While Director Francis Ford Coppola was adamant about Marlon Brando in the role of Vito Corleone in The Godfather, Paramount was not on board with the idea. The head of Paramount at the time, Charles Bluhdorn, said that Brando “would never appear in a Paramount picture” as far as he was concerned. Instead, they wanted Laurence Olivier in the role.
However, Francis Ford Coppola lured Marlon Brando into a low-key screen test, which he called a makeup test, in order to persuade the studio that Brando was in fact right for the role. Marlon Brando was unrecognizable to the studio executives and they were so impressed that they allowed for his casting – and the rest is history!
Clark Gable is perhaps most famous for his role in the classic film Gone with the Wind, but it’s a movie that he really hated making. To Gable, the movie was a “woman’s picture” and allegedly, he had something to do with the firing of the original director George Cukor whom he saw as a “woman’s director.”
At one point during the filming of the movie, Clark Gable actually threatened to walk off the set of the movie because of a scene in which Rhett Butler cries after learning of Scarlett’s miscarriage. He believed the scene would typecast him as being weak or emotional. And to humor him, the director shot two scenes: one with him crying and one where he didn’t. He obviously went with the former because it was better. Gable would get over it.
Viggo Mortenson’s role as Aragorn is one of the greatest portrayals in film history and it made him a star. After seeing him in all three Lord of the Rings films, it’s difficult to imagine anyone else in the role, and yet, he wasn’t even the first choice, or the second, or even the third. Director Peter Jackson had a whole other list of people in mind, actually.
The first three people Jackson had in mind were all A-list stars. The first of which was method actor Daniel Day-Lewis, who certainly could have pulled it off, but Jackson was unable to convince him to take the part. The two other actors were Russel Crowe, who was the studio’s preference, and believe it or not…Nicolas Cage was offered the part but turned it down for personal reasons. An actor named Stuart Townsend ultimately got the role but was replaced last-minute with Mortenson. Glad it didn’t work out!
D. York was the original Darrin Stephens on Bewitched before he ended up getting replaced, but leaving was certainly not his choice, despite what many believed. The truth was that he was replaced in because of an injury he was suffering from very early on in the show’s production that only got worse.
York was injured while filming Cordura. While operating a railroad handcar an incident on the set involving an extra led to York tearing back muscles on his right side and his spine never fully healed. He continued to film Bewitched, however, for the first four seasons but he would become noticeable exhausted and medicated as time went on. By the show’s fifth season, York fell into a seizure and was rushed to the hospital. He would never return to the set again.
Many sitcoms in the modern age, at least the ones that feature laughter as part of the soundtrack, use prerecorded laughter often referred to as a laugh track or canned laughter. I Love Lucy never did that as the show featured genuine laughs. Filmed in front of a live studio audience, all the laughs were recorded during the filming of the episodes.
In fact, the show features the longest recorded laugh in television history, having lasted a total of 65 seconds. The laugh was too long in fact, and they had to trim it down. Many of the laugh tracks used in sitcoms, later on, were actually recordings from I love Lucy.
The Sopranos is one of the most celebrated television dramas in history. It’s influence over the past 20 years is unmatched. It’s hard to imagine television now without a world in which The Sopranos didn’t exist as we know it. At one point, it was never going to be a TV show – it was going to be a movie.
The Sopranos was first pitched as a movie and would undoubtedly just become another mob film. Creator David Chase told Written By, “I [pitched] this as a movie, which was a mobster in therapy having problems with his mother, who's also involved in some sort of a gang war or mob business problem.” And he expressed that he was never interested in making a series. But thank god he changed his mind!
Titanic made Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet household names. The film was one of the most successful blockbusters of all time and was the highest-grossing movie of all time. The characters of Jack and Rose were iconic but would things be the same without Kate and Leo? Maybe or Maybe not. But they were not the first actors in mind for their respective roles.
The first pair of actors in mind would also become huge stars later on. Matthew McConaughey and Gwyneth Paltrow were the first choices to play Jack and Rose but the talks to star in the film ultimately fell through. Director James Cameron does not talk about this, however, refusing to confirm nor deny it.
Lost would become one of the biggest sensations in television history with people tuning in each week to find out who died next or find out what mystery was solved next. But one character on the show who always seemed safe was its main hero, Jack Shephard. But what you may not know is that it wasn’t always that way.
We may have even had a different show on our hands. In the original script for the Pilot episode, Jack Shephard was the name of the pilot and was supposed to die by the end of the episode. On top of this, he was going to be played by Michael Keaton. However, Jack was made the hero of the show and written as a doctor instead of the pilot.
ER was another highly influential television drama that paved the way for more serious medical dramas and other serial shows like The Sopranos. It also turned many of its actors into stars but none more so than George Clooney who was a main character Dr. Doug Ross in the show’s first five seasons.
It turns out though that the two-time Academy Award-winning actor, director and producer had a difficult time remembering his lines on the show. So, he devised a sneaky method for memorizing them. While working on both movies and the show, he eased his mind by writing his lines on props and consulting them as needed.
The story of Casablanca was originally written by Murray Burnett and Joan Alison – only not as a movie but as a Broadway play. As a play it was called “Everybody Comes to Rick's” but it never made it to the stage. But that didn’t mean it never had potential. So Warner Bros. sought to buy it and paid $20,000 for it.
At the time, that was a whole lot of money for one script. By comparison, The Maltese Falcon cost Warner Bros. $8,000. It was then rewritten as a screenplay and changed a bit by writers Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein and Howard Koch. Despite having accepted Warner Bros. $20,000, Burnett would argue that he still had rights to his characters.
In the beginning, the character of Jackie Burkhart was explicitly written for an adult to play. Being cast in the role had a requirement of being at least 18. However, Mila Kunis who desperately wanted the role was not 18, she was 14. So she did what many who want something bad enough would do, she lied.
Mila Kunis told the showrunners that she was going to be 18, which was technically not a lie because she would in fact be 18…someday. Of course, the implication was that she was old enough to play the part, even though she wasn’t. They eventually found out but still allowed her to continue the role, of course changing the character slightly to ensure it was appropriate for a 14-year-old girl to play.
One of the most iconic things to come from the show Friends would have to be the Rachel haircut. The hairstyle worn by Jennifer Aniston as the character Rachel Greene became a huge trend that started in the ‘90s with some sporting it even today. If you ask for a Rachel haircut, the salon will know exactly what you mean.
And while everyone else may have loved it, Jennifer Aniston certainly did not. The simple, yet sophisticated haircut was chosen by showrunners but not with the approval of Aniston. She told Allure, I think it was the ugliest haircut I've ever seen…Let's just say I'm not a fan of short, layered cuts on me personally.” But with all the money she was making, she wasn’t complaining too much.
Tom Hank's role as Forrest Gump is easily one of his best performances of all time and the character is one of the most cherished. This iconic role for Tom Hanks may be beloved but apparently didn’t pay well at all – at least upfront. In fact, it didn’t pay at all.
Tom Hanks did not receive a salary for Forrest Gump. Instead, he opted to take a cut of the movie’s gross. Thankfully, the movie was a huge success. It earned $678.2 million at the box office and Tom Hanks ended up taking $40 million which was the same that Robert Zemeckis earned for the movie.
Turns out, Stephen King didn’t get paid either when he sold the rights to his 1982 novella Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption. While he did receive a check for $5,000, it turns out that he never actually cashed it in. Years later, he would frame the check and send it back to director Frank Darabont.
The Shawshank Redemption is now one of the most beloved movies of all time, still resonating with audiences today. The story tells of Andy Dufresne who is wrongfully sentenced to life in prison for the death of his wife but eventually finds his freedom. The film was nominated for seven Academy Awards.
The Munsters is notably shot in black and white, harkening back to the old horror movies of the ‘30s and ‘40s but it turns out that wasn’t exactly intentional. Originally, they wanted to shoot the series in color. The problem was that it would have been too expensive for CBS if it was filmed in color, so they opted not to.
Color TV had already been introduced in the 1950s, so the technology was certainly there. However, it didn’t really catch on until the 1960s when it was cheaper. Using black and white photography was often just to save money, as was the case for The Munsters. But perhaps the show just wouldn’t have been the same.
In The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, Yoda is notably a puppet, operated and voiced by Frank Oz. It certainly worked out for the film and the puppeteering was amazing, but George Lucas had another plan for Yoda that he was keen on implementing. Instead of a puppet, Lucas wanted a monkey.
Yes, the plan was to hire a monkey to play Yoda. The monkey would wear a Yoda outfit and mask while performing the character’s movements. Unfortunately for Lucas, the monkey was not as well-trained as he had hoped and proved rather difficult to work with, removing his Yoda mask on a whim. It could use the cane, however.
The cast member of Seinfeld mostly got along but there were certainly those that the main cast didn’t like working with. It may not have been so much that they thought Heidi Swedberg was a terrible person but they were definitely not a fan of her comedic timing. They ultimately found her difficult to work with.
And because the main cast and Heidi Swedberg just weren’t vibing, the writers ended up writing her off. The character of George Costanza was set to marry the character of Susan but was she ended up dying after licking a stack of cheap, poisonous envelopes. And it was all Julia Louis-Dreyfus’s idea, who had turned to Larry David to ask, “Don’t you want to just [unalive] her?”
In Pulp Fiction, Vincent Vega, played by John Travolta drives a ’64 Chevy Malibu that plays an important role in the movie. But that car isn’t just some random car that director Quentin Tarantino found, it’s actually his own car. Tarantino used his own car to film some vital scenes for the movie and then something happened.
The car ended up getting stolen during production and could not be found at the time. But it would reappear 20 years later in 2013. It was discovered at the home of Bill Hemenez, who had paid $40,000 restoring the vehicle after purchasing it from a collector. Sadly, despite all the money he put into the car, it was returned to Tarantino.
Taxi Driver has one of the most famous movie lines of all time - “You talkin’ to me?” The line is spoken by Robert De Niro in-character as Travis Bickle, speaking in front of a mirror as to look intimidating. But this line didn’t come from the writers, nor director Martin Scorsese nor even De Niro.
The line came from The Boss, rock musician Bruce Springsteen. While De Niro improvised the line, it was something he stole from a Springsteen concert at Greenwich Village. When an audience member called out to Springsteen as “The Boss,” Springsteen replied “You talkin’ to me?” And the rest is history as they say.
Barbara Eden was the star of the show I Dream of Jeannie alongside Larry Hagman as Major Nelson. For most of the show, Jeannie’s costume is somewhat revealing, at least for a 1960s sitcom. And even then there was quite a bit of coverup required, such as the fact that she couldn’t show her belly button.
Regardless, there’s no season with more cover-up than in the first season of the show because Barbara Eden was pregnant during the filming. Her character frequently had shawls and scarves that would cover up her mid-section so that you could not see her baby bump. Clever in a way, but also incredibly noticeable when you really pay attention.
For its time, it was very rare for a movie, particularly a big-budget film to go into production without a finished script but that’s exactly what happened with David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia. Lean had been unhappy with blacklisted writer Michael Wilson’s original script and so he brought on Beverley Cross for some rewrites.
However, Robert Bolt then came on to basically rewrite the whole thing from scratch. But this writer turned out to be a bit of a troublemaker. Bolt ended up getting arrested in London during an anti-nuclear demonstration. A noble cause sure, but he stirred up enough trouble that he wound up in jail for it.
Bridge on the River Kwai is one of the most acclaimed WWII films of all time and it won plenty of awards but one of its Academy Awards wasn’t exactly well-earned because it went to someone who didn’t actually write it. The award for Best Screenplay ended up going to the person who wrote the novel.
Pierre Boulle was credited as writing the screenplay but it was actually Carl Foreman and Michael Wilson who wrote it. However, they were blacklisted because of the communist witch-hunt going on at the time and for this reason they were ineligible to receive an award. Amends were made, albeit too late, when the screenwriters were awarded posthumously in 1985.
While the film A Streetcar Named Desire isn’t exactly a happy ending by any means, it is made somewhat happier…ish…by the fact that Stella refuses to go back to her abusive husband. There’s an implication that she will leave him which brings some kind of catharsis, but apparently, this part was tact on.
And unless you are familiar with the Broadway play, you probably didn’t know that. In the original play, Stella does go back to him, even after raping Blanche and her getting taking away to a mental hospital. So the original ending was a lot darker, and some feel the “happy” ending is too much of a “Hollywood ending.”
Tom Hanks may be the star of Saving Private Ryan but the casting of the titular role in the film was just as important. Although it’s a small one, Spielberg wanted a seasoned actor to take on the part. And at first, he has actor Edward Norton in mind but he turned down the role to do American History X.
The next choice for the role of Private Ryan still was not Matt Damon. They wanted Noah Wyle from the television series ER, but Wyle could not do it either because of his ER contract. That left them with the choice of Matt Damon who had done Good Will Hunting and had obviously proved himself in that film.
If you have ever watched Cheers, you are aware the character of Sam Malone is a retired baseball player who played for the Red Sox. It’s mentioned a lot and baseball conversations often occur on the show or there are people watching baseball at the bar. It’s hard to imagine the show without this prevalent theme.
While the show would not have been drastically different, Sam Malone was originally supposed to be a retired football player. However, the character was changed in order to be in tune with Ted Danson’s body type. Plus, it really makes more sense for a Boston setting for baseball to be what everyone talks about.
For nearly 30 years, the Simpsons have been yellow and really nobody really questions it. But why are the Simpsons yellow? Why not regular people colors? Are they aliens? Do they suffer from some degenerative skin or liver disease? There are many questions when you stop to think about it but the answer is actually very simple.
They just are and they are because of marketing. They were made yellow in order to grab the attention of people who would be surfing channels at the time. The bright yellow color was seen as the best color to do this. It didn’t work, however, in countries like Myanmar because the color yellow is actually banned there strangely enough.
George Cukor was famously sensitive towards actresses. Remember that this is the same guy that Clark Gable called a woman’s director. Well, it was George Cukor who had suggested that silent film actress Gloria Swanson be used in the film about a silent film actress who hadn’t transitioned into the sound era.
George Cukor believed that she would be perfect for the role and it would ultimately be the movie that she would be remembered for. And he was not wrong! Like her character, Swanson lived in a mansion on Sunset Boulevard. It did take some convincing, and Cukor jokingly said he would shoot her if she didn’t take the part.
The Olsen Twins are well-known enough now that you couldn’t confuse them as one person but during the filming of Full House, at least early on, the showrunners were aiming to hide the fact that Michelle Tanner is played by a set of twins. That’s why they were billed together in the same frame during the credits.
And the reason they had twins was because they were much easier to work with because they can always be swapped out as needed. If one started crying while filming, you could trade that one out. Of course, the twins aren’t exactly the same though – one of them is left-handed and the other is right-handed.
You wouldn’t think of the classic Christmas action film Die Hard as having any literary origins but you would be wrong. Die Hard was based on a book called Nothing Lasts Forever by Roderick Thorp. It was a 1979 Los Angeles crime novel that Die Hard is loosely based on.
The names in the novel had been mostly changed in the final script and more humor was added to give the film some charm. But the original script was a lot more serious and nothing like the final product as it was aiming to be a more faithful adaptation. Thankfully they went in a new direction and we have one of the most beloved action films of all time.
Peter Venkman is the best Ghostbuster and everyone knows it. He’s played by Bill Murray who provides the best laughs in the movie thanks to his sharp wit and sarcasm. It’s difficult to imagine the movie without him, but he wasn’t actually the first actor chosen for the role.
Originally Dan Aykroyd wanted his friend Joh Belushi in the role and that’s who he had in mind when writing the script, but the actor tragically died of an overdose. After that they ended up settling for Michael Keaton in the role, but when Bill Murray expressed interest, the role was reworked to accommodate his style of comedy.
At the 21st Academy Awards in 1949, John Huston and his father, Walter Huston, both won Oscars for their work in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. John Huston received the Best Director award, while Walter Huston won Best Supporting Actor for his role in the film.
This father-and-son achievement is a noteworthy and rare occurrence in Hollywood's history, underscoring their significant contributions to the film industry.
