Factual error: The movie is set in the late 1950s, yet Ed's car has yellow-on-black California license plates that weren't issued until 1963. The plates on Ed's car should be black-on-yellow 1956 issue plates.
Ed Wood (1994)
Ending / spoiler
Directed by: Tim Burton
Starring: Johnny Depp, Bill Murray, Sarah Jessica Parker, Martin Landau, Patricia Arquette, Jeffrey Jones
After Bela Lugosi (Martin Landau) dies, Ed (Johnny Depp) manages to get funding for his next film from his landlord and his associates. However, they force Ed to change the film's title from "Grave Robbers From Outer Space" to "Plan 9 From Outer Space" and then object to him direcing the film in drag. Angered, Ed goes to a pub (still in drag) and meets his idol, Orson Welles (Vincent D'Onofrio), who advises him not to let the producers interfere with his film-making. Ed finishes the film his way and after the premiere, he drives off with Kathy (Patricia Arquette) to Las Vegas to get married, never finding out the audience's reaction to Plan 9 from Outer Space. Years later, Ed directed monster nudie films, struggled with alcoholism and never achieved mainstream success; he died at the age of 54 in 1978 and two years later he was voted "The Worst Director of all Time." Kathy was married to Ed until his death and she never remarried. Bunny Breckenridge (Bill Murray) never got his sex change operation. Tor Johnson starred in many B movies and his face became a bestselling Halloween mask; he died in 1971. Criswell (Jeffrey Jones) continued making inaccurate "predictions" (often on The Tonight Show); he died in 1982. Ed's ex-girlfriend Dolores (Sarah Jessica Parker) became a successful songwriter. Vampira tried to sue horror movie hostess Elvira (for stealing her act) in the 80s but didn't succeed.
Dennis
More mistakes in Ed Wood
Edward D. Wood, Jr.: Do you know that I've even had producers re-cut my movies?
Orson Welles: I hate when that happens.
Edward D. Wood, Jr.: And they always want to cast their buddies. It doesn't even matter if they're right for the part.
Orson Welles: Tell me about it. I'm supposed to do a thriller for Universal. They want Charlton Heston as a Mexican.
Trivia: When Ed Wood meets Orson Wells, Orson tells Ed that the studio wants Charlton Heston to play a Mexican in one of his films. He is referring to his film Touch of Evil, which was in pre-production at that time. In it, Charlton Heston played Roman Miguel Vargas, a Mexican.
Question: Does anyone know why this is the only Tim Burton film for which Danny Elfman hasn't written the score? All I can think is that time-wise it might have clashed with Black Beauty, but I'd like to know a definite reason.
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Chosen answer: According to Tim Burton in an interview at the time, they were "taking a little vacation from each other", - he also said that he was not sure what the situation between them was, which certainly implied a falling out. Danny Elfman is a bit more open, describing what happened as "a family feud" - he says that after working on six films together in ten years, they had a bit of a creative fallout, which led to Howard Shore doing the music for Ed Wood. Afterwards, according to Elfman, they realised that they missed working together and went back to collaborating happily.
Tailkinker