FILM 1645: THE FOUNDER
TRIVIA: The original McDonalds, as
depicted in the film, is actually located at 1398 North E St., San Bernardino,
CA 92405. The owner of Juan Pollo Chicken purchased the site and has restored
it to a McDonalds museum. The oldest remaining Golden Arches-styled McDonalds
(1953) is still in operation at 10207 Lakewood Blvd., Downey, California 90241.
The company Kroc worked for prior
to founding McDonalds, Prince Castle, still exists and supplies McDonalds with
much of its equipment
While most productions shoot a
minimum of 12+ hours per day, The Founder frequently shot for between 8-10
hours. This was due to the fact that John Lee Hancock came very well prepared
and didn't overshoot anything he liked from the first take. Adding to the fact
that the whole film was shot in only 22 days, this makes for an incredibly rare
shoot.
Tom Hanks turned
down the role of Ray Kroc and Michael Keaton took the part. The opposite happened in Philadelphia (1993)
when Keaton turned down the role of Andrew Beckett and Hanks took the part,
eventually winning the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance.
The McDonald's back office set was
built on the same stage as Ray Kroc's office. in order to create genuine
reactions to the phone conversations, the props and sound departments rigged
the phones with speakers so that both sets of phone conversations could be
filmed simultaneously.
Joel Coen and Ethan Coen liked the
script very much and wanted to direct the film, but they had to turn it down
because of schedule conflicts with Hail, Caesar! (2016).
The on-screen flies that were
attracted to the smell at McDonald's were actually Cocoa Krispies. They were
poured in front of a powerful fan in order to make it look like swarms of
flies.
The screenplay for this film was
featured in the 2014 Blacklist; a list of the "most liked" unmade
scripts of the year.
Ray Kroc's "discovery" of
McDonalds in 1952 was not his first attempt at franchising (taking over) a
Southern California restaurant. According to the book, In N Out Burger, by
Stacy Perman, Kroc approach L.A.'s Apple Pan restaurant in 1949, and Carl
Karcher of Carl's Jr., prior to convincing the McDonald brothers.
The film's release date was
intentionally pushed back to December so it would have a better chance with the
Academy Awards. Ironically, it was not nominated for a single Academy Award.
When Keaton's character follows
Route 66 across the map to San Bernadino, it's obviously not a map that is
historically accurate for the 1950's as it shows Irvine, CA which did not yet
exist as a city back then.
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