50 Incredible Behind the Scene Movie Facts – Part 11

Director Stewart Raffill was approached by a man who had a giant animatronic T-Rex and wanted to get rid of it, and so the idea for the 1994 film Tammy and the T-Rex was born. He approached Raffill with the idea of turning it into a film, and once Raffill gave his blessing, the script was written in a matter of days.

27. Actor John Rhys-Davies, who portrayed Gimli in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, stands at a lofty 6 feet, 1 inch (1.85 metres), towering over his hobbit co-stars, who average about 5 feet, 6 inches (1.68 metres) in height. This made filming considerably simpler.

28. The stars of the "Fast and Furious" films fought hard to get their contract demands met so that their characters could take fewer blows, and they refused to concede defeat. The contracts of actors like Jason Statham, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, and Vin Diesel limited how much damage their characters could take in fights. Vin Diesel even came up with a way to keep track of all the kicks, punches, and headbutts.

29. Since there was already a children's programme called "The Ghost Busters" in the 1970s, it was forbidden to use that name during the production of Ghostbusters (1984). So, there were other names, one of which was "Ghostsmashers." In the end, the studio was able to acquire the rights to use the name.

30. Godzilla (1985) was supposed to have a comic tone when it was first filmed, but the performers refused. Since Raymond Burr saw Godzilla as a metaphor against nuclear war, he refused to take the character lightly, and Warren Kemmerling flat-out refused to work on any comedic projects.

Tchaikovsky's ballet music was used for the entirety of the score for the Disney film "Sleeping Beauty." The writers at Disney just wrote the lyrics to "Once Upon a Dream" over the music. It's quite strange that they didn't use the theme in either of the Maleficent movies, but they did use it in one of the trailers.

32. In the film Arachnophobia, the biggest spider was a bird-eating spider dubbed Big Bob after the actor Robert Zemekis. Big Bob was adopted by a crew member named Jamie Hyneman, who later went on to host Mythbusters. A hairdryer and some lemon-scented spray were used to control the little spiders in the film.

33. Both "The Spy Who Loved Me" and "Moonraker" deviated so far from Ian Fleming's novels that Eon Productions allowed the films' screenwriter, Christopher Wood, to pen novelizations instead of promoting Fleming's books.

34. While filming The Godfather, James Caan became friends with Carmine Persico, often known as "The Snake," a feared mafioso and future boss of the Colombo criminal family. At the time, Caan was a relatively unknown actor, so government investigators at first thought he was a wannabe gangster.

35. The story for "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly" was made up on the spot at a meeting. When its Italian director met with Hollywood producers, they asked him what kind of film he was thinking of making, and then, within a matter of minutes, they came up with the whole plot of the movie on the spot.

Due to its treatment of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LQBTQ) topics—including cross-dressing—the 1959 film "Some Like It Hot" was made without the blessing of the Hays Code, a set of standards for self-censorship that had been widely used in Hollywood for decades. The movie's overwhelming commercial success became a major factor in the abandonment of the code.

37. Before becoming "License to Kill" in 1989, the title of this James Bond film was "License Revoked." The name was modified in post-production after it was found that test audiences in the United States associated the word with driver's licences.

38. After filming had wrapped on Independence Day, the directors decided to incorporate a line from Jurassic Park, with Jeff Goldblum saying, "Must go faster! must go faster," into the movie.

39. The whole "Terminator" score by Brad Fiedel was recorded as a live performance. He had to use only an Oberheim synthesiser to play while changing tempos and making them sync up. Gale Anne Hurd claims this occurred when extra sequences were being inserted during post-production.

40. Heat was directed by Michael Mann twice: initially as a low-budget TV movie in 1989, and later as a big-budget box office hit in 1995. Both films follow the same basic narrative and have many of the same sequences, although the remake features Robert De Niro and Al Pacino. Heat is now widely considered a classic in the crime film genre.

Dan Akroyd created Dr. Peter Venkman (Ghostbusters) for John Belushi. After Belushi's death, Akroyd rewrote the part for Bill Murray and built Slimer on Belushi's wild personality. Silmer was the product of 3-gram cocaine, cost over $30,000, and took six months to design.

42. The budget for Sahara (2005) ballooned from $80 million to $160 million due to problems behind the scenes, crew disputes, and allegations of breaches of international law. Bribes to the Moroccan government were included, some of which may have been illegal under American law. It earned $119 million, but it wasn't enough to cover its expenses, making it one of the largest box office bombs ever.

43. The initial script for the 2012 remake of Red Dawn had the invading army coming from China. To gain entry into the Chinese market, the studio changed all references to China to North Korea during post-production. Despite this, the film was never released in China.

44. After filming had wrapped on Caddyshack in 1980, the mechanical gopher was created and filmed at a cost of around $500,000. In post-production, it was proposed that the gopher be included in a larger plot to help tie together the initial cut, which was a cocaine-fueled mess.

45. As a result of macro photographer Peter Parks' innovative ideas and little CGI, the visual effects for the 2006 movie "The Fountain" cost only $140,000 on a budget of $35 million for the whole movie.

Anticommunist and right-wing groups picketed theatres showing Spartacus in 1960 because of the uproar it caused. A picket line was drawn up by anticommunist organisers, and the controversy persisted until newly elected US President John F. Kennedy crossed it to watch the movie.

47. The studio behind the 2018 animated film "The Grinch" wanted British actor Benedict Cumberbatch to voice the role in his native voice, but Cumberbatch insisted that the character should have an American accent to match the rest of the cast.

48. The first sequence of the stunt-filled film "Hot Rod" has a stuntman who breaks his femur after a botched jump. No dummies were used in the making of the film.

49. When it came to surround sound, Walt Disney's Fantasia (1940) was the first film to use up to six channels of audio.

50. The first movie to be done entirely in American Sign Language was Deafula, which came out in 1975. When it first came out, it didn't have an audio track, but it later got a dub for hearing audiences.