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Lesser-Known Movie Facts You Might Not Know
Before The Devil Wears Prada was even published, Fox 2000 snapped up the film rights in a preemptive deal after reading 100 pages and an outline. The manuscript by Lauren Weisberger, a former assistant to Vogue editor Anna Wintour, was generating significant industry buzz. Studio exec Carla Hacken recognized its cinematic potential and moved quickly to option it in 2003. Tasked with writing was Aline Brosh McKenna, who found it hard for anyone in the fashion world to talk to her because they feared being blackballed by Anna. According to McKenna, she did find someone (whom she will never name) who spoke to her, and then read the script. After reading the script, they told her, "The people in this movie are too nice. No one in that world is too nice. They don't have to be, and they don't have time to be." McKenna took the note and made "everyone a bit busier and meaner." The Devil Wears Prada isn't just one of the most iconic fashion films of the 2000s — it's a landmark in fashion cinema, period. But despite it being set in the fashion world, the film had a modest wardrobe budget of just $100,000, pushing legendary costume designer Patricia Field (who is best known for work on Sex and the City) to tap into her deep fashion Rolodex. Field envisioned Andy Sachs as a "Chanel girl" and personally reached out to the fashion house, leveraging her longtime relationship and sharing the script. Chanel eagerly came on board, excited to see their designs on a younger character. This partnership, of course, famously led to Andy's iconic Chanel boots moment. Field ended up pulling about a million dollars worth of clothes for the film. Her work on the movie was also recognized with an Oscar nomination for Best Costume in case you're wondering, Field imagined Miranda Priestly as someone who wore Donna Karan. She ended up pulling many archival pieces from Donna Karan for the film. After seeing a very rough cut of Star Wars: A New Hope in 1977, directors like Francis Ford Coppola and Brian De Palma were skeptical, with Coppola saying that they were concerned for George Lucas. The early version lacked finished visual effects, had scenes of WWII dogfights as place holders for space fights, and had no music. All added up, it made it hard for viewers to grasp what Lucas's full vision was. Steven Spielberg, however, was one of the few who believed in the film from the beginning and predicted it would be a massive hit. Wicked was always meant to be a movie. Before it became a Broadway phenomenon, Universal had already acquired the rights to Gregory Maguire's 1995 novel with the intention of turning it into a film. However, producer Marc Platt struggled to adapt it into a screenplay, saying, "[It] felt that it was missing something." One day, he got a call from composer Stephen Schwartz, who knew he had the rights, and Schwartz asked him if he had ever thought of making it into a musical. That's when the "lightbulb went off" in his head, and Platt decided to work with Schwartz to make it into a musical. He thought that if the musical was successful enough, it could be turned into a movie. The term "prequel" is often associated with the Star Wars prequel films. However, those weren't the first movies to use the word. The 1979 movie Butch and Sundance: The Early Years is credited as being the film that helped popularize the term. The movie was a prequel to 1969's Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. In 1988, when it was announced that Michael Keaton was cast as Bruce Wayne/Batman in Tim Burton's Batman, fans were outraged and very skeptical, reportedly sending over 50,000 protest letters to Warner Bros. At the time, Keaton was best known for comedic roles like Mr. Mom, and many felt he lacked the physicality and gravitas required to play the Dark Knight. Critics and fans also feared that, because of his casting, the film would be too campy or repeat the tone of the 1960s TV series. Similar to Michael Keaton, fans were not happy that Heath Ledger had been cast as The Joker in The Dark Knight. Today, it's hard to even imagine anyone else in the Oscar-winning role. However, when it was first announced that he would be playing the role in 2006, people online lost their collective shit, thinking he was too much of a "pretty boy" for the role, wouldn't have the chops to do it, and overall just a really bad choice. Some even campaigned for him to be removed from the part. After Chris Farley's death (who was originally cast as the voice of Shrek), Nicolas Cage was offered the role by his friend and the head of DreamWorks, Jeffrey Katzenberg. However, Cage turned down the role because he didn't want to play an ugly green ogre. In a 2013 interview with Today, he clarified what he meant by that when he turned down voicing the character, saying, "Truth is, I'm not afraid to be ugly in a movie.... When you're drawn, in a way it says more about how children are going to see you than anything else, and I so care about that." In All About Eve, Bette Davis as Margo Channing wears an off-the-shoulder silk cocktail dress in the party scene that is not only one of the most iconic dresses in film history, but has also become synonymous with Davis herself. Legendary costume designer Edith Head designed the dress; however, it was not meant to be off the shoulder — it was supposed to be a square neckline. The dress was made late and delivered to the set right before filming the scene. According to Head, she came to the studio to find Davis wearing a dress that "didn't fit at all... Someone had miscalculated, and the entire bodice and neckline were too big." Horrified, Head prepared to go tell the film's director that the dress was not ready, but Davis shrugged it off, pulled it down around her shoulders, and quipped, "Don't you like it better like this anyway?" As part of her contract, Glenn Close got to keep all her Cruella de Vil costumes from 101 Dalmatians and 102 Dalmatians. However, according to Close, when Disney "found out how expensive they were, they were unhappy that it was in my contract." Disney then offered to create replica outfits for her to take instead of the originals, but she said no. It's hard to imagine anyone other than Emma Thompson as the deliciously wicked Baroness in Cruella — her performance was pitch-perfect and effortlessly commanding. But surprisingly, she wasn't Disney's first pick for the role. The studio initially eyed Nicole Kidman to play the icy fashion designer. Also, the original live-action Cruella de Vil, Glenn Close, is an executive producer on Cruella. Elton John's journey with Disney began when lyricist Tim Rice was tapped to help complete Aladdin following the death of Howard Ashman, who passed away from complications related to AIDS in 1991, just months before Beauty and the Beast was released. Rice had been brought in to collaborate with composer Alan Menken (who had had a musical partnership with Ashman), but when Disney began work on The Lion King, Menken was unavailable. Looking for a new musical partner, Rice suggested none other than Elton John. The pairing proved legendary, resulting in one of the most iconic and beloved soundtracks in Disney history. The two had worked together in 1982 on John's song "Legal Boys." The Wizard of Oz may be a beloved classic today, but it wasn't a box office hit when it premiered in 1939. With a massive budget for its time, the film struggled to earn back its production costs. Despite critical acclaim, its initial theatrical run fell short financially. It wasn't until years later — thanks to frequent re-releases and television broadcasts — that the film finally turned a profit. Also, the reason the film has become such an iconic piece of pop culture is that starting in 1956, it began having yearly TV showings that helped introduce it to new generations of kids over the decades. The first gay kiss in a film was in 1927's Wings. The movie is about two World War I combat pilots and close friends fighting for the same woman's affection. But many have pointed out over the decades that the film has a subtle gay subtext about the two being more than just friends. Wings is also noted as the first film to win the Oscar for Best Picture. Truman Capote, who wrote the novella Breakfast at Tiffany's, disliked Audrey Hepburn's performance as Holly Golightly in the film adaptation. He had really wanted Marilyn Monroe (who turned down the role after being advised against it) to play the character. In fact, Hepburn wasn't even a second, third, or fourth choice to play Holly. After Monroe turned down the role, the producers considered casting Debbie Reynolds, Doris Day, and Elizabeth Taylor in the part before finally settling on Audrey. And for the record, Capote didn't just hate Hepburn's performance; he hated the entire movie in general because it steered away from the darker themes in his book. In the original script for The Addams Family, it was supposed to be revealed at the end that Uncle Fester truly was an imposter. However, Christina Ricci voiced her concern about that ending to the film's director, Barry Sonnenfeld, who decided to change the scene after talking to her. According to Sonnenfeld, the entire cast was unhappy with that ending during the first table read, except for Christopher Lloyd. In an interview with Yahoo Entertainment, Sonnenfeld explained how, with some nudging from Anjelica Huston, Ricci made a really thoughtful case: "Christina explained to me how the audience would be left emotionally adrift if it wasn't the real Fester. Does that mean the real Fester is still out there? And how could Gomez just give up his search for his brother after all these years just because this impostor came into their family?" Contrary to popular belief (internet lore?) Leonardo DiCaprio never turned down the role of Max in Hocus Pocus because he couldn't have accepted even if he wanted it. It's a bit convoluted, but he was asked to come in to read for it, but with director Kenny Ortega being fully aware that he was unavailable to do the movie because he was already committed to filming What's Eating Gilbert Grape and This Boy's Life. According to Ortega, DiCaprio was brought in to read for the role because the casting people knew he would be very good and that it would inspire Ortega to find the right guy to play Max. Tom Hanks and director Robert Zemeckis paid for two Forrest Gump scenes (one was the scene where Forrest runs across the US) to be filmed out of their own pockets. According to Hanks, Paramount refused to increase the film's $55 million budget, and just the running scene alone would be very expensive to shoot. Hanks and Zemeckis agreed to pay for the scenes in return for a larger percentage of the film's box office gross. He said that they both put in a lot of money, but it paid off! Reportedly, Hanks earned $65 million from his percentage of the box office gross. The iconic boulder-rolling scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark is an homage to a very similar thing that happened in the 1954 Scrooge McDuck comic "The Seven Cities of Cibola." In the comic, Scrooge, Huey, Dewey, and Louie travel to a lost city, where they find an emerald idol. However, noticing it is booby-trapped, they decide not to take it. What they don't realize is that they have been followed by the Beagle Boys, who decide to steal the idol, which sets off a giant boulder that chases after them. George Lucas — who came up with Indiana Jones — was a big fan of the Scrooge McDuck comics (which were created by Carl Barks) growing up and told Edward Summer, a writer who put together a book of Barks' Scrooge comics, that the boulder scene in Raiders was a "conscious homage" to "The Seven Cities of Cibola." In a sort of full-circle moment, the Raiders logo would go on to inspire the DuckTales one (which of course is a classic cartoon series about Scrooge McDuck's adventures): Whitney Houston was originally supposed to sing a cover of Jimmy Ruffin's "What Becomes of the Brokenhearted" as the main theme song for The Bodyguard. However, they decided to switch the song after they found out that Paul Young was doing a cover of the song for the soundtrack to Fried Green Tomatoes. Kevin Costner then suggested to David Foster (who was producing The Bodyguard soundtrack) that it should be "I Will Always Love You." They also almost ended up doing a slightly different cover of "I Will Always Love You," since the only version Foster could find was Linda Ronstadt's cover. But when Foster spoke with Dolly Parton (who, of course, wrote it), she told him they needed to do her version because it included the "And I wish you joy and happiness" final verse. In the original script for Back to the Future, Marty McFly was supposed to return to 1985 by driving the DeLorean into a nuclear test site in the Nevada desert, where a nuclear explosion would generate the 1.21 gigawatts of power needed. However, they were ordered by the studio to cut a million dollars from the budget. As a result, Bob Gale and Robert Zemeckis rewrote the climax to take place at the Hill Valley clock tower, using a lightning strike to power the time machine instead. This change not only saved the budget, but it became one of the most iconic scenes in movie history. And lastly, prior to its release in 1997, many critics and Hollywood insiders predicted that Titanic would be a box office bomb. And there were several reasons why it was predicted to be a failure. One of which was that, at the time, it was the most expensive movie ever made and was getting compared to the costly Waterworld, which had been released a couple of years before and had not managed to be a huge success because it, like Titanic, was the then–most expensive movie ever made. Another was that Titanic also took a long time to film. Going way over schedule delayed the release of the movie, as it was originally meant to be released during the summer (the blockbuster movie season). Moving its release date to December set off red flags and only added to the "doomed film" narrative.
Los Angeles Times
17-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
Son of an agent, he became a film exec. But the movies weren't the same
The logline for Matthew Specktor's memoir, 'The Golden Hour,' could easily imply a Hollywood tell-all. Specktor is the son of a well-connected movie agent, Fred Specktor, which meant he had run-ins with the biggest celebrities of the 1970s and '80s. Thanks to his father, he was shaped by the louche New Hollywood world, which meant taking Quaaludes at 10 and cocaine not long after. A former Fox 2000 exec, he grasps the ways conglomeratization has made studios risk-averse in recent years. 'Do 'Alvin and the Chipmunks' and 'Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem' whisper to people in their dreams?' he laments toward the book's end. 'Or do the one thing required for an art to live on, which is to inspire people to emulate them?' But Specktor is trying to do something subtler and more slippery than cataloging boldfaced names and bellyaching about how commerce has strangled art. 'The Golden Hour' is a determinedly artful and novelistic memoir, recalling the ebb and flow of millions in Hollywood in the past half-century, not to account for winners and losers but to better understand his parents' psyches, and his own. His life, he observes, made a certain sense when his parents' values and the movies were in alignment; when the movies diverged, the family fractured. Funny what a little celluloid can do. Specktor opens the story on the cusp of the '60s, depicting his father, Fred, as a rising star at MCA, the talent agency then led by Lew Wasserman. The vibe Specktor evokes is 'Mad Men' cool, an L.A. full of cars with 'radios blaring Nelson Riddle and Patti Page from their blood-dark interiors, their engines' warm rumble fading to a soft, tidal hiss.' As Fred ingratiates himself with higher-caliber clients — Bruce Dern chief among them — he swims with the current of the decade's most convention-breaking films. He and his wife, Katherine, are good lefty activists, and the radicalism of films such as 'Bonnie and Clyde' fit them comfortably. 'The movies, that great repository of the American self-image, have begun to depict people who look and feel more like my parents,' the younger Specktor writes. On the surface, all is well. In the '70s, Fred bounces from MCA to William Morris to Michael Ovitz's startup, CAA. Katherine, an avid reader who loves James Joyce and modern poetry, tries her hand at screenwriting, with Fred's encouragement. Like most kids, Matthew sees himself as a function of his parents' work and ambitions: 'I am a specimen ready to be deposited into its petri dishes. Let's see what happens when we dose this specimen with Robert Frost and 'The Communist Manifesto.'' But he's also increasingly disarmed by the cracks in the façade. Katherine descends into alcoholism. Fred seems to stifle his ambition, content to be a cog in the industry machine rather than somebody turning the wheels. Or was Fred just smartly laying low? The '80s and '90s would be an era of massive upheaval for the industry, as Ovitz eagerly pursued deals with Japanese investors and the movies had less to do with taking the pulse of American life and more to do with satisfying market quadrants. 'What's happened to the movies, which were filled with ambiguity and intimate strangeness a few short years ago, but now are crammed with spaceships and sharks?' Specktor queries. 'The Golden Hour' is an attempt to preserve ambiguity and strangeness in the face of a culture that's strangled subtlety. Fred Specktor, in his son's eyes, isn't a mere functionary but a man who tried to retain the elements of agenting that felt like making art — negotiation, persuasion. Writers like his mother, James Baldwin (one of his teachers while attending Hampshire College) and Specktor himself are pursuing a noble struggle. The book's style reflects this sensitivity: Rather than rehash war stories or assign blame and responsibility, Specktor writes novelistically, attempting to get into the head of a host of characters, like Wasserman, Ovitz, Baldwin, and… ... Mohamed Atta, one of the 9/11 terrorists? Specktor overreaches a bit in the latter stages of the book, as he tries to show just how much 21st century filmmaking has drifted from its inclusive '60s ethos. As the industry becomes a business of extremes — tentpoles and low-margin indies — he finds it all but impossible to determine what audiences want. To his regret, he passes on a colleague's enthusiasm for 'Fight Club' while working at Jersey Films. ('You think forty-year-old women in Ohio wanna see a movie about dudes beating each other up in basements?') But his hopes to adapt brainy fare like Don DeLillo's 'Underworld' or Shirley Hazzard's 'The Transit of Venus' fail in the face of complex rights deals, disinterest or both. Small wonder, then, that Specktor took to writing novels (he's published two): 'This, my secret life, is the one that feels real,' he writes of his sneaking away to his fiction. And small wonder that he wanted to write a memoir stripped of the form's obvious scaffolding and joints: no declarations of trauma, little effort to make his life exemplify something bigger. Making feelings simplistic is something for the movies, now. But he remembers that it wasn't always thus, and not just for him: The movies have spent a century as a key repository for Americans to dream through what it means to be a citizen. 'They have colonized my imagination like a swarm of bees,' he writes of his teenage self. It was only a matter of time before he got stung. Athitakis is a writer in Phoenix and author of 'The New Midwest.'
