1. Australians named The Castle as the movie that most accurately represents Australia, in a survey by the Australia Day Council of NSW in 2010.
2. Darryl Kerrigan, played by Michael Caton, was also voted the best Aussie movie character ever.
3. The idea for The Castle came from a three-hour brainstorm between Rob Sitch, Santo Cilauro, Tom Gleisner, and Jane Kennedy (a.k.a. Working Dog).
4. It helped that the movie would be "simple" to make, because the members of Working Dog were using their own money to finance it and were on a super tight budget.
5. The writers drew on their own families for inspiration for the Kerrigans.
6. It took five weeks to create the film from the first idea to the first rough cut.
7. Santo Cilauro says that because of time and budget constraints, the film couldn’t have been made without Michael Caton’s dedication and consistent performance over long days of filming.
8. This was Eric Bana's first movie.
Which means we have The Castle to thank for paving the way for this...
And this.
9. If the movie is screened on TV before 8.30pm, the swear words are censored using plane noises.
10. While most of the movie was shot in and around Melbourne, some of the Bonnie Doon scenes were filmed on location.
11. The family were given the name Kerrigan because the filmmakers wanted to use trucks from Kerrigan’s Towing, a real life tow-truck company in Melbourne.
12. The High Court of Australia scenes were actually filmed in the Supreme Court of Victoria.
13. The filmmakers found the location for the Kerrigan's house by knocking on the doors of homes near the airport.
14. Santo Cilauro’s dad is a lawyer, and his office was used as Denis Denuto’s office in the movie.
15. With a gross of $10,326,428 at the Australian box office, the movie made more than 13 times its $750,000 budget.
16. Miramax reportedly purchased the rights to The Castle for six million dollars.
17. When it was released in the US, some of the dialogue was redubbed.
18. Several scenes were also shortened or removed. For example, Microwave Jenny was cut.
19. Which means the Aussie version is obviously the best.
