Trivia: The famous line "pop quiz, hotshot" doesn't actually have a definite writer. The original script was by Graham Yost, but Joss Whedon was brought in to rewrite it (unhappily uncredited per WGA rules) and wrote most of the dialogue. He said the line was already in the script, while Yost denies writing it and said it was Whedon's. Most likely it was written by another script doctor, Paul Attanasio, but he doesn't recall writing the line either.
Jon Sandys
11th Jan 2024
Speed (1994)
11th Jan 2024
Speed (1994)
Trivia: The first bus explosion nearly ended in disaster - the real bus that Jack waves goodbye to turned off while out of shot, then the camera moved around to see the prop bus in its place (towed by a car) that was packed with explosives ready to blow up. But a woman ran onto the set, thinking she'd missed her bus, and hopped aboard, almost missed by the crew as they were at a safe distance. John Frazier, the effect supervisor, spotted her and fortunately stopped the foreman from triggering the blast.
11th Jan 2024
Speed (1994)
Trivia: Joss Whedon was brought in to work on the original script, and despite being responsible for about 90% of the film's dialogue, didn't get a writing credit due to WGA rules at the time. He changed Alan Ruck to be more sympathetic, and created the scene after the elevator rescue when the team is celebrating, but all the characters, story beats and action were from the original writer Graham Yost.
18th Dec 2023
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (2022)
Trivia: For anyone curious, the quote "I pretended to be somebody I wanted to be until finally I became that person. Or he became me" was said by Cary Grant - to Pelia, clearly.
15th Dec 2023
Reacher (2022)
What Happens in Atlantic City - S2-E2
Trivia: O'Donnell references "James Barr" as someone who might have a grudge against the 110th. Reacher says he "ran into him in Indiana last year - he owes me now." That's a reference to the book "One Shot", which was also the basis of the Jack Reacher film starring Tom Cruise, where James Barr was falsely accused of sniping civilians. That story's presumably canonical in this series but is now in the past.
15th Dec 2023
Reacher (2022)
7th Dec 2023
New Girl (2011)
Five Stars for Beezus - S6-E22
Trivia: Sadie's patient who says "it's a real upstairs downstairs kind of day" is played by Katherine Pope, executive producer of the series.
29th Oct 2023
Friends (1994)
The One With Joey's Award - S7-E18
Trivia: The original script for this featured a subplot with Ross seeing Chandler exiting a male strip club, with obvious confusion and assumptions, with Chandler later admitting he only goes there because he likes the sandwiches. Matthew Perry shut the idea down. He's barely in this episode, possibly as a result of this subplot being excised and it being simpler to expand the existing scenes rather than write a whole new Chandler-centric section.
27th Oct 2023
Scream 2 (1997)
Trivia: Debbie Salt's real name is revealed to be Nancy Loomis. There's an actress called Nancy Loomis who appeared as Annie Brackett in Halloween and its sequel, and who played a different character in Halloween III: Season of the Witch.
15th Oct 2023
The Continental: From the World of John Wick (2023)
Trivia: The name on Jenkins' disguise is "Chuck Spadina." When Keanu Reeves first came to Hollywood, he was told his name was "a little too exotic," and it was suggested he should change his name. Chuck Spadina was one option he considered, although apparently not very seriously.
10th Oct 2023
The World is Not Enough (1999)
Trivia: As Bond is rolling down the Millennium Dome, he misses the first set of wires he tries to grab, and saves himself on a second set. The stuntman was actually meant to hold onto the first set, but couldn't. The director, Michael Apted, chose to keep that miss in as a tribute to how challenging the stunt was to achieve.
10th Oct 2023
No Time to Die (2021)
Trivia: Has the longest pre-credits sequence of any Bond film to date, coming in at 23 minutes and 45 seconds.
2nd Oct 2023
Jurassic Park (1993)
Trivia: The dinosaur Tianchisaurus nedegoapeferima was named after the principal cast of the film, with the second part of the name using a letter or two from each surname: NEill, DErn, GOldblum, Attenborough, PEck, FErrero, RIchards, MAzello.
29th Sep 2023
Serenity (2005)
Trivia: The antagonist was potentially going to be Jubal Early, the bounty hunter who sneaked onto the ship in the Firefly episode "Objects in Space" and was eventually left floating in the void. Actor Richard Brooks wasn't available to reprise the role, so The Operative was created instead, who shares some similarities with Early.
17th Sep 2023
Justified: City Primeval (2023)
Trivia: Paul Calderon appears briefly as Raymond Cruz, a character he also played in another Elmore Leonard adaptation in 1998, Out of Sight, arguably placing Justified in the same universe as that film and Jackie Brown, given Michael Keaton played the same part in both films.
8th Sep 2023
The Nice Guys (2016)
Trivia: The corpse of Sid Shattuck, which Ryan Gosling discovers after his drunken roll down the hill, is played by an uncredited Robert Downey Jr., who'd previously starred in Shane Black's "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang", a film which played a large part in revitalising his career after drug and legal issues.
16th Aug 2023
Psych: The Movie (2017)
Trivia: Shawn says at one point "Jules would never do a Hallmark movie." Maggie Lawson starred in a Hallmark movie called "My Favourite Wedding" the same year this was released.
6th Aug 2023
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (2005)
The Gang Missess the Boat - S10-E6
Trivia: Charlie Day was initially uncomfortable kissing Kaitlin Olsen, having been friends for a long time and her being married to Rob McElhenney, but was told not to "wimp out." Glenn Howerton wanted to go even further: "a really extended, 5 minute long, interminably long lovemaking scene between the two of them, that wouldn't be funny at all...until it just kept going and going and then it becomes funny again...hopefully." He was talked out of the idea. Day eventually came around: "we don't get to kiss other people very often, let's just enjoy it".
1st Jun 2023
The Shining (1980)
Trivia: At various points in the film, Jack Nicholson flicks his eyes to the camera, often only for a few frames, frequently hard to catch. It's deliberate - in one clip of behind the scenes footage Kubrick lies under him while setting up a scene, and specifically tells him to look down to the camera when filming. But there's no specific answer as to why - genre-defying, or to make the audience feel more threatened, or to make the viewers feel like the ghosts he sees. Hard to unsee though.
30th May 2023
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (2005)
Trivia: More recent seasons have fewer scenes outside the front of the bar - the cast have said the area's been gentrified over the years, so it's now a bit too nice looking around there to match the low-rent feel of the setting.
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