Doc Brown’s DeLorean DMC-12 from Back to the Future is one of the most famous time
machines in the history of cinema.
But did you know that Marty McFly was originally supposed to head back to 1955 in something
that looked like an old refrigerator?
Hi, I’m Erin McCarthy, Editor-in-Chief of MentalFloss.com, and this is The List Show.
In 2010, Back to the Future producer and co-writer Bob Gale told CNN that an early draft of the
script described the time travel vehicle as a “‘time chamber,’ not unlike a refrigerator,
and Doc Brown had to carry it on the back of his truck.”
Which, let’s face it, wouldn’t have looked nearly as cool — in 1955 or 1985.
And that’s just the first of many fascinating facts I’ll be sharing with you today about
some of your favorite films as we celebrate the release of Mental Floss’s newest book,
The Curious Movie Buff.
We’ll talk about some unbelievable casting what-ifs from the making of Die Hard and touch
on a pope’s unexpected taste in movies (which, sadly, as far as I know, does not include
a pontiff weighing in on whether John McClane is appearing in a Christmas movie).
Let’s get started.
Back to the Future isn’t the only ‘80s sci-fi comedy that experienced a time machine
switcheroo.
In the original script for Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, the eponymous dudes played
by Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves were originally supposed to travel back in time to meet historical
figures via a 1969 Chevy van; director Stephen Herek suggested they change it to a phone
booth to avoid comparisons with a certain DeLorean.
Of course, a phone booth opens up even more obvious comparisons to the TARDIS from Doctor
Who—but as Bill and Ted co-writer Chris Matheson admitted, “All of us were so clueless
and knew nothing about Doctor Who.”
Speaking of Keanu Reeves: Much of his character’s story from Gus Van Sant’s 1991 indie hit
My Own Private Idaho was based on William Shakespeare’s version of Henry IV—complete
with the occasional Keanu line that sounds like something the Bard himself might have
written.
For a much more direct adaptation of Shakespeare, one need look no further than Baz Luhrmann’s
1996 adaptation of Romeo + Juliet, which starred Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes as the
famously star-crossed lovers.
Luhrmann told ScreenSlam that he wanted to prove that Shakespeare wasn’t for snobs
and to “smash what I call ‘club Shakespeare.’”
Baz Luhrman also seems like the kind of guy who would open up an actual nightclub called
“Club Shakespeare,” but that’s neither here nor there.
The filmmaker was especially committed to his democratizing goal because he was intimidated
by Shakespeare as a kid, and didn’t really connect with the legendary playwright’s
work until he saw a psychedelic performance of Twelfth Night—an experience he hoped
to recreate, in his own way, for the film’s viewers.
If Die Hard was to be a success, the studio knew they needed a bona fide action star in
the part, so they offered the part to Bruce Willis … after offering it to just about
every other male actor of the day.
Rumor has it that Sylvester Stallone, Harrison Ford, Robert De Niro, Charles Bronson, Nick
Nolte, Mel Gibson, Richard Gere, Don Johnson, Burt Reynolds, and Richard Dean Anderson (yes,
MacGyver!) were all considered for the role of John McClane.
And all declined it.
Die Hard is based on Roderick Thorp’s 1979 novel, which was a sequel to his 1966 novel
The Detective, which was adapted into a film starring Frank Sinatra in 1968.
As such, 20th Century Fox was contractually obligated to first offer the role of John
McClane in Die Hard to Sinatra.
According to de Souza, Sinatra said “I’m too old and too rich to act any more,” which
was fortunate for Bruce.
For the record: I am firmly in the camp that Die Hard IS a Christmas movie.
Feel free to express your outrage in the comments.
Bob Clark is also partially responsible for *two* Christmas classics, in two very different
genres.
Before he co-wrote and directed 1983’s A Christmas Story, he helmed Black Christmas.
It concerns a group of sorority sisters who are systematically picked off by a man who
keeps making threatening phone calls to their house.
God bless us, everyone.
Quentin Tarantino originally conceived of The Hateful Eight as a sequel to Django Unchained.
But as he began writing, the filmmaker realized that something didn’t feel right about having
Django in the middle of the new story.
“I thought it should be a room of bad guys, and you can’t trust a word anybody says,”
Tarantino said during a Q&A at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Austin, Texas, in 2015.
After Total Recall became a box office hit in 1990, writer Gary Goldman optioned the
rights to the Philip K. Dick story “The Minority Report,” which director Paul Verhoeven
felt could be turned into a Total Recall sequel.
However, Carolco Pictures, which owned the rights to both Total Recall and Minority Report,
went out of business, so the sequel project ended up with Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise.
The film Coming to America mines laughs from the conspicuous similarity of McDowell’s
and another, slightly more famous fast food establishment.
But the real-life location of McDowell’s is actually along Queens Boulevard, where
a Wendy’s once stood (it’s since been demolished).
Spike Lee, an avid cinephile and a student of film history, is such a massive fan of
Charles Laughton’s The Night of the Hunter that he dropped part of it into the middle
of Do the Right Thing.
Bill Nunn’s Radio Raheem carries the knuckle ring version of Robert Mitchum’s Night of
the Hunter character’s “Love” and “Hate” tattoos.
He explains their existence using almost the exact same monologue used in the 1955 classic.
Richard Dreyfus was originally cast in the starring role of Joe Gideon in Bob Fosse’s
All That Jazz.
He backed out shortly before filming began because of what were deemed “artistic differences.”
He said he later regretted the decision.
And before Robert Downey Jr. took on the role of Tony Stark, several other stars were in
contention for the role.
The most famous of these close-calls might be Tom Cruise, who took an interest in the
role before the IP’s movie rights were back with Marvel.
Another contender from those pre-Marvel Studios days was Nicolas Cage, but he too ultimately
fell by the wayside.
By the time the character made it back home to Marvel, the studio considered Colin Farrell
and Patrick Dempsey for the part.
They’re both fine actors, but I don’t know: Robert Downey Jr. *is* Iron Man.
Many religious organizations disapproved of Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Jesus
Christ Superstar, a hippie-ish rock opera about the days leading up to Jesus’s crucifixion.
But Pope Paul VI, for one, supposedly enjoyed it.
After a private screening, as Ted Neeley (who played Jesus) remembered it, the pope called
it a “beautiful” movie that would help promote Christianity.
Sergio Leone turned down the chance to direct The Godfather to focus on his own crime saga,
Once Upon a Time in America.
Speaking of The Godfather, the infamous horse head that makes an appearance in the film
wasn’t a convincing model.
The production got a real horse’s head from a local dog food company.
In The Godfather: Part II, Robert De Niro’s Vito Corleone speaks almost exclusively in
a Sicilian dialect.
He actually only spoke eight words of English in the whole movie.
Ryan Gosling’s unnamed character in Drive is even more taciturn.
Despite being the star of the film, he speaks just 116 lines, total.
Gosling had just made and promoted the dialogue-heavy Blue Valentine and said he was “tired of
talking.”
When Ash storms a work shed to arm himself for a showdown with the Deadites in The Evil
Dead, keen-eyed horror fans can spot Freddy Krueger’s razor glove hanging on the wall.
Its appearance was part of a long-standing tradition between director Sam Raimi and A
Nightmare on Elm Street’s Wes Craven; the two regularly referenced one another’s work
in shots.
Craven based A Nightmare on Elm Street on a series of newspaper articles from the Los
Angeles Times about a strange phenomenon where young Asian refugees mysteriously died in
their sleep.
It was reported that many refused to sleep, citing terrifying nightmares that they feared
would lead to death.
Heather Langenkamp is best known for playing Nancy in the Elm Street series, but she also
played a part in Drew Goddard’s Cabin in the Woods—behind the scenes, that is.
Langenkamp and her husband David LeRoy Anderson do prosthetic makeup, monster costumes, and
makeup effects through their company AFX Studio.
The one-time scream queen is listed in the 2012 film’s credits as Heather L. Anderson.
You might not expect Mel Brooks to have contributed a famous line to the body horror canon, but
he did.
David Cronenberg, director of The Fly, revealed in a commentary track that the movie’s iconic
line “Be afraid, be very afraid” originated with Brooks, while discussing how characters
should react to the early stages of Seth Brundle’s transformation.
The quote became one of the film’s taglines.
Writer/director Amy Heckerling crafted a different type of iconic dialogue when she had Clueless’s
Cher Horowitz say “As if!” to a would-be suitor.
And Alicia Silverstone can thank Aerosmith for her role in the film.
Heckerling’s casting director first pitched Silverstone for Cher based on her performance
in The Crush, but Heckerling wanted that fascinating blonde girl from the music video for Aerosmith’s
“Cryin’.”
Lucky for Silverstone, she was one and the same.
All the President’s Men is one of very few PG films to include the f-word.
Characters in the movie actually drop a total of 10 f-bombs.
Justin Lin (who would later become known for his work in the Fast and Furious franchise)
made a splash in Hollywood with his breakthrough film Better Luck Tomorrow.
It was produced on a shoestring budget of $250,000— $10,000 of which was provided
by MC Hammer.
The rapper had so much faith in Lin that he immediately agreed to sign on as producer
when the filmmaker called him asking for cash.
As we all know, you don’t turn your back on your family.
Or on an aspiring filmmaker whose work you want to support out of the goodness of your
parachute pants.
In Disney’s animated version of Beauty and the Beast, The Beast has the mane of a lion,
the beard and head of a buffalo, the brow of a gorilla, the eyes of a human, the tusks
of a wild boar, the body of a bear, and the legs and tail of a wolf.
He also—as one of the film’s animators, Glen Keane, once claimed— “ … has a
rainbow bum, but nobody knows that but Belle.”
On the subject of things kids were never meant to see: In spring of 2018, families settled
into their seats at an Australian movie theater for a showing of the film Peter Rabbit.
By accident, the cinema played a trailer for the decidedly un-family friendly Ari Aster
movie Hereditary.
At least 40 children were in the theater, and they were understandably upset.
The cinema gave out free movie passes as an apology, though some free therapy might have
also been welcomed.
Not quite as illicit: In 2010, Bend It Like Beckham became the very first Western-made
movie to air on television in North Korea.
Though authorities heavily edited the movie in order to make it work for the broadcasting
schedule, it was still a landmark in North Korean broadcasting history.
Julie Dash’s Daughters of the Dust has fans in high places.
Even higher, arguably, than the supreme leader of a country.
Beyonce referenced the 1991 film in the visuals of the hour-long film that accompanied her
album, Lemonade.
That nod helped lead to a twenty-fifth anniversary re-release of Daughters of the Dust in theaters.
What’s your favorite movie of all time?
Drop a recommendation in the comments below, and if you love movie history check out Mental
Floss’s book chock-full of fun facts and interesting info.
There’s a link in the description below if you’re interested.
We’ll see you next time!
There was not a single Titanic fact in that script.
There was...
You cut it?!