50 Behind the Scene Facts about Movies – Part 2

Elon Musk commissioned Jose Fernandez, the costume designer for Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice, to design the space suits for his SpaceX program, as he wanted the suits to look “bada*s” and “heroic”.

27. The writers of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II, considered changing the duel between Professors Snape and McGonagall into one between Snape and Harry Potter. J.K. Rowling scrapped the idea, believing the duel was a key moment for McGonagall’s character. 

28. The Star Wars: The Force Awakens character Ello Asty is a reference the 1998 Beastie Boys album “Hello Nasty”. His Resistance pilot helmet features the words “Born to Ill” in Aurebesh lettering, which refers to another of their albums, “Licensed to Ill”. Director J.J. Abrams has been known to include Beastie Boys songs in his feature films. 

29. The original screenplay for the Fantastic Four reboot (2015) featured Annihilus and Mole Man as central villains, 60-foot genetically-engineered monster attacking New York City, “a Saving Private Ryan-style finale” set in in war-torn Latveria against an army of Doombots, and Galactus and the Silver Surfer destroying an entire planet in a post-credits scene. These ideas were scrapped to keep costs down.

30. When the Tyrannosaurus Rex rampages through San Diego in The Lost World: Jurassic Park, a Japanese man running through the street quickly says a line in Japanese. Translated into English, he says, “I left Japan to get away from this!” 

The Dark Knight trilogy director Christopher Nolan based his characterization of Bruce Wayne on Teddy Roosevelt, the 26th president of the United States. To Nolan, both characters overcame great personal loss and a traumatic childhood by reinventing themselves and personally taking on crime.

32. Wonder Woman actress Gal Gadot attended law school after she left the Israeli military, with intention of becoming a lawyer, but her agent persuaded her to drop out in order to audition for the role of a “Bond girl” in Quantum of Solace, a part she did not ultimately receive.

33. Director David Ayer hired an on-set therapist to help the cast of Suicide Squad deal with the “torment” of their roles between takes. 

34. Director Tobe Hooper hoped that by implying much of the violence off-screen and limiting foul language, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre would receive a “PG" rating. The Rating Board insisted on nothing less than an “R” rating based on the story alone, and the British censors downright rejected the film.

35. Stan Lee’s least favorite casting in a Marvel movie has been Julian McMahon as Doctor Doom in the 2005 Fantastic Four film, which he found disappointing. 

Concerned that the Chewbacca costume would be mistaken for Bigfoot while they filmed in the forests of Northern California, the production crew of Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi wore brightly-colored vests to stand near the actor in order to not alarm any local hikers or hunters.

37. Writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick worked alongside Ryan Reynolds on Deadpool for over six years. When FOX Studios wouldn’t pay the writers to be on set every day to come up with new jokes and fine-tune scenes, Reynold paid them out of his own pocket.

38. According to David S. Goyer, the co-screenwriter of Man of Steel, Superman’s suit in the movie was designed as if it were alien underwear that “battle armor goes on top of,” a nod to the long history of superhero outfits looking like spandex undergarments.

39. Though Quicksilver’s slow-motion sequence in X-Men: Apocalypse is less than three minutes long, it took one and a half months to film, thus causing Evan Peters to work more days on the production than any other actor.

40. The USS Franklin, as seen in Star Trek Beyond, was named after the father of Justin Lin, the film’s director. His father, whose name is Frank Lin, is a Taiwanese immigrant who latched on to the show in his youth due to its “sense of exploration and discovery, and hope.”

To promote the release of Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer in 2007, Fox Studios illegally altered the backs of 40,000 U.S. quarters with the appearance of the Silver Surfer, to the ire of the U.S. Mint.

42. Daniel Radcliffe admitted that he wasn’t really a fan of the Harry Potter books as a child, and only really read them after he had been cast in the movie franchise.

43. Deadpool forgetting his bag of weapons in a taxi in the final act of this film was the result of over $7 million dollars being cut from the movie’s budget right before the script was greenlighted, forcing the writers to trim down the bombastic action sequence.

44. Jared Leto claims that he shot enough footage as the Joker for Suicide Squad that an entire full-length film could be made out of all of his scenes that were cut from the final movie.

45. Director Christopher Nolan initially had no idea how the Joker’s pencil trick could be performed practically while shooting The Dark Knight. Though CGI was considered, in the end, the stuntman just pulled the pencil away before his head hit the desk.

Director David Ayer initially wanted to add King Shark to the line-up of the Suicide Squad movie but replaced the character with Killer Croc when he realized it would take a lot of CG work to bring his original choice to film.

47. Since George Lucas was originally planning on making 11 more Star Wars movies after the success of the first film, Boba Fett was created with the intention of becoming the central villain of Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi. However, shortly after production on the second film began, Lucas decided to end the series with Episode VI, and Fett’s role was heavily reduced.

48. Clark Gregg’s Agent Coulson was not intended to reappear in the Marvel Cinematic Universe past the first Iron Man film. It wasn’t until a contract dispute with Samuel L. Jackson caused Nick Fury’s role in Thor to be dropped, and Clark Gregg was asked to reappear in a larger role.

49. Marc Webb, the director of the ‘The Amazing Spider-Man’ film series, hinted that a third film would have introduced Venom as the villain and featured a formula that could regenerate dead characters, like Captain Stacey and possibly even Gwen.

50. Due to alleged contract disputes and the claim of a mild back injury, Tobey Maguire was nearly fired from Spider-Man 2 and replaced by Jake Gyllenhaal.