I would like to present to you interesting facts about some of my favourite films.
I hope you will enjoy it :)
The Lord Of The Rings saga
Russell Crowe and Daniel Day-Lewis were originally offered the role of the Aragorn but both refused. Therefore the role was proposed to not well-known Irish actor Stuart Townsend but at the last minute the director Peter Jackson concluded that he was is too young to play Aragorn. Just before the shot he replaced him with unknown to general public, Danish origin, Viggo Mortensen. It was a great decision!
In one of "The Two Towers" scene Aragorn (played by Viggo) saw a pyre of burned orcs and feared that the hobbits Merry and Pippin had been killed. Filled with rage and grief he kicked a helmet, screamed at the sky and then fell on his knees. The helmet was made of steel and doing that Mortensen actually broke two of his toes. The scream was real pain expression. Peter Jackson was so pleased with the result that the scene ended up in the film.
Take a look at the video below.
I’m so impressed with Mortensen’s acting that I have to mention one more thing. Viggo enjoyed his role so much that he took fencing lessons so he could play battle scenes in a more realistic way.
Furthermore V (as they called Mortensen on a film set) refused to play with a prop! His sword was heavy because it was made of real steel. He wanted to express real effort during battle scenes.
A choreographer and fencer who worked on “Lord of the Rings” said that V was the best swordsman he ever trained.
Sean Connery was originally offered the role of Gandalf but had never read the “Lord of the Rings” books and he said that he didn’t understand the script so he didn’t want the role.
An interesting fact is that he was offered 15% of the film’s total box office receipts.
This would give him about 400 million dollars! No one has ever been paid so much for a single role.
Sean Bean who played Boromir hates to fly and boards a plane only when there is no other way to get to a place.
Because of the fear he refused a helicopter ride to a set which was high in the mountain.
There wasn’t always possibility to take a makeup man on the set so Sean hiked up in his full character armor every day when a shot took place up in the mountains.
One thing is that armor was heavy, and the other thing - hiking took hours.
Did you know that Peter Jackson wanted Wojciech Kilar as "The Lord Of The Rings" music producer ? Yes, that’s true!
Unfortunately producers didn’t agree with him and Howard Shore took this job. I must say he did well…the music is magnificent!
Shore won two (!) Oscars for the best music in 2002 ("The Fellowship Of The Ring") and 2004 ("The Return of the King").
Listen to a sample of an "Uruk-hai theme":
For the production purposes, the crew built a real hobbit village in New Zealand. Now when shots are over the village is open for tourists.
If you want to see the hobbit’s place or drink beer in the story’s “Green Dragon’s” pub just go to
www.hobbitontours.com and book your room :)
The Dark Knight
Christopher Nolan, the director, told to build a hospital near an old parking shell and blew it just to make one single scene with the Joker. It took weeks to plant charges that allow the building to collapse sequentially. It had to be done carefully because they would have only one chance to film explosion correctly. Luckily everything went smoothly.
In the scene of Joker’s interrogation both actors Ledger and Christian Bale were improvised for a while. This part of the movie is kind of brutal and the fact they improvised is really impressive. Great acting.
Fans and film critics outraged because Ledger played mostly in films for teenagers. Offering him the role was a controversial decision but his play was astonishing! Unfortunately he died of drug overdose shortly after the end of shots. After a few weeks he was awarded an Oscar posthumously. This happened for the second time it the Oscar’s history. A well played Joker changed the way fans saw his acting.
The Matrix trilogy
In the training room before the attack on Morpheus Neo rubs his nose in a characteristic way, similar to that presented by Bruce Lee. This movement was improvised by Reeves.
Wachowski brothers asked Warner for 80 million dollars for their film. Warner said no and gave them only 10 million. The directors took the money and filmed the initial stage of the film with the escape of one of main characters – Trinity. This cost the whole 10 million. Warner representatives were so impressed that they agreed to pay the rest of the amount.
Here’s that impressive scene:
As you can see, almost all of the scenes in the Matrix are light green color, as if it were being viewed through a computer monitor, and the scenes in the real world are deprived of it.
In Greek mythology, Morpheus is the god of sleep. Morpheus in the film awakes people.
Signs on computer screens, which symbolize the Matrix code are reversed letters of the Latin alphabet, numbers and katakana - Japanese alphabet characters.
"The Matrix" was the first film when the “bullet time” technique was used. By 2002, this technique had been used to create more than 20 different movies.
The technique is based on the CGI (Computer Generated Imagery) and processing sequence of photographs taken with a large number of cameras.
Making of bullet time:
Final result:
In this film, we can admire shooting and explosion scenes. Most of them were created through CGI, but one thing couldn’t be generated by a computer - the road. To shot the scene on a highway Wachowskis commissioned the construction of a 2.4 kilometer stretch of highway at a military base in California!
The motorway exits and the walls with the height of 5.8 meters were real. To shot this scene, General Motors offered more than 100 cars, which were completely destroyed!
Remember the scene when Neo had to decide in which world he would like to live? The real or the fake one?
If Morpheus asked you which pill would you choose? :)
"You take the blue pill, the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland and I’ll show you how deep the rabbit hole goes."
The Wachowskis said they would choose the blue pill…
Django Unchained
The horse, Django, is actually the horse of Jamie Foxx – an actor who played Django. The actor got it for his birthday a few years before. Tarantino's role in the film was a great opportunity to ensure that Foxx could present his skills in front of the camera.
Leonardo DiCaprio, who played Calvin Candie, did everything to evoke terror among viewers. In one scene, Candie hits the table and smashes a glass which hurts his hand.
This scene wasn’t in the scenario. DiCaprio really cut his hand, and despite the blood that dripped from the wound heavily, he didn’t stop the shot even for a moment.
Thanks to his character, he presented even greater signs of madness. Quentin Tarantino, the director was delighted.
Slaves fights shown in the film were not really a historical fact, despite what Tarantino says. He was inspired by fights presented in the book "Mandingo". In his version there is only one winner - the one who survives. The fact is that a black slave cost a lot of money and it would be uneconomical to sentence him to death in a duel.
But on the other hand, there was something like a “nigger fight”. Fights took place during annual festivals arranged by the owners of cotton plantations. Fighters couldn’t use any weapons, and the fight lasted until when one of the "owners" didn’t stop the fight.
Sources:
http://thechive.com/2014/12/10/10-real-life-injuries-that-made-their-way-into-the-movies-10-photos/
http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2014/11/9-on-set-injuries-that-made-it-onto-film#3
http://www.top10hq.com/top-10-set-injuries-made-movies/?utm_source=zergnet.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=zergnet_407967
http://joemonster.org/images/vad/a25608_7.png
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Django_Unchained
http://www.hollywood.com/news/movies/46997716/tarantino-s-django-unchained-fact-or-fiction-mandingo-fighting-bounty-hunters-and-more
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72nK7APr6Xs
http://whatculture.com/film/10-unbelievable-last-minute-movie-casting-changes.php/5
http://screencrush.com/comic-book-movie-castings-ben-affleck-batman/
http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20150203042330/lotr/images/7/77/The_Return_of_the_King_Poster_01.jpg
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http://www.buzzfeed.com/keelyflaherty/facts-you-probably-didnt-know-about-the-lord-of-the-rings#.eadoNr3onn
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http://listverse.com/2015/03/02/10-ridiculous-movie-sets-created-for-a-single-scene/
https://paulmmartinblog.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/the_dark_knight_poster.jpg
http://www.hobbitontours.com/
http://www.hobbitontours.com/Portals/_default/Skins/MinimalExtropy/images/header/header_02.jpg
http://joemonster.org/art/29144/Nieznane_zdjecia_z_planu_Mrocznego_rycerza_
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u31OjOPF-ZI
http://youtu.be/xnOLhXmhkyA?t=1m15s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElOEwtx7wjA
https://youtu.be/Jrt2xoy5UHo?t=4m54s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u31OjOPF-ZI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKEcElcTUMk
https://youtu.be/KNrSNcaYiZg
https://youtu.be/WfrHk6xdJMw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72nK7APr6Xs
http://www.rantlifestyle.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Heath-Ledger-Oscar-Win.png
http://i846.photobucket.com/albums/ab29/tishchambers/VLC00004_zpscdb7107c.jpg
https://sleeplessthought.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/vlcsnap-2013-05-02-18h24m25s34.png
http://41.media.tumblr.com/deffff50afe13f5aefb20f9248d93092/tumblr_mgbx3bWuHh1qbooi8o1_500.jpg
https://hackadaycom.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/matrix_montage_html.jpg
http://www.historybanter.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Django-Unchained-Still-3.jpg
