MARKED MOVIES

Welcome back to Trivia Tidbits. I know it’s been a while since I’ve posted this feature but even I hadn’t realised that it’s been nearly 3 Years since I paid any attention to it. For all those fans out there (who have probably long since forgotten about me now) I wholeheartedly apologise for my tardiness. Anyway, for those of you out of the loop, this is a little compilation of 10 movie related facts that I always find interesting. So without further ado, this weeks are…

1: In the film “Hollywoodland” in 2006,  Ben Affleck stars as George Reeves – the actor who played Superman/Clark Kent in the 1950’s TV show “Adventures of Superman“. This makes Ben Affleck the only actor to portray, in one form or another, both Batman and Superman as part of a major motion picture. 

2: Kevin Spacey dedicated the Oscar that he won for Best Actor in “American Beauty” to Jack Lemmon. Spacey has said in interviews that he based his performance of Lester Burnham on Lemmon’s C.C. Baxter in “The Apartment“. Appropriately, there is a family connection between those films: Lemmon’s love interest was Shirley MacLaine, whose real-life sister-in-law, Annette Bening played Spacey’s wife.

3: According to Sylvester Stallone in the DVD commentary, Rocky’s trademark outfit of the black snap-brim fedora and the leather coat came from a local hand-me-down store in the neighborhood where they were filming.

4: Al Pacino was director Bryan Singer’s first choice for the role of Dave Kujan in “The Usual Suspects“. Pacino passed on the role and has since stated that this is the role he regrets passing on the most. Chazz Palminteri eventually got the part.

5: When Philip Seymour Hoffman was asked who his acting idols were, he named Daniel Day-Lewis, Paul Newman, Meryl Streep and Christopher Walken. He managed to work with them all apart from Day-Lewis (which, incidentally, before his death “There Will Be Blood” was the only Paul Thomas Anderson film Hoffman hadn’t appeared in and had Day-Lewis as the Oscar winning lead).

6: Tom Hardy joined Drama Centre London in September 1998 and was taken out early to work on Steven Spielberg’s TV show “Band of Brothers” in 2001. One of his classmates at drama school was Michael Fassbender. They both appeared in “Band of Brothers” and Hardy stated that Fassbender was the best actor in the school.

7: Bradley Cooper cited Tommy DeVito (Joe Pesci’s character in “Goodfellas“) as an influence on him providing the voice for Rocket Racoon in “Guardians of the Galaxy“.

8: Michael Keaton was offered the role of either Peter Venkman or Egon Spengler in “Ghostbusters” but turned down both parts, which went to Bill Murray and Harold Ramis, respectively. He was also originally slated to play Jeff Daniels’ character in Woody Allen’s “The Purple Rose of Cairo” and actually did film some scenes, but Allen decided it wasn’t working and replaced him with Daniels. He had the same fate in “Mystic River” when he was cast in the role of Sean Devine (Kevin Bacon’s role). He filmed some scenes but he and director Clint Eastwood had creative differences on the project and Keaton opted to leave the film.

9: Helping an alien friend escape earth and return home is the premise of Steven Spielberg’s original film, “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial“. The proposed sequel, “E.T. 2: Nocturnal Fears,” had evil aliens come to earth and abduct the children. Then, E.T. would help his friends escape and return home. Of course, the second film hoped to capitalize on the first film’s success.

10: At the time of his death in 1966, Walt Disney’s last words were “Kurt Russell”. Before dying of lung cancer, he wrote the actor’s name down on a piece of paper. Kurt Russell was a child actor then, who had just signed a 10 year contract with Disney. But nobody, not even Russell himself, knows why Walt wrote his name down.

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So there you have it. 10 esoteric Tidbits to masticate on. Some you may know. Some you may not. If you have any thoughts, stick your donations in the comment box…

(To look back at all my previous editions of Trivia Tidbits just click here.)

This entry was posted on October 1, 2017 at 6:25 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.