50 TOTALLY RANDOM MOVIE FACTS

Or a guide on how to be nerdier.

This one is for the true believers in the art of cinema, the ones who watch way too many movies and are intimidated by any other topic of conversation. If you find yourself talking to a random person, and having to discuss your breakfast makes you die a little bit inside, educate that muggle and let them know one of the following movie facts. They will love you for this or they will stop talking to you which is kind of the same thing, right?

Enough small talk, let’s see who can memorise all of these faster, shall we?

1. Steven Spielberg makes money out of the Star Wars franchise, even if he didn’t have anything to do with the production of the movie. In the late 70’s, George Lucas was nervous that his movie won’t be a big hit, so he traded points with his good pal Steven Spielberg who was in the middle of directing Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). According to them, they traded 2.5% and Spielberg ended up making way more money out of the gamble as Star Wars became infinitely more successful.
2. The Dark Knight (2008) made more money in the first six days in the US than Batman Begins (2005) made in its entire run.
3. Warner Bros were so happy with Nolan’s work on both of Batman Begins (2005) and The Dark Knight (2008), that they let him have an unlimited budget for Inception (2010).
4. South Park: Bigger Longer and Uncut (1999) uses the f-word 199 times. (They really compromised on that one).
5. Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) is the first movie to ever show a toilet flushing.
6. The film Titanic (1997) costs over 25 times more than the actual ship.
7. Also, in the famous nude drawing scene, the hands we see on screen are those of James Cameron, the director.
8. Sean Connery wore a wig in every Bond movie he starred into.
9. For  Dr. Strangelove (1964), Peter Sellers, the leading actor, was paid 55% of the film’s budget – talk about a great deal.
10. Apparently, Ryan Gosling was cast as Noah in the Nicholas Sparks adaptation The Notebook (2004) because the director wanted someone that was not really handsome.
11. In its original cut, The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) was over 4 hours long, so it had to be reduced even more.
12. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) won all the 11 Academy Awards it was nominated for.
13. Metropolis (1927) was, reportedly, one of Adolf Hitler’s favourite movies.
14. In Tarantino’s Django Unchained (2012), the n-word is said exactly 113 times.
15. The Shawshank Redemption (1994), also known as the #1 movie on IMDB’S Top 250 list, was only the 51^st highest grossing film in 1994.
16. Saw (2004) was filmed in only 18 days.
17. In Catch Me If You Can (2002), the real Frank Abagnale Jr appears as the French policeman that arrests Leonardo DiCaprio.
18. Over 90% of American Movies made before 1929 are lost and no copies are known to exist.
19. Movie trailers used to be played after a movie.
20. In Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction (1994), the f-word is used 265 times. Take that, South Park!
21. James Cameron decided to become a movie director after seeing Star Wars. Before that, he was a truck driver.
22. Yoda was modelled after the appearance of Albert Einstein.
23. According to a study in Academy Awards speeches, Steven Spielberg has been thanked more than God.
24. Actor Sean Bean has died on 32% of his movies, the highest percentage of any living actor.
25. Steven Spielberg declined to direct the Harry Potter franchise because it was too easy to make money out of it and he didn’t see it as a challenge.
26. Each frame of the CGI scenes in Avatar (2009) took almost 47 hours to render.
27. On the set of The Thing (1982) all cast and crew was male.
28. All Wookie suits are made from human hair.
29. Originally, Bill Murray was considered for the role of Han Solo in Star Wars.
30. For his role in The Social Network (2010), Justin Timberlake lost 15-17 pounds in order to look younger.
31. In Inglourious Basterds (2009), only 30% of the film is in English.
32. According to IMDB, the worst movie ever released is Disaster Movie (2008).
33. In the bedroom scene in The Godfather (1972), John Marley’s scream was genuine as he didn’t know they would use a real horse head and not a plastic prop.
34. The name of Edward Norton’s character in Fight Club (1999) is never mentioned.
35. Many of the extras that appear in One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) are actual mental patients.
36. In A Hard Day’s Night (1964), the first Beatles feature, the name of the band isn’t mentioned once.
37. For every one of his 700 words in Terminator2:Judgment Day (1991), Arnold Schwarzenegger was paid approximately $21,429.
38. In order to overcome his stammer, Samuel L. Jackson used the word “motherfucker”.
39. In an alternate ending for Alien: Resurrection (1997), Ripley makes it back to earth.
40. In the original Star Wars, Darth Vader only has 12 minutes of screen time.
41. UP (2009) was the first animated and 3D film to open the Cannes Film Festival.
42. For the floating pen scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) they didn’t use CGI, but camera trickery.
43. Steven Spielberg finished college in 2002, after a 33 year break. For his final student film, he handed in Schindler’s List (1993).
44. Viggo Mortensen only played the role of Aragorn because his son begged him to do so.
45. Sean Connery turned down many roles in The Matrix (1999), Jurassic Park (1993), The Lord of the Rings and Blade Runner (1982).
46. The poop in Trainspotting (1996) was actually made of chocolate.
47. India’s movie industry is the largest in the world, producing over eight hundred movies a year.
48. A number of clocks in the movie Pulp Fiction (1994) are stuck on 4:20.
49. The red slippers from The Wizard of Oz (1939) were sold at an auction for over $600.000.
50. In Toy Story (1995), the carpet design in Sid’s hallway are the same carpet designs from The Shining (1980).

Congratulations, you made it to the end. I now award you with my personal movie nerd seal of approval. It’s a business card size and it involved a lot of designing skills. Also, it’s a good pun.

Written by Daria Stan