Behind the Curtain: 45 Hidden Facts About Your Favorite Films – Part 1

Cartman from South Park described independent films are just about "gay cowboys eating pudding" a full 7 years before the independent film "Brokeback Mountain" came out.

2. Alan Tudyk has had a role in every Disney animated film since "Wreck-It Ralph, including the Duke of Weselton in "Frozen", and a character named Duke Weaselton in "Zootopia".

3. Actress Mercedes McCambridge who dubbed the voice of the demon in "The Exorcist" swallowed raw eggs, chain-smoked and drank whiskey to make her voice harsh. She was bound to a chair during recordings and requested no credit for the film.

4. In responding to why he starred in Jaws: The Revenge, Michael Caine said: "I have never seen the film, but by all accounts it was terrible. However, I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific."

5. The film Memento is lauded by medical experts for its accurate portrayal of anterograde amnesia and is considered "close to a perfect exploration of the neurobiology of memory".

For The "American Psycho" movie, studio wanted Leonardo DiCaprio for the Bateman role and were willing to quadruple the budget to accommodate DiCaprio's $21 million quote. Meanwhile, Christian Bale turned down all roles and auditions for 9 months, confident that DiCaprio would eventually decline the part.

7. Bill Murray considers Groundhog Day the movie he was born to make and probably the best work that he has done. Before that movie, he was seen largely as a clown. After it, he was a complex actor with range.

8. Butterfly McQueen, one of the stars of "Gone with the Wind," was unable to attend the film's premiere because it was held in a whites-only theater.

9. Director Robert Zemeckis, who has approval over all films in the Back to the Future franchise, says that he will block all attempts to remake or reboot the original film.

10. Due to budget issues, the Lord of the Rings trilogy was briefly planned as one film. Helm's Deep and Saruman were cut, Rohan and Gondor merged with Éowyn as Boromir's sister, etc. Upset by the idea of "cutting out half the good stuff," Peter Jackson left Miramax and went to New Line Cinema.

There is a hotline that filmmakers can call for science advice (Science and Entertainment Exchange) with the goal of helping filmmakers incorporate accurate science into their films.

12. A complaint among test audiences for the film "Good Night and Good Luck" was that the actor playing Joseph McCarthy was too over the top and wasn't believable, not realizing that the film used actual archive footage of McCarthy himself.

13. In the entire Lord of the Rings film trilogy, no two female characters ever speak to each other.

14. NBC renewed 'The Office' for a second season, despite mediocre ratings for the first season, because they anticipated that Steve Carell's film, 'The 40-Year-Old Virgin', would make it a rating success - which it did.

15. Bill Murray improvised nearly all his lines in the movie 'Kingpin' and bowled the necessary 3 strikes to win the tournament at the end.

When Uwe Boll (German filmmaker) tried to obtain filming rights for a World of Warcraft movie, Blizzard said: "We will not sell the movie rights, not to you…especially not to you."

17. George Lucas wanted to make a Flash Gordon movie but could not obtain the rights so instead, he created Star Wars.

18. Chris Columbus was originally set to direct National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation movie but dropped out after difficult meetings with star Chevy Chase. Instead, Columbus made Home Alone, the highest grossing Christmas film of all time.

19. Deadpool (2016) is the highest grossing R-rated film of all time, the highest grossing X-Men film, and the highest grossing 20th Century Fox film not directed by James Cameron or George Lucas.

20. Straight Outta Compton movie was never played in Compton because the city has no movie theaters.

The film Saving Private Ryan (1998) was so realistic that not only did veterans leave theaters during the opening scene, but visits to PTSD counselors rose and the Department of Veteran Affairs set up a nationwide hotline for veterans affected by this film.

22. Christopher Lee received Tolkien's blessing to play the role of Gandalf if a movie was ever released, but he played Saruman instead. He was also the only person involved with the Lord of the Rings films to have actually met Tolkien himself.

23. Despite increases in computer power, each Shrek movie has taken about twice as many hours to render as the one before it. Dreamworks calls this "Shrek's Law".

24. Ashton Kutcher tried Steve Jobs' fruitarian diet when getting into character for the JOBS movie and ended up in the hospital because it messed up his pancreatic levels.

25. The reason Sir Christopher Lee does not speak in the 1966 film "Dracula: Prince of Darkness" is because he thought the lines for Dracula were so appalling that he refused to say them.