5.The 1940s were actually an overall bad time for Disney, and by the end of the decade, the studio was over $4 million in debt. Cinderella actually financially rescued the studio after it became a huge hit in 1950.
6.The iconic scene in The Seven Year Itch, where Marilyn Monroe's dress is lifted up by the air from a subway grate, had to be reshot in California at 20th Century Fox's studios.
The scene was originally filmed on location in New York City, but there were over 2,000 spectators on the street watching the scene being filmed, and they would yell every time her skirt went up. The noise coming from the crowd made it impossible for director Billy Wilder to use any takes from it.
7.Truman Capote, who wrote the novella Breakfast at Tiffany's, disliked Audrey Hepburn's performance as Holly Golightly in the film adaptation. He had really wanted Marilyn Monroe (who turned down the role after being advised against it) to play the character.
8.Contrary to popular belief, Cleopatra was NOT a box office bomb; in fact, it was the highest-grossing film of 1963. The issue was that the film was so expensive to make, it really didn't turn a profit.
9.Cleopatra was so costly that it almost bankrupted 20th Century Fox — which was forced to sell 300 acres of its backlot to stay afloat. That area is now modern-day Century City.
10.The Wizard of Oz was not a box office hit when it was released in 1939. Like Cleopatra, it was a very expensive movie to make and had a hard time recouping its money at the box office. It would take almost 20 years for the movie to make its money back.
11."Hopelessly Devoted to You" wasn't included until after filming on Grease had completed.
12.Marlon Brando's performance as Vito Corleone in The Godfather is considered legendary and has gone down in cinematic history as such. But he almost didn't get the part of Vito because at the time, he was considered a temperamental, washed-up actor, whom the studio refused to hire. And for his part, Brando initially wasn't interested and didn't really want to work.
13.American Gigololaunched then-unknown fashion designer Giorgio Armani's career — Richard Gere's entire wardrobe in the film was Armani.
14.Originally, Yoda was only meant to appear in The Empire Strikes Back, but after George Lucas consulted with a child psychologist, he decided to include the character in Return of the Jedi so that he could confirm to Luke that in fact, Darth Vader really was his father.
15.In the original script for Gremlins, Gizmo was supposed to be the villain, turning into the gremlin Stripe and becoming the leader of the gremlin pack.
16.In 1984, Red Dawn became the first movie ever to be rated PG-13.
17.Melora Hardin — whom you probably know best as Jan from The Office — was originally cast as Jennifer Parker, Marty McFly's girlfriend, in Back to the Future. However, she was let go after Eric Stoltz was fired from the movie. The reason: She was too tall for the new actor who had been cast as Marty, Michael J. Fox.
18.Also in Back to the Future, the iconic storyline/scene of the lightning hitting the clock tower was actually added in order to save money, and it was NOT the original way Marty McFly got back to 1985.
19.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.
20.In the original script for The Addams Family, it was supposed to be revealed at the end that Uncle Fester truly was an imposter. However, Christina Ricci voiced her concern about that ending to the film's director, Barry Sonnenfeld, who decided to change the scene after talking to her.
21.Whitney Houston was originally supposed to sing a cover of Jimmy Ruffin's "What Becomes of the Brokenhearted" as the main theme song for The Bodyguard.
They also almost ended up doing a slightly different cover of "I Will Always Love You," since the only version Foster could find was Linda Ronstadt's cover. But when Foster spoke with Dolly Parton (who wrote it), she told him they needed to do her version because it included the "And I wish you joy and happiness" final verse:
22.The iconic scene in Clueless where Cher is being mugged and hesitates lying on the ground because she is wearing an Alaïa dress is inspired by something that really happened.
23.Someone at Pixar accidentally deleted all of 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 of Pixar's internal servers).
24.Hard to even believe, but Anne Hathaway was actually the ninth choice to play Andy in The Devil Wears Prada.
25.And finally, Rachel McAdams' wig in Mean Girls was made of human hair and was VERY expensive.
