Trivia: When the movie was first shown in theaters, the marquee read, "From the director of Animal House...A Different Kind of Animal." This lead many movie patrons to believe that it was another comedy film. People ran out of theaters in terror when they realised it was a horror movie.
Trivia: Hattie McDaniel's portrayal of Mammy earned her an Academy Award, the first to be given to an African American.
Trivia: Tom Cruise broke his ankle doing the building jump in London. He was always intended to almost miss the landing and have to pull himself up, but his foot hit the side of the building and was forcibly bent at a wrong angle. Filming was held up for seven weeks. When he limps away once he has climbed up to the roof, he's not acting - that's the result of his injury.
Trivia: While filming the toy clown attacking Robbie, the clown's arms were wrapped tightly around Oliver's neck. He immediately said he couldn't breathe but Steven Spielberg and Tobe Hooper both thought that he was ad-libbing. When Spielberg saw Oliver's face turning purple, he realised that he really was being asphyxiated and ran over to remove the arms from his neck.
Trivia: Mayday uses Rust-eeze, Lightning McQueen's sponsor from Cars.
Trivia: Have a close look at the Predator's trophy collection on his spaceship. Taking pride of place is a skull from the creature in the Alien movies. (01:33:05)
Trivia: When Deadpool autographs the cereal box he signs it Ryan Reynolds.
Trivia: When Tracy is spinning on the playground equipment in the final scene, she is wearing the clothes that Evie wore when they went to the neighbor lifeguard Luke's house. This may be a call back to her missing Evie after she left or a representation of how Tracy's style changed over time. Also, when Tracy wakes up next to Mel in the end she looks disappointed. And I have come to think that she is upset because she wanted to wake up next to Evie again. (00:49:51 - 01:34:51)
Trivia: John Cusack's real-life sister, Joan Cusack, is wearing a neck brace on the bus at the beginning of the film.
Trivia: Bill Skarsgård was purposely kept separated from the child-actors during filming, and outside of some early publicity photos, the kids never saw him until the first scene they filmed together in order to get their genuine reactions. The kids were both genuinely scared of him, but also incredibly excited after filming their first scene.
Trivia: The infant playing Connie and Carlo's baby son Michael Francis Rizzi who Kay holds during the christening scene is Sofia Coppola, Francis Ford Coppola's daughter, who was born in May 1971. Sofia later had a prominent role in Part III as Michael's daughter, Mary. Other than the main characters, Sofia is the only actor to have appeared in all three films. In The Godfather II, she can be briefly seen as an immigrant girl on the ship that brings Vito Corleone to Ellis Island.
Trivia: This was Johnny Depp's first movie.
Trivia: The entire "How am I funny?" scene was improvised by Joe Pesci and Ray Liotta.
Suggested correction: False. Joe Pesci told the anecdote to Scorsese in the earliest stages of the movie. Scorsese asked him to add it during previous script readings and further rehearsals while notes were being taken by crew members. Then it was finally shot following those rehearsals and notes. In this video all the actors involved tell how Scorsese works and even he himself says he rewrote that scene 4 times. Minute 13:04: https://youtu.be/_bbzUZuxEB8.
I have actually seen interviews where they admitted it was improvised. The reactions from the other actors was genuine.
Trivia: Bernard Fox, who portrayed Colonel Archibald Gracie IV, also played Frederick Fleet in the 1958 film, A Night to Remember, another film about the sinking of the RMS Titanic. Frederick Fleet was the first person to notice the iceberg and shouted the warning to the crew.
Trivia: John Travolta made up the "cool dude walk" that Danny uses in the first scenes, when trying to create a bad boy image.