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Film lovers rejoice, we've got 30 behind-the-scenes movie facts that you've probably never heard before. Do you know which famous action hero was almost played by Frank Sinatra? Or what appliance was originally Back to the Future's time machine? In case you forgot, The List Show is a trivia-tastic, fact-filled show for curious people. Don't miss a video! Subscribe NOW: https://www.youtube.com/@MentalFloss?sub_confirmation=1 About Mental Floss: Mental Floss is where curious people come for trivia-tastic information. Mental Floss produces lists of fun facts, debunks common misconceptions, and tells untold stories from history, science, culture and more. Website: http://www.mentalfloss.com Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/mental_floss Facebook: https://facebook.com/mentalflossmagazine Looking for a new movie to watch, or at least a movie that’s new to you? Mental Floss’s new book, The Curious Movie Buff: A Miscellany of Fantastic Films from the Past 50 Years, offers behind-the-scenes details and amazing facts about some of the greatest movies of the past half-century. Find it at your favorite place to buy books, or online right here. https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Mental-Floss-The-Curious-Movie-Buff/Jennifer-M-Wood/Mental-Floss/9781681888842 Copyright Notice: This video and YouTube channel contain dialog, music, and images that are property of Mental Floss. You are authorized to share the video link and channel, and embed this video in your website or others as long as a link back to this YouTube Channel is provided. 2025 Mental Floss 30 Surprising Movie Facts | Mental Floss https://www.youtube.com/@MentalFloss
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Doc Brown's DeLorean DMC-12 from Back to the Future is one of the most famous time machines
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in the history of cinema. But did you know that Marty McFly was originally supposed to head back
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to 1955 in something that looked like an old refrigerator? Hi, I'm Erin McCarthy
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editor-in-chief of Mentalfloss.com, and this is The List Show. In 2010, Back to the Future
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producer and co-writer Bob Gale told CNN that an early draft of the script described the time
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travel vehicle as a time chamber, not unlike a refrigerator, and Doc Brown had to carry it on
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the back of his truck. Which, let's face it, wouldn't have looked nearly as cool in 1955 or
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in 1985. And that's just the first of many fascinating facts I'll be sharing with you today
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about some of your favorite films, as we celebrate the release of Mental Floss' newest book
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The Curious Movie Buff. We'll talk about some unbelievable casting what-ifs from the making of
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Die Hard, and touch on a Pope's unexpected taste in movies. Which sadly, as far as I know
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does not include a pontiff weighing in on whether John McClane is appearing in a Christmas movie
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Let's get started. Back to the Future isn't the only 80s sci-fi comedy that experienced a time machine switcheroo
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In the original script for Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, the eponymous dudes played by Alex
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Winter and Keanu Reeves were originally supposed to travel back in time to meet historical figures
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via a 1969 Chevy van. Director Stephen Herrick suggested they change it to a phone booth, to avoid comparisons with
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a certain DeLorean. Of course, a phone booth opens up even more obvious comparisons to the TARDIS from Doctor Who
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But as Bill and Ted co-writer Chris Matheson admitted, all of us were so clueless and knew
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nothing about Doctor Who. Speaking of Keanu Reeves, much of his character's story from Gus Van Sant's 1991 indie hit
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My Own Private Idaho was based on William Shakespeare's version of Henry IV, complete with the occasional
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Keanu line that sounds like something the bard himself might have written. For a much more direct adaptation of Shakespeare, one need look no further than Boz Lerman's
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1996 adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, which starred Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes
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as the famously star-crossed lovers. Lerman told Screenslam that he wanted to prove that Shakespeare wasn't for snobs, and to
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smash what I call Club Shakespeare. Baz Luhrmann also seems like the kind of guy who would open up an actual nightclub called
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Club Shakespeare, but that's neither here nor there. The filmmaker was especially committed to his democratizing goal because he was intimidated
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by Shakespeare as a kid, and didn't really connect with the legendary playwright's work
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until he saw a psychedelic performance of Twelfth Night, an experience he hoped to recreate
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in his own way for the film viewers If Die Hard was to be a success the studio knew they needed a bona action star in the lead So they offered the part to Bruce Willis after offering it to just about
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every other male actor of the day. Rumor has it that Sylvester Stallone, Harrison Ford, Robert
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De Niro, Charles Bronson, Nick Nolte, Mel Gibson, Richard Gere, Don Johnson, Burt Reynolds, and
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Richard Dean Anderson—yes, MacGyver—were all considered for the role of John McClane
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and all declined it. Die Hard is based on Roderick Thorpe's 1979 novel, which was a sequel to his
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1966 novel The Detective, which was adapted into a film starring Frank Sinatra in 1968
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As such, 20th Century Fox was contractually obligated to first offer the role of John
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McClane in Die Hard to Sinatra. According to D'Souza, Sinatra said, I'm too old and too rich to act anymore, which was fortunate for Bruce. For the record
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I am firmly in the camp that Die Hard is a Christmas movie. Feel free to express your
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outrage in the comments. Bob Clark is partially responsible for two Christmas classics
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in two very different genres. Before he co-wrote and directed 1983's A Christmas Story
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he helmed Black Christmas. It concerns a group of sorority sisters who are systematically picked
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off by a man who keeps making threatening phone calls to their house. God bless us, everyone
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Quentin Tarantino originally conceived of The Hateful Eight as a sequel to Django Unchained
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But as he began writing, the filmmaker realized that something didn't feel right about having
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Django in the middle of a new story. "'I thought it should be a room full of bad guys
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And you can't trust a word anybody says,' Tarantino said during a Q&A at the Alamo
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Drafthouse Cinema in Austin, Texas in 2015." After Total Recall became a box office hit in 1990, writer Gary Goldman optioned the
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rights to the Philip K. Dick story The Minority Report, which director Paul Verhoeven felt
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could be turned into a Total Recall sequel. However, Carole Co. Pictures, which owned the rights to both Total Recall and Minority
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Report went out of business, so the sequel project ended up with Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise
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The film Coming to America minds laughs from the conspicuous similarity of McDowell's and another
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slightly more famous fast food establishment. But the real-life location of McDowell's is
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actually along Queens Boulevard, where a Wendy's once stood. It's since been demolished
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Spike Lee, an avid cinephile and a student of film history, is such a massive fan of Charles
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Lawton's The Night of the Hunter that he dropped part of it into the middle of Do the Right Thing
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Bill Nunn's Radio Raheem carries the knuckle ring version of Robert Mitchum's Night of the
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Hunter characters love and hate tattoos. He explains their existence using almost the exact
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same monologue used in the 1955 classic. Richard Dreyfuss was originally cast in the starring role
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of Joe Gideon in Bob Fosse All That Jazz He backed out shortly before filming began because of what were deemed artistic differences He said he later regretted the decision And before Robert Downey Jr took on
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the role of Tony Stark, several other stars were in contention for the part. The most famous of
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these close calls might be Tom Cruise, who took an interest in the role before the IP's movie
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rights were back with Marvel. Another contender from those pre-Marvel Studios days was Nicolas
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Cage, but he too ultimately fell by the wayside. By the time the character made it back home to
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Marvel, the studio considered Colin Farrell and Patrick Dempsey for the part. They're both fine
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actors, but I don't know. Robert Downey Jr. is Iron Man. Many religious organizations disapproved
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of Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber's Jesus Christ Superstar, a hippie-ish rock opera about
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the days leading up to Jesus' crucifixion. But Pope Paul VI, for one, supposedly enjoyed it
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After a private screening, as Ted Neely, who played Jesus, remembered it, the Pope called it
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a beautiful movie that would help promote Christianity. Sergio Leone turned down the
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chance to direct The Godfather to focus on his own crime saga, Once Upon a Time in America
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Speaking of The Godfather, the infamous horse head that makes an appearance in the film wasn't
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a convincing model. The production got a real horse's head from a local dog food company
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In The Godfather Part II, Robert De Niro's Vito Corleone speaks almost exclusively in a Sicilian
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dialect. He actually only spoke eight words of English in the whole movie. Ryan Gosling's
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unnamed character in Drive is even more taciturn. Despite being the star of the film, he speaks just
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116 lines total. Gosling had just made and promoted the dialogue-heavy Blue Valentine
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and said he was tired of talking. When Ash storms a work shed to arm himself for a showdown with the
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Deadites and the Evil Dead, keen-eyed horror fans can spot Freddy Krueger's razor glove hanging on
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the wall. Its appearance was part of a long-standing tradition between director Sam Raimi and A Nightmare
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on Elm Street's Wes Craven. The two regularly referenced one another's work in shots. Craven
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based A Nightmare on Elm Street on a series of newspaper articles from the Los Angeles Times
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about a strange phenomenon where young Asian refugees mysteriously died in their sleep
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It was reported that many refused to sleep, citing terrifying nightmares that they feared
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would lead to death. Heather Langenkamp is best known for playing Nancy in the Elm Street series
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but she also played a part in Drew Goddard's Cabin in the Woods. Behind the scenes, that is
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Langenkamp and her husband David Leroy Anderson do prosthetic makeup, monster costumes, and makeup
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effects through their company AFX studio. The one-time Scream Queen is listed in the 2012
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film's credits as Heather L. Anderson. You might not expect Mel Brooks to have contributed a famous line to the body horror canon, but he did
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David Cronenberg director of The Fly revealed in a commentary track that the movie iconic line Be Afraid Be Very Afraid originated with Brooks while discussing how characters should react to the early stages of Seth Brundle transformation The quote became one of the film taglines Writer Amy Heckerling crafted a different type of iconic
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dialogue when she had Clueless' Cher Horowitz say, ugh, as if, to a would-be suitor. And Alicia
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Silverstone can thank Aerosmith for her role in the film. Heckerling's casting director first
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pitched Silverstone for Cher based on her performance in The Crush, but Heckerling wanted
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that fascinating blonde girl from the music video for Aerosmith's Cryin'. Luckily for Silverstone
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she was one and the same. All the President's Men is one of the very few PG films to include
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the F-word. Characters in the movie actually drop a total of 10 F-bombs. Justin Lin, who would later
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become known for his work in the Fast and Furious franchise, made a splash in Hollywood with his
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breakthrough film Better Luck Tomorrow. It was produced on a shoestring budget of $250,000
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$10,000 of which was provided by MC Hammer. The rapper had so much faith in Lin that he
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immediately agreed to sign on as producer when the filmmaker called him asking for cash
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As we all know, you don't turn your back on your family, or on an aspiring filmmaker whose work you
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want to support out of the goodness of your parachute pants. In Disney's animated version
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of Beauty and the Beast, the Beast has the mane of a lion, the beard and head of a buffalo
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the brow of a gorilla, the eyes of a human, the tusks of a wild boar, the body of a bear
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and the legs and tail of a wolf. He also, as one of the film's animators Glen Keane once claimed
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has a rainbow bum. But nobody knows that but Belle. On the subject of things kids were never
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meant to see, in spring of 2018, families settled into their seats in an Australian movie theater
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for a showing of the film Peter Rabbit. By accident, the cinema played a trailer for the
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decidedly unfamily-friendly Ari Aster movie Hereditary. At least 40 children were in the
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theater, and they were understandably upset. The cinema gave out free movie passes as an apology
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though some free therapy might have also been welcomed. Not quite as illicit. In 2010, Bend It Like Beckham became the very first Western-made
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movie to air on television in North Korea. Though authorities heavily edited the movie
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in order to make it work for the broadcasting schedule, it was still a landmark in North
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Korean broadcasting history. Julie Dash's Daughters of the Dust has fans in high places—even higher, arguably, than
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the supreme leader of a country. Beyoncé referenced the 1991 film in her hour-long visual album
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Lemonade. That nod helped lead to a 25th anniversary re-release of Daughters of the Dust in theaters
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What's your favorite movie of all time? Drop a recommendation in the comments below
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and if you love movie history, check out Mental Floss's book chock full of fun facts and
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interesting info. There's a link in the description below if you're interested
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We'll see you next time. There's not a single Titanic fact in that script
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You cut it?
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