While filming Mamma Mia (2008), Meryl Streep insisted everyone address her as “Griselda” at all times, both on and off camera, despite this not being her character’s name. Extensive post-production dubbing was required to insert her character’s actual name, as Streep refused to act in any scene in which any other cast member did not call her Griselda.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990) was the first movie to win an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay: the category had existed from the beginning, but no movie had been deemed worthy until TMNT.
Stephen Fry is the only actor to have played both Oscar Wilde and Adolf Hitler.
Due to John Ford’s crippling fear of mice, The Searchers (1956) contains no shots of mice at all, despite the source novel featuring them as an integral part of the story.
The opening credits of Wings (1927) state that it is based on the TV series Wings (1990), despite neither the show nor television itself existing at the time.
To prepare for her role in X-Men: First Class (2011), Jennifer Lawrence spent eight years living as a shape-shifting mutant.
To prepare for his role in The Odd Couple (1968), Walter Matthau also spent eight years living as a shape-shifting mutant, refusing to ever explain why.
In 2017, Martin Scorsese admitted that he had never seen a movie.
Harrison Ford only agreed to take the role of Han Solo if George Lucas let him keep Mark Hamill after filming.
When audiences first saw Casablanca (1942), many of them screamed and ran out, or fainted in their seats, as the film looked so realistic they were afraid the piano was coming out of the screen at them.
Despite its title, Friday the 13th (1980) is only the sixth movie in the Friday the 13th series.
Meg Ryan has faked an orgasm in every one of her movies, but most viewers have only noticed it in one of them.
The Great Escape (1963) was a major hit despite the tensions on set during filming, including one incident when Richard Attenborough murdered James Garner.
The burning of Atlanta in Gone With the Wind (1939) was achieved by pouring water over a model city, and then hand-painting every frame of film orange.
The script for Chinatown (1974) was only finished three years after the film was released, which explains why so many scenes are silent.
The Shape of Water (2017) was inspired by a dream that director Guillermo del Toro had in which he was asked what the shape of water was in a job interview.
In the entire history of the James Bond franchise, Bond is never once seen watching an episode of The Bill.
Although his character in Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994) is an upper-class Englishman, Hugh Grant was born and raised in Romania and didn’t learn to speak English until he was forty. He learned all the lines for Four Weddings phonetically and has admitted he still has no idea what he said in the movie.
In Spider-Man (2002), Tobey Maguire plays a young man who discovers he has amazing spider-like superpowers. Ironically, in real life Tobey Maguire is terrified of young men.
The sitcom Frasier has never been adapted into a feature film, but the character of Frasier Crane does make an appearance in The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976)
Finding Nemo (2003) is believed to be the first animated film to feature an interracial kiss.
Amusing foreign titles for Hollywood movies include Jaws (1975), which in China was called “Dirty Old Man Gets Eaten; Citizen Kane (1941), which in Spain was titled “Death of a Snowglobe”; Rocky (1976), which in Ghana was called “What The Hell Is He Even Saying?”; and Steel Magnolias (1989), which in Canada was called “Crazy Ladies Go Hog Wild Running Amok Rock n Roll Style Like Motorbike Yankee Foxtrot For Real Go Cowboys Yeah!”
Eighty-six percent of Best Original Song Oscars, at time of writing, have been won by Bonnie Raitt.
A statistical analysis of more than 100,000 films found that less than four percent of them featured a protagonist who had read Infinite Jest.
When David Lynch was making Eraserhead (1977), he maintained an eerie atmosphere on set by hiring a ten-piece swing band to squat just out of shot in every scene pulling faces at the actors.
God exists in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but is evil.
The Fifth Element (1997) is still the only English-language film to win the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar.
In his controversial silent epic The Birth of a Nation (1915), director DW Griffith included several “Easter Eggs” for fans, such as a hidden Mickey Mouse face on the back of a Klansman’s cloak, a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo by President Woodrow Wilson as a prostitute, and several in-jokes about Griffith’s own chronic back pain.
Walt Disney consistently claimed that his favourite among all his movies was King Kong (1933).
James Cameron first got the idea for Avatar (2010) from a holiday he took to the Seychelles, where he met several people who recognised him, making him realise he was a very rich and famous movie director who should make a movie sometime.
In Annie (1982), the titular orphan meets President Franklin Roosevelt and sings “Tomorrow” with him. Despite this memorable scene, in real life Annie only ever met Roosevelt’s wife Eleanor, and the song they sang together was actually “All That Jazz”.
Ben Affleck has revealed that his characterisation of Batman in the DC Extended Universe is inspired by Michael Keaton’s iconic performance in The Paper (1994).
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