FILM 2003: THE ITALIAN JOB
TRIVIA: In interviews, Jason Statham said that in addition to the stunt driving course they all received, he got two days' driving tuition from Damon Hill, the British ex-world champion Formula 1 driver. However, all of the cast members acknowledged that Charlize Theronwas easily the best driver among them.
During production, Charlize Theron got two speeding tickets while driving in her own car, both for going more than 40 miles per hour over the speed limit. She said that after filming driving so fast, she just couldn't get her speed down to drive home.
Two electric-powered MINI Coopers and one MINI Cooper S had to be specially built for the film, since gasoline-powered vehicles are not allowed to operate in Los Angeles' all-electric subway system for safety reasons.
When the film performed surprisingly well at the box office, there were rumors of a sequel while the film was still showing in theaters. An early script had it set in Brazil and it was called "The Brazilian Job" with Mark Wahlberg, Charlize Theron, Jason Statham, and Seth Green attached to reprise their roles, but the sequel fell apart after key people at Paramount Pictures left by the end of 2004, and rough drafts of the script proved unsatisfactory. However, Wahlberg said as recently as 2015 that a sequel was still a possibility.
Edward Norton made it clear that his participation in this film was a result of contractual obligation, not choice. He had signed a three-movie deal with Paramount, of which Primal Fear (1996), his breakthrough movie, was the first. He kept dismissing scripts for the other two films of the deal, until Paramount coerced him into accepting a role in this film. Norton did not hide his misery on the set, clashing with the crew throughout it, and when the producer handed out gifts to the cast over the movie's surprisingly strong box office performance, Norton returned the gift with a note stating "Give this to someone you actually like - or someone who actually likes you."
Lyle (Seth Green) claims he was the creator of Napster, the first online file-sharing service for music, and that it was stolen by his college roommate, Shawn Fanning. In the flashback of Lyle sleeping and his roommate taking a disk out of the PC that has Napster on it, his roommate is portrayed by the real Shawn Fanning, the legitimate creator of Napster. When Fanning steals the disk in the scene, the bottom of a Metallica poster can be seen on the wall. Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich was famously a very vocal critic of Napster, and Metallica filed a lawsuit against the service for copyright infringement and racketeering.
The beautiful woman in Lyle's house at the end of the movie is played by Kelly Brook, Jason Statham's real girlfriend at the time the film was shot.
The Venice authority allowed the crew to go over the speed limit for the boat chase sequence.
32 MINI Coopers were used throughout the shooting.
While the thieves are spying on Steve in his home, Sir Michael Caine can be seen on the large screen television in a clip from the original The Italian Job (1969).
The NetCom Cable van shows the phone number 1-800-555-0199. This is the same number used by Al Pacino in The Insider (1999) and Kevin Spacey in American Beauty(1999) (albeit with different area codes).
Screenwriters Donna Powers and Wayne Powers hadn't seen the original The Italian Job(1969) before agreeing to write the script for the remake. After that, they only watched it once. This was on purpose, because they didn't want to copy the movie but wanted to make their own, albeit inspired by the original one.
F. Gary Gray cast Mark Wahlberg after seeing him in Boogie Nights (1997).
