1Russo Brothers'
Marvel Studios was confident that Russo brothers could direct Captain America: The Winter Soldier after watching the paintball episode of Community, which they directed.
2. 20th Century Fox made so much money off of Star Wars: Return of the Jedi that they were looking for a tax write-off, so they paid for the entirety of a film with little faith behind it. That movie was Revenge of the Nerds.
3. DreamWorks consulted over 300 religious’ experts for The Prince of Egypt. This included biblical scholars, theologians, archaeologists, Egyptologists, clergy, and different religious leaders.
4. Universal Pictures nearly greenlit a sequel to Jaws called, "Jaws 3, People 0", a screwball comedy written by John Hughes. Instead, they made Jaws 3-D, which bombed with critics and at the box office.
5. Disney recalled 3.4 million copies of the children's movie "The Rescuers" because one of the animators inserted a picture of a nude woman into two frames of the movie.
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6Looney Tunes
In the 1930s, Warner Bros. was looking for an effective way to promote its music catalog. They settled on making animated shorts set to their music, calling it "Looney Tunes."
7. Columbia Pictures put a lot of pressure on the makers of "Men in Black" to produce a music video to help the movie succeed. Just weeks before the film’s release, Will Smith devised a last-minute idea to do a dance-off with a CGI alien. Smith spent late nights learning the steps and they shot it in 4 days.
8. Warner Bros. donates royalties made from their 'Tasmanian Devil' character to help fight a facial tumor that is decimating the native species of Tasmanian Devil.
9. 48 hours before Deadpool was greenlit by 20th Century Fox, the studio cut the film's budget by $7-8 million down to $58 million. Numerous changes were made such as having Deadpool forget his bag of guns before the final battle sequence to avoid a costly gun fight in the third act.
10. Pixar spent three years studying the physics of curly hair in order to correctly render Merida's hair in "Brave."
11Spider-Man/007 Rights
In 1999, Columbia Pictures, owned by Sony, relinquished its rights to create 007 films and in return acquired the rights to Spider-Man from MGM for a mere $10 million. Since then, the Spider-Man films have grossed over $6.3 billion at the box office.
12. When Warner Bros. executives suggested adding a third character to "Pinky and The Brain," writers responded to the unwanted input with the episode "Pinky & The Brain And... Larry," which featured a third, superfluous mouse named Larry that added nothing to the plot but repeatedly said "I'm Larry."
13. About 40,000 films were destroyed during the Fox vault fire of 1937. 75% of all 20th Century Fox films from before 1930 were lost. There are actors of whom not a single copy of a single one of their films survives.
14. Disney originally wanted ABBA to do the soundtrack for 'The Lion King'. Later when ABBA said they weren't available, they asked Elton John.
15. For close to a decade, Universal Pictures didn't know it owned the merchandising rights to the film Darkman (1990). It wasn't until toy-maker SOTA asked for a license to make a Darkman action figure that Universal finally looked into it and found out it had owned the rights all along.
16Office Space
Studio executives at 20th Century Fox weren't happy with the footage that was shot for "Office Space", saying "More energy! More energy! We got to reshoot it! You're failing! You're failing!" They also weren't fans of the gangster rap music used in the film until a focus group approved it.
17. Warner Bros. sued an Indian film called "Hari Puttar" and lost. Two reasons the court ruled against Warner Brothers is because "Hari" is a Hindi word with religious connotations and "Puttar" is a Hindi word for son. The film was about a boy who was left "Home Alone."
18. Disney was planning to buy Twitter but then decided to cancel the deal because of the “nastiness” of the social media platform.
19. In 1937, MGM covered up the brutal rape of dancer Patricia Douglas and ruined her reputation and her life.
20. DreamWorks hired 120 former NASA scientists to help them develop technology for films such as "Home," "Rise of the Guardians," "Kung Fu Panda 2," and "How To Train Your Dragon 2."
21Paramount Pictures logo
The mountain in the Paramount Pictures logo is a real mountain named "Artesonraju" in Peru, and not simply an artist's depiction of a mountain.
22. It took Pixar 29 hours to render a single frame from Monsters University. If done on a single CPU it would have taken 10,000 years to finish.
23. Columbia Pictures' contract with the Three Stooges shut the actors out of royalties. Instead, despite headlining in 190 comedy shorts, the Stooges made much of their money doing live shows. When show business slowed down, lead Stooge Moe Howard sold real estate.
24. Warner Bros. canceled 'Home Alone' because they didn't want to spend $14.7 million on it. 21st Century Fox continued the production and the film grossed $476 million worldwide.
25. Miramax was owned by Disney from 1993 to 2005, which means that Pulp Fiction was, in a way, a Disney movie.
