Nothing racks up the ticket sales quite like a "based on a true story" tagline.
But as we all know, Hollywood’s version of the truth doesn’t always add up to the
actual fact.
Sure, crazy things happen in real life all the time, but screenwriters still can’t
seem to resist juicing up the story to make things better — and bigger.
"Evolution has programmed our fabulous male brains to take anything anybody else thinks
is important and make it bigger!"
So what’s real and what isn’t?
Here’s a look at some "true story" movies that were anything but.
The Revenant
Historical fact checkers had a field day with Alejandro G. Iñárritu's Oscar-winning 2015
film The Revenant.
While Hugh Glass, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, was a real frontiersman who survived some
perilous obstacles — yes, even a bear fight — there were still plenty of made-up moments
the movie added for dramatic flair.
According to historical record, Glass did not have a son, so the movie's entire plot
about him seeking vengeance against the men who killed his kid was completely fabricated.
And while Glass did go after John Fitzgerald — played by Tom Hardy — for leaving him
to die in the woods, Glass never actually got the opportunity to have a face-to-face
showdown like he did in the movie.
Instead, he gave up his search after finding out that Fitzgerald had become an Army member,
and was thus protected by the federal government.
Talk about anticlimactic.
"Aw man, you're more of a letdown than Fruit Stripe gum."
The Walk
Let's just get this out of the way: yes, Philippe Petit's nail-biting tightrope walk between
the two towers of the World Trade Center was real, and many of the scenes and details depicted
in The Walk were true.
That includes Petit's lack of a harness or a safety net, his previous walk between the
towers of Notre Dame in 1971, and the buildings' natural sway in the wind.
And Petit really was arrested for the stunt, but the charges were dropped as long as he
did a free performance at Central Park.
But some of the details were, well, rearranged to suit the pace and personality of the film.
Petit and his team actually had to do three trips to New York to prepare, instead of the
one shown in the flick.
And according to Bustle, in real life Petit hooked up with a groupie after being released
by police, leading to his breakup with Annie Allix, who in the movie was played by Charlotte
Le Bon.
Cheating on the lady who flew across the world just to help you achieve your goals?
That's a whole different kind of tightrope walk.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Tobe Hooper's groundbreaking 1974 low-budget horror film The Texas Chainsaw Massacre may
have been advertised as a true story, but it's far from it.
While Leatherface is arguably on the Mount Rushmore of famous horror movie villains,
he really didn't get his sadistic swag from a real-life chainsaw-wielding maniac.
Like Psycho's Norman Bates and countless other creepybad guys...
"It rubs the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again."
...Leatherface was loosely based on the real-life killer Ed Gein.
Gein, who confessed to killing two women, was known for exhuming corpses from graveyards
and making keepsakes and furniture out of their remains.
While these actions heavily influenced the creation of Leatherface, his family, and the
decor of the Sawyers' household, that's about it when it comes to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
being a true story.
Cinderella Man
Ron Howard's 2005 biopic Cinderella Man wasn't too off the mark when it came to the central
story of boxer James J. Braddock, a heavyweight champ who came back from bitter defeat to
win the belt from Max Baer.
However, the movie also turned Braddock’s in-the-ring nemesis into an over-the-top cinematic
villain — nothing like Baer was in real life.
While it's true that Baer accidentally killed opponent Frankie Campbell in the ring, Baer’s
son, Max Baer, Jr., was reportedly enraged by the scoundrel his father was portrayed
to be in the movie.
He said, "the portrayal of my father in Cinderella Man couldn't have been more wrong and inaccurate.
They turned a good-hearted, fun-loving, friendly and warm human being who hated boxing into
Mr. T from Rocky III with no redeeming characteristics."
"No I don’t hate Balboa, but I pity the fool, and I will destroy any man who tries
to take what I got."
Baer himself was once was quoted as saying, "Nothing that ever happened to me — nothing
that can happen to me — affected me like the death of Frankie Campbell."
He ended up raising money for Campbell's widow and son, and claimed to have nightmares about
the man’s death.
The Fourth Kind
The 2009 sci-fi thriller The Fourth Kind was marketed as the true story of the mysterious
disappearance of several people from Nome, Alaska in October 2000.
"Every scene in this movie is supported by archived footage.
Some of what you're about to see is extremely disturbing."
The mayor of the town, Denise Michels, cautioned that the supposed true story that inspired
the movie is quite different than what was shown, and this has caused her town's officials
some immense headaches from truth-hunters who called in after the film's release.
Michels told CNN, "People need to realize that this is a science fiction thriller.
Some of the calls I'm just ignoring because the issue we had to deal with in real life
was very sensitive."
What really happened was a string of traveler disappearances in 2005, which the FBI investigated
and determined was caused by a combination of alcohol consumption and freezing temperatures
in the area.
The fact that the movie poised itself as a combination of actual documentary footage,
spliced together with mere dramatizations of the same, was a convincing seat-filler
in the vein of The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity.
But the movie was ultimately labeled a hoax for its blatant misrepresentations of the
truth.
Not that anybody was really surprised.
Catch Me If You Can
Steven Spielberg's 2002 caper movie Catch Me If You Can wouldn't have been the same
without the thrilling game of cat and mouse that played out between Tom Hanks' FBI agent
Carl Hanratty and Leonardo DiCaprio's version of the real-life Frank Abagnale.
But if the movie had really echoed reality, Tom Hanks wouldn't have been a part of it
at all.
According to USA Today, Hanks' character was actually a combination of multiple agents
who'd followed Abagnale through his many careers in con artistry.
One of the first scams Abagnale pulled off in the movie was a fabrication built just
for the big screen: namely when Abagnale, a high schooler himself, convinces a class
that he's their substitute French teacher.
That didn't happen.
Abagnale also called shenanigans on the scene in which DiCaprio's character calls up his
nemesis in the FBI out of sheer desperation and loneliness on Christmas Eve.
He asked, "Why would I do that?
I didn't want the FBI to know where I was."
Good Morning Vietnam
The real-life account of Adrian Cronauer's time as a plucky disc jockey during the Vietnam
War is plenty intriguing.
But when Robin Williams stepped in to portray Cronauer in Good Morning Vietnam, things took
a definite turn towards left field.
"Let's try something.
Let's play this backwards and see if it gets any better…"
The real Cronauer admitted at the American Veterans Center's 2008 conference that he
wasn't quite as kooky in reality as his onscreen persona:
"Well, those of you who had been in the military know, if I had done half of the stuff Robin
Williams did in that movie, I'd still be in Leavenworth this morning instead of Washington."
Among the major jumps from reality was the fact that Cronauer wasn't actually kicked
out of Vietnam as a result of his on-air antics, and most of the lines were ad-libbed by Williams.
Cronauer admitted, "Williams is the disc jockey I would have liked to be …The movie is much
more interesting than the experiences I had…Robin Williams is very funny.
I'm not."
Still, the most famous line in the movie…
"Gooooooood morning, Vietnam!"
...came directly from Cronauer.
So at least the title of the movie's accurate.
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