Trivia: Often times when a movie is distributed the name of the movie on the actual can is changed or altered to prevent piracy. The name on this movie was "Hal," a reference to "2001: A Space Odyssey" (1968).
Trivia: The very futuristic single bladed fan we see in Spooner's apartment is actually a ceiling fan of today. It's called "The Enigma" and is manufactured by Fanimation Inc. (00:02:11)
Trivia: Alan Tudyk, who did the voice of Sonny, is actually visible in the film for one frame. When the stand-in robot is killed in Sonny's place, Alan can be seen in the brief flash after the nanites are injected. Confirmed on Visual Effects Team commentary. (01:18:20)
Trivia: At the US Robotics building, Robertson's office has a subtle easter egg. The window of his office, overlooking the city, was purposefully designed to resemble Robby the Robot from the 1956 movie The Forbidden Planet, specifically his mouth. (01:29:14)
Trivia: At the robot storage containers, Spooner takes off on a motorcycle to escape. You can, for a brief moment, see the motorcycle wobbling. This is because Will Smith wanted to do the stunt himself but lost control of his bike at 60 mph and crashed, losing consciousness for about 2 minutes. He did recover but was badly bruised up. Will Smith would not ride a motorcycle again after this accident until filming Gemini Man. (01:15:14)
Trivia: In Isaac Asimov's original short stories, Dr. Susan Calvin was the central figure connecting the robot narratives, first appearing in the 1941 story Liar! in Astounding Science Fiction. Unlike the film, where she is played by 32-year-old Bridget Moynahan, the literary Dr. Calvin was depicted as a considerably older woman, around 75 years old. (00:15:08)
Trivia: Some fans have speculated that Spooner's constant sweet potato pie and heavy sugar use in his coffee may symbolize his cyborg body burning high amounts of energy and needing extra carbs to function. However, this interpretation is not confirmed by the filmmakers and may just be a character quirk rather than intentional foreshadowing. (00:02:28 - 00:13:07)
Trivia: When Spooner goes to his grandmother's place, he calls her Gigi. Gigi is also what Will Smith calls his real-life grandmother. (00:05:22)
Trivia: When Spooner is walking the street after leaving his apartment at the beginning of the film, he looks over and sees a bunch of robots loading trash into a garbage truck that is labelled with the brand name Canners. Canner is a derogatory term for robots in this universe that Spooner even called one at his front door just moments before this scene. And here we see it is also a brand name of trash service. (00:03:55)
Answer: Sonny killed Lanning. Lanning had designed Sonny with the ability to opt out of the Three Laws when he deemed it absolutely necessary. Lanning forced Sonny to promise to do Lanning a favor, then told him the favor was to throw Lanning out the window. Forced to keep his word by Lanning's own programming, Sonny overrode the Three Laws and tossed Lanning out the window.
Phoenix