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

Teacher John Cisna lost 60lbs eating McDonalds 3 times/day for 6 months as part of a teaching lesson against the movie ‘Super Size Me’, stating “As a teacher, I wouldn't show that movie because there's no value…a guy eats uncontrollable amounts, stops exercising, & the world is surprised he puts on weight?”

27. Stephen King never cashed the $5000 check he received for the rights of turning Shawshank Redemption into a movie. Instead, years after the movie came out, he framed the check and gave it back to Mr. Frank Darabont (Director) with a note: "In case you ever need bail money. Love, Steve".

28. Quentin Tarantino wants to stop making movies after his 10th film. The Hateful Eight was his 8th film.

29. After the 2007 movie "The Man From Earth" was illegally shared via BitTorrent, the producer publicly thanked the file sharers because it "lifted the profile of the film far beyond the financier's expectations."

30. Washington Post's movie critic said Groundhog Day would "never be designated a national film treasure by the Library of Congress." In 2006, the film was designated a national film treasure by the Library of Congress.

While filming Hans Gruber's death scene in Die Hard, Alan Rickman was dropped a full second before he expected to fall, resulting in the look of shock present in the film.

32. Steven Spielberg promised Tom Sizemore a role in Saving Private Ryan as long as he never failed a drug test while shooting. If he failed once, even on the last day, Spielberg promised to kick him out of the movie and reshoot all of his scenes with a new actor.

33. WWE Hall of Famer "Rowdy" Roddy Piper broke down in Mickey Rourke's arms after watching a screening of The Wrestler, due to the film's accurate portrayal of the lives many older and independent professional wrestlers live.

34. Charles Lyne, a British filmmaker, raised $8486 to force two people to watch a 10-hour 7-minute movie of paint drying. Those two people were employees of the BBFC, responsible for classifying movies, and the stunt was done to protest the BBFC's power of censorship.

35. Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles premiered at a drive-in movie theater and people riding horses got free admission to watch the movie.

Beck Hansen wrote and composed the music played by the fictional band S*x Bob-omb in the movie "Scott Pilgrim vs. The World".

37. John Cusack once asked his agent to present him with the "craziest, most unproduceable script you can find." His agent presented "Being John Malkovich". Impressed with the script, Cusack auditioned and won a role in the film

38. In the film Dogma, Kevin Smith warned Jason Mewes that he needed to be on point due to the involvement of "real actors," such as Alan Rickman. As a result, Mewes memorized his, and every other character’s dialogue in the screenplay because he "didn't want to piss off that Rickman dude".

39. The Lord of The Rings trilogy was nominated for 800 awards for the entire series and won 475 of them, making the movies the most awarded film series in cinematic history.

40. Keanu Reeves used his profit from The Matrix to buy a motorcycle for all of the movie's stuntmen.

Samuel L. Jackson has a clause in his film contracts that allows him to play golf during film shoots whenever he wants.

42. Tom Hanks intentionally gained 50 pounds to film the first half of Cast Away. He then took a year off to lose the weight and grow out his hair prior to filming the second half. During the break, the director and most of the crew went off to film What Lies Beneath.

43. While directing Jurassic Park, when Spielberg saw CGI of T. rex, he said to stop-motion animator Phil Tippett, "You're out of a job," to which Tippett replied, "Don't you mean extinct?". Spielberg later incorporated this dialogue into the movie.

44. Sleeping Beauty (Aurora) herself only has 18 lines of dialogue in the entire movie.

45. The real owners of Buffalo Bill's house from “The Silence of the Lambs” tried to sell the house for almost a year but couldn't. The house still looks like it did in the film and comes with a signed copy of the book and a thank you note from the film crew.