1. The 1997 movie Titanic cost more to make than the actual ship that sank. The movie cost $200 million. The actual costs to construct the ship between 1910 to 1912 were $7.5 million and when you adjust that amount for inflation, it would come out to around $125 million in 1997 dollars.
2. In order to prevent anybody spoiling the ending of the movie, Alfred Hitchcock attempted to purchase every copy of the 1959 Robert Bloch book Psycho was based on.
3. The Hannibal Lechter role that Anthony Hopkins made famous was originally supposed to be played by Gene Hackman. How weird would that be?
4. James Earl Jones and Madge Sinclair played King Jaffe Joffer and Queen Aoleon (aka mom and dad) in Coming to America and also voiced the mother and the father characters in The Lion King (aka Mufasa and Sarabi).
5. The samurai scene in Kill Bill where The Bride fights against the Crazy 88 was so bloody that the MPAA wanted director Quentin Tarantino to cut it in order to maintain an “R” rating. To get around it, he altered the colors in the scene to black and white.
6. All the journals featured in Seven were hand-written and took two months to complete. CREEPY.
7. Also Brad Pitt broke his arm during filming and the injury had to be written into the script.
8. Well this is gross: Robert Downey Jr. was allegedly so mad at director David Fincher for the long hours on set while filming Zodiac that he he would leave jars of pee around the set in protest.
9. Lol, Ryan Gosling was cast in The Notebook because the director wanted someone who was unattractive.
10. In order to create Smaug’s lair in The Hobbit, the film’s crew used up ALL THE GOLD PAINT IN NEW ZEALAND. That’s a lot of gold paint.
11. So that weird chest beating thing that Matthew McConaughey does in Wolf of Wall Street? It’s actually an acting warm up exercise he does in real life. Leo DiCaprio apparently saw him do it and insisted it go into the film. Sounds about right.
12. So how long is Bill Murray actually stuck in Punxsutawney in Groundhog Day?According to director Harold Ramis, “It takes at least 10 years to get good at anything, and allotting for the down time and misguided years he spent, it had to be more like 30 or 40 years€.” There you have it.
13. The muddy tunnel that Tim Robbins is crawling through when he escapes prison in Shawshank Redemption was actually constructed from sawdust, chocolate syrup and water.
14. Also, the mugshot of Red used in the film is Morgan Freeman’s real-life son Alfonso.
15. The dinosaur sounds in Jurassic Park are actually tortoises having sex.
16. The carpets in The Shining and Toy Story 3 are identical. WTF? It miiiight be because Toy Story 3 director Lee Unkrich is a huge The Shining fan, and runs a fan site called The Overlook Hotel.
17. Sean Connery was actually wearing a wig while playing James Bond.
18. And ironically, his fellow Bond Roger Moore suffered from hoplophobia, which is a fear of firearms.
19. The mask Michael Meyers wears in the Halloween franchise is actually a William Shatner mask that’s been painted white. HOW CREEPY.
20. Heath Ledger kissed Jake Gyllenhaal so hard during a scene in Brokeback Mountain that he almost broke his nose.
21. Porn star Ron Jeremy was an extra in the original Ghostbusters.
22. Actor Daniel Day-Lewis is such a stickler for method acting that when he played paraplegic Christy Brown in My Left Foot he refused to leave his wheelchair on set and required to be spoon-fed.
23. Speaking of Daniel Day-Lewis, the actor who was original supposed to play Eli Sunday opposite DDL in There Will Be Blood dropped out of the role reportedly because he was intimidated by the actor’s method ways. Paul Dano was asked to switch roles at the last minute and was given only four days to prepare.
24. And the famous line from that movie? It was reportedly based on something real-life United States Senator from New Mexico Albert B. Fall said: “Sir, if you have a milkshake and I have a milkshake and my straw reaches across the room, I’ll end up drinking your milkshake.”
25. The most famous movie sound effect in history is known as the Wilhelm Scream. The sound was first recorded in the 1951 Gary Cooper movie Distant Drums, and has found its way into more than 200 films since then.
26. The crazy outfits that Elizabeth Banks wears as Effie Trinket in the Hunger Games trilogy were actually designed by Alexander McQueen.
27. Robert Pattinson allegedly only auditioned to be in Twilight because he liked Kristen Stewart’s performance in Into the Wild.
28. And Henry Cavill (aka Superman) was Twilight author Stephenie Meyer’s first choice for the role of Edward, but at 25, the studio thought he was too old for the role.
29. Daniel Radcliffe went through 160 pairs of glasses while filming the Harry Potter movies.
30. The books in Dumbledore’s office are actually leather-bound phone books.
31. More than 3,000 WANDS were used during the filming of the Potter movies.
32. The Horse of A Different Color in the Emerald City in The Wizard of Oz was coated with Jell-O crystals in order to achieve the bright color. Throughout shooting the horse kept trying to lick the color off.
33. Toto, the dog in The Wizard of Oz, earned $125 a week, while the actors who played Munchkins in the movie only made $50 each week.
34. You can watch the movie Memento in chronological order if you pass a special memory test that’s available on the movie’s limited edition 2002 DVD. Can you even imagine?
35. Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s part, Arthur, in Inception originally went to James Franco, who had to drop out due to scheduling conflicts.
36. Inception director Christopher Nolan discouraged the use of computer-generated special effects, and where possible built set pieces that created visual illusions. For instance, the hotel corridor in the film was constructed to rotate 360 degrees IRL.
37. Inception star Leo DiCaprio also had a hand in shaping the film’s plot. According to Christopher Nolan’s producer/wife Emma Thomas, “the work [DiCaprio] did on his character with Chris made the movie less of a puzzle and more of a story of a character audiences could relate to.”
38. Sorry, but the horse’s head used in The Godfather’s infamous horse head bed scene was REAL. Coppola got it after striking a deal with a nearby dog food factory. “One day, a crate with dry ice came with this horse’s head in it,” he recalled.
39. This is weird, but Psycho was the first American film to feature a toilet.
40. Stanley Kubrick was no fan of Stephen King’s writing before he started working on The Shining. Kubrick called King’s writing “weak” and King in turn didn’t like the way the movie turned out.
41. Timberline Lodge, which is used in exterior shots of The Shining, asked that the film version of the story swap out Room 217 (which is the original room referenced in the book) for Room 237 ( a room that the Lodge doesn’t actually have), so that customers wouldn’t be afraid to stay there. It turns out they STILL ask for room 217.
42. The producers of Scream didn’t think that the killer’s mask was scary enough, and wanted the director to find another, until they saw the first kill scene in the movie with Drew Barrymore.
43. Director Wes Craven made cameos in all of the Scream films, but probably the most memorable is in the first one, when he played a janitor. He wore a sweater that recalled Freddy Krueger for the part.
44. Peter Quill’s ship in Guardians of the Galaxy was named the Milano after ’80s teen star Alyssa Milano.
45. The role of Luke Hobbs in the Fast & Furious was originally written for Tommy Lee Jones. Fans suggested to Vin Diesel that it would be fun to see Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson play opposite Diesel and the part was rewritten.
46. Kurt Russell provided the voice of Elvis Presley in Forrest Gump. He had a bit of experience — he’d played Presley in a 1979 TV movie about the singer.
47. Sally Field, who played Forrest’s mother in Forrest Gump, is actually only 10 years older than Tom Hanks IRL. How crazy is that?
48. The chocolate river in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory was actually a slightly less delicious concoction of water with food coloring in it. According to the actors in the film, it was “disgusting.”
49. Grease was originally supposed to be an ANIMATED film.