FILM 1762: SNATCH

FILM 1762: SNATCH

TRIVIA: Brad Pitt, who was a big fan of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998), approached director Guy Ritchie and asked for a role in this film. When Ritchie found Pitt couldn't master a London accent, he gave him the role of Mickey the Gypsy.

When Guy Ritchie told Brad Pitt that he would be playing a boxer, Pitt became concerned because he had just finished shooting Fight Club (1999) and did not want to play the same type of role again. Pitt took the role anyway because he wanted to work with Ritchie so badly.

Brad Pitt's character and indecipherable speech was inspired by many critics' complaints about the accents of the characters in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998). Guy Ritchie decided to counter the criticisms by creating a character that not only couldn't be understood by the audience but that also couldn't be understood by characters in the movie.

Every mistake that Sol, Vincent and Tyrone make were inspired by various late-night TV shows about real-life crimes gone horribly wrong.

The producers couldn't afford enough extras for the boxing match sequences. Whenever a camera angle changed, the extras had to move around to create an impression of a crowded house.

When Vinny and Sol are sitting outside Brick-Top's Bookies, about to give him the diamond, the man that approaches the car is not really Bullet-Tooth Tony, it was a look-alike. Vinnie Jones didn't show up for shooting that day because he was in jail for fighting the night before.

The role of Brick Top was originally offered to Sean Connery. Connery liked the script and was curious to see Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998), so producer Matthew Vaughn hastily arranged a screening for him at extreme short notice. Connery duly turned up and watched the film, before emerging with his judgment: "That is a good film", he said, "and (in a stage whisper) you're not going to be able to afford me." Cue Alan Ford.

During the opening credits, the Hasidic-clad diamond thieves are discussing the Virgin Mary. This is a reference to Reservoir Dogs (1992), where during the opening scene the thieves are discussing the Madonna song "Like a Virgin".

The pub where Bullet Tooth Tony is accosted by Sol and company is the same Pub used in Shaun of the Dead (2004). The Winchester, as it was known, is where Shaun and his friends took refuge from the flesh eating zombies.

Brick Top is seen to be involved in dog fighting, at one point torturing a dog. In real life, Alan Ford is a vegetarian and animal rights activist.

Director Cameo: Guy Ritchie: In the back of the bar when we are first introduced to Doug The Head. Ritchie is the man reading the newspaper.

FILM 1179: ROCKY

TRIVIA: After producers Irwin Winkler and Robert Chartoff became interested in the script, they offered writer Sylvester Stallone an unprecedented $350,000 for the rights, but he refused to sell unless they agreed to allow him to star in the film (this despite the fact that he had only $106 in the bank, no car and was trying to sell his dog because he couldn't afford to feed it). They agreed, but only on the condition that Stallone continue to work as a writer without a fee and that he work as an actor for scale. After Winkler and Chartoff purchased the film, they took it to United Artists, who envisioned a budget of $2 million, but that was on the basis of using an established star (they particularly wanted Robert Redford, Ryan O'Neal, Burt Reynolds or James Caan). United Artists didn't want Stallone to star, and when Winkler and Chartoff told them that the only way they could get him to sell the screenplay was to agree to cast him, United Artists cut the budget to $1 million, and had Chartoff and Winkler sign agreements that if the film went over budget, they would be personally liable. The final cost of the film was $1.1 million. The $0.1 million came after Chartoff and Winkler mortgaged their homes so as to complete the project.

Most of the scenes of Rocky jogging through Philadelphia were shot guerrilla-style, with no permits, no equipment and no extras. The shot were he runs past the moored boat for example; the crew were simply driving by the docks and director John G. Avildsen saw the boat and thought it would make a good visual, so he had Sylvester Stallone simply get out of the van and run along the quays whilst Avildsen himself filmed from the side door. A similar story concerns the famous shot of Rocky jogging through the food market. As he runs, the stall keepers and the people on the sidewalks can clearly be seen looking at him in bemusement. Whilst this works in the context of the film to suggest they're looking at Rocky, in reality, they had no idea why this man was running up and down the road being filmed from a van. During this scene, the famous shot where the stall-owner throws Rocky an orange was completely improvised by the stall owner-himself, who had no idea that a movie was being filmed and that he would be in it.

Rocky's dog Butkus was actually Sylvester Stallone's dog in real life.

According to Burt Young, during filming of the scene where Paulie walks home drunk, an actual drunk wandered onto the location and told Young he wasn't acting drunk convincingly, so Young asked the man to demonstrate it. Young then copied the man's actions for the scene.

When shooting the scenes in the meat-locker where he punches the slabs of beef, actor Sylvester Stallone punched the meat so hard for so long that he flattened out his knuckles. To this day, when he makes a fist, his knuckles are completely level.

In the film, the poster above the ring before Rocky fights Apollo shows Rocky wearing red shorts with a white stripe when he actually wears white shorts with a red stripe. This was an actual mistake made by the props department that they could not afford to rectify, so Sylvester Stallone came up with the idea for the scene where Rocky points out the mistake himself. The comment about Rocky's robe being too baggy came about the same way - the robe delivered to the set was far too baggy for Stallone, so rather than hope people wouldn't notice, the character himself simply points it out.

The first sports film to win an Academy Award for Best Picture.

The ice rink scene was originally written to feature 300 extras, but the production couldn't afford so many people. When Sylvester Stallone turned up to shoot the scene, to his horror, there was only one extra. So, Stallone hastily threw together the scene as it exists in the completed film. Ironically, this scene has become one of the most popular in the entire Rocky saga.