19 Facts About Classic '90s Movies That'll Have You Saying "Did You Know" Next Time You Need An Ice Breaker
Leonardo DiCaprio turning down Titanic to star in Boogie Nights?! Yup, in an alternate timeline that could've happened!
1. The iconic scene in Clueless where Cher is being mugged and hesitates lying on the ground because she is wearing an Alaïa dress is actually inspired by something that really happened.
According to the Amy Heckerling — who wrote and directed the movie — she once was having dinner with some agents, when one of them told them the story he had heard about another agent who had been mugged while he was wearing an Armani suit. When the mugger told him to get on the ground he replied, "But this is Armani!"
2. Leonardo DiCaprio regrets that he had to turn down the role of Dirk Diggler in Boogie Nights in order to star in Titanic.
But, for the record, Leo doesn't regret starring in Titanic 'cause it has allowed him to have the career that he has now. He just wishes he could have done both films.
3. The song "A Whole New World" was actually a last-minute addition to Aladdin. It was added after the character of Aladdin's mom was removed from the film.
Originally, the ballad in the film was supposed to be "Proud of Your Boy," a song Aladdin sings to his mom at the beginning of the movie. The film's composer, Alan Menken, knew there needed to be a ballad, so he reworked a song he and lyricist Tim Rice were doing for a magic carpet ride scene. The addition of "A Whole New World" also gave Jasmine a song to sing in the film.
4. In Forrest Gump, Kurt Russell provided the voice of Elvis Presley.
Kurt (who had actually played Elvis in a 1979 made-for-TV movie) did the voicing as a favor for the film's director, Robert Zemeckis, and was uncredited for the part.
5. Someone at Pixar accidentally deleted all the work that had been done on Toy Story 2 — while the film was in production — from the studio's internal computer server. It was only saved because the film's supervising technical director had been on maternity leave and working from home (which meant there was a copy of the film that existed outside Pixar's internal servers).
Galyn Susman — Toy Story 2's supervising technical director — remembered that Pixar had set her up with a computer at home that would periodically download an entire copy of the film. Sure enough, after she brought the computer in they discovered that she had most of the film on it, and they had only lost a few weeks worth of work.
6. Harrison Ford turned down the role of Dr. Alan Grant in Jurassic Park.
According to the film's director, Steven Spielberg, Harrison was his first choice to play the role.
7. In A Goofy Movie, it's often assumed that Powerline was modeled after Bobby Brown; but he is actually a combination of Prince, Michael Jackson, and Bobby Brown.
Also, another fun fact: The director of A Goofy Movie, Kevin Lima, went on to direct two more classic Disney movies — Tarzan and Enchanted.
8. Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion is actually a bit of a spinoff of a 1988 comedic play titled Ladies’ Room — in which Romy and Michele appear as minor characters.
Robin Schiff, who wrote the screenplay for Romy and Michele, also wrote Ladies' Room. And in fact, Lisa Kudrow was cast 'cause she had actually originated the role of Michele when the play premiered.
9. The classic scene where Robin Williams' character Daniel hides his face in the cake frosting in Mrs. Doubtfire took over 50 takes to get right.
The scene where a bit of icing falls into the tea was actually an accident, but was kept in the film.
10. Kevin Costner wrote a sequel to The Bodyguard that would have starred Princess Diana.
According to Kevin, he spoke to Diana about the film, and that it would have been about his Bodyguard character, Frank Farmer, protecting Diana (who would've played herself) from paparazzi and stalkers. And, like in the original movie, the two would have fallen in love. Diana died in the car accident right as Kevin had finished the script.
11. Jodie Foster had to really fight for the role of Clarice Starling in Silence of the Lambs. The film's director, Jonathan Demme, didn't think she could play a convincing FBI agent and instead wanted to cast Michelle Pfeiffer.
Michelle ended up passing on the role 'cause she felt it was too dark. And, of course, Jodie won her second Best Actress Oscar for her performance.
12. The rumor that Janet Jackson demanded that Tupac Shakur get an HIV test before he kissed her for their film Poetic Justice is completely false.
According to the film's writer-director, the late John Singleton, it was actually a joke (not the most tasteful joke, I know) he started when they were filming. The backstory is that both he and Tupac had HUGE crushes on Janet (who was not interested in either of them, 'cause she was secretly married at the time) and he would jokingly say, "We’re gonna have to get you an AIDS test for you to kiss my actress!" as a way to one-up Tupac. The joke became a rumor even before the movie was released.
13. There wasn't supposed to be any snow in Home Alone, but after a blizzard hit on the second day of filming it forced the filmmakers to add snow to all the other scenes for continuity.
The movie actually didn't have the budget for fake snow.
14. Danny Elfman actually wrote all the songs for The Nightmare Before Christmas before there was even a script.
According to Danny, Tim Burton would just show him sketches, some phrases, and tell him what was going on in the story as a jumping off point for the songs — he and Tim ended up with 10 songs before there was a script. It was actually Danny's then-girlfriend, Caroline Thompson, who then went on to write the script and incorporated the songs into it.
15. Warren Beatty who directed and starred in 1990's Dick Tracy, used only seven colors when making the film.
The film only uses the seven colors found in the Dick Tracy comics (like red, black, yellow, green, and blue).
16. Julia Roberts was the one who convinced Richard Gere to costar with her in Pretty Woman (which he had initially turned down). In fact, she flew to New York to meet with him one-on-one, and during their meeting she took a piece of paper and wrote on it. She then turned it around and it said, "Please say yes," to which, of course, he said yes.
According to Julia, a lot of actors had been interested in the role of Edward, but, none of them were the right fit and most of them were comedians. It was actually the idea of the film's director, Gary Marshall, for the two of them to fly to New York City and meet with Richard in-person to try to convince him to take the role.
17. Bruce Willis was a huge fan of Reservoir Dogs and wanted to work with Quentin Tarantino — and reportedly wanted the lead role of Vincent Vega in Pulp Fiction (which he had heard about from Harvey Keitel). Unfortunately, by the time he met Quentin, the role had already gone to John Travolta.
Bruce was then offered the one role that remained, Butch, the boxer. As luck would have it, the part was originally offered to Matt Dillon (who Quentin had envisioned in the role), but Matt told Quentin he loved the script, however he would need to sleep on it. That upset Quentin, which caused him to not want to cast Matt in the film.
18. In an early version of The Lion King, Scar ends up raising Simba (after he kills Mufusa).
Scar was going to also kill Simba at the same time that he killed Mufasa, but he didn't have time 'cause the pride showed up before he could break Simba's neck. This is also the reason why Matthew Broderick was cast as Simba — as that "Scar raising Simba" version of Simba was supposed to be a goof-off character inspired by Ferris Bueller.
19. And finally, James Cameron did not want "My Heart Will Go On" to be in Titanic because he thought the movie was too epic and didn't need a pop song in it.
Also, Céline Dion never wanted to sing the song and, in fact, she actually hated it (but, her late husband René Angélil persuaded her to do it). The studio put pressure on James 'cause they felt the song could be good for marketing, and because they had a deal with Sony Music for the soundtrack (and Sony wanted an end-of-film song to help sell albums). James decided to put it in the movie only after being won over by the demo that Céline recorded.