48 Magnificent Movie Facts That’ll Blow You Away – Part 7

In test screenings, Willy Wonka had a scene with a hiker seeking a guru, asking him the meaning of life. The guru requests a Wonka Bar. Finding no golden ticket, he says, "Life is a disappointment." The director loved it, but few laughed. A psychologist told him that the message was too real.

2. While shooting for Deliverance (1972), Burt Reynolds insisted on doing a stunt by himself instead of a dummy. During the stunt, he got injured and his clothes came off. Waking up in hospital, he asked the director what it looked like, who said, "It looked like a dummy falling over a waterfall.'

3. Prolonged usage of Mystique’s blue body paint caused Rebecca Romijn’s vomit to turn blue. She threw up on Hugh Jackman after shooting tequila during their final scenes together in X-Men.

4. In Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse, for certain scenes such as the forest swinging scene, Miles was animated at 12 frames a second while Peter was animated at 24 frames a second, making Miles look less smooth. This was done to show Miles' inexperience at being Spiderman compared to Peter.

5. Peter Cushing, the actor who played Grand Moff Tarkin in the Star Wars series, found his costume's boots to be very uncomfortable. Any time his feet were not visible in the shot he would be wearing comfy slippers. So Grand Moff Tarkin destroyed Alderaan wearing comfy slippers.

Directing the famous "Truffle Shuffle" scene was so uncomfortable that "The Goonies'" director Richard Donner bought the actor who plays Chunk a gym membership and took a personal interest in his fitness. Jeff Cohen went on to be captain of his high school football and wrestling teams.

7. In the movie Full Metal Jacket, the actor that played Gunnery Sergeant Hartman (R. Lee Ermey) came up with 150 pages of insults on his own. The actor who was originally going to play the role couldn't yell for more than 30 minutes, but when Ermey stepped in and took over, his energy never let up.

8. In the film Candyman (1992), Tony Todd negotiated a fee of $1000 for each time he was stung during the bee scene. He walked away with $23,000.

9. The movie "Paranormal Activity" (2007) had a budget of only $15,000 but made $194 million. During the screening, when people were walking out, one studio executive thought the film was bombing. They later learned that the viewers were actually leaving because they were too frightened.

10. The famous line from the film Captain Phillips "Look at me. I’m the captain now” was improvised by actor Barkhad Abdi who had no prior acting experience.

Test audiences hated 'Dirty Dancing' and the producer was so disappointed in the final product he said "Burn the negative, and collect the insurance." Expected to be a box office bomb, instead was a smash hit, was the #1 video rental of 1988, and was the first film to sell a million copies on video.

12. Donnie Darko was filmed in 28 days which, coincidentally, virtually matches the time that transpired in the film. The movie took place between October 2nd, 1988 to the weekend party scene before Halloween on October 31st, 1988.

13. There were 4 dogs used in the film “Cujo” (1983) and they all had to have their tails tied down by fishing wire to make them appear menacing because they were all wagging their tails the entire time.

14. The budget for the original 1978 film Halloween was so small that the actor playing Michael Myers was paid $20 per day and the original Michael Myers mask was purchased at a local costume shop for $1.29. The film grossed $47 million.

15. In Billy Madison, Sandler shot the infamous dodgeball scene using a real ball. He threw the balls as hard as he could at the kids. They cut the scene after each kid was hit so we wouldn’t see them crying.

The head-in-the-box ending of "Se7en" was originally rejected by the studio, but David Fincher was accidentally sent the original screenplay with that ending, convincing him to make the movie. The producer still objected to it, but Brad Pitt refused to act in the film unless the scene was kept.

17. After a screening of the film The Elephant Man, studio executives recommended the surreal scenes be cut. Producer Mel Brooks responded: "We screened the film to bring you up to date as to the status of that venture. Do not misconstrue this as our soliciting the input of raging primitives."

18. The scene in Fight Club where Tyler is explaining the cost of a recall when "A car built by my company crashes and burns with everyone trapped inside" is based on actual leaked memos from GM and Ford.

19. During the filming of 'The Princess Bride', the actor playing Count Rugen (Christopher Guest) inadvertently knocked Cary Elwes out when he tapped him on the head too hard with the butt of his sword. The scene of Westley falling to the ground unconscious is real.

20. The name of the movie “Moana” was changed to “Oceania” in Italy because there was a porn star named Moana already in Italy.

The name of the movie "Death Wish III" was changed to "Death Wish 3" because the Cannon Group conducted a survey and found that nearly half of the U.S. population could not read Roman numerals

22. The parade scene in Ferris Bueller's Day Off was shot during the actual parade and nobody knew what it was, including all the people on the reviewing stand, including the governor.

23. After screening the 1985 John Hughes film, The Breakfast Club, for the first time, studio executives stood up without saying a word. When the producer finally spoke, he said "It's a piece of sh*t. It's horrible. It's just a bunch of kids in school talking."

24. Since the studio didn’t have enough budget to shoot Riddick (2013), Vin Diesel had to mortgage his house, obtain loans, and spend most of his own money on the production.

25. While filming 'Das Boot', an actor fell overboard and broke a few ribs. Someone shouted, "Man overboard!" The director didn’t realize it was an accident and yelled, "Good idea, Jan." He still kept the scene and rewrote the actor’s part so his character spent the rest of the movie in bed.