night shoots.
— ð™¸ð™½ðšƒ. ðšð™°ðš…ð™´ð™½ðš†ð™¾ð™¾ð™³ ð™µð™¸ð™»ð™¼ðš‚ - ð™½ð™¸ð™¶ð™·ðšƒ (@shaun_obanion) March 26, 2023
