FILM 1916: JUMANJI: WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE

FILM 1916: JUMANJI: WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE

TRIVIA: If Dwayne Johnson could play any other role in the film, he'd play Jack Black's character, Bethany. Johnson said, "I know how much fun [Jack] had every day playing a 16-year-old self-obsessed girl."

The statues in the jungle set are modeled after the board game pieces in the original film.

Tom Holland was originally cast as Seaplane McDonough, but had to drop out of the film, due to scheduling conflicts with Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017). So Nick Jonas was cast in his place.

The film's African jungle setting was shot in Hawaii.

Dwayne pitched the name 'Smolder' to Jake Kasdan via text. "What if his name was Smolder, but he had this unique ability to just Smolder. And he's like, I love it."

When Jack Black was a child, he acted in a 1982 television commercial for the classic Atari 2600 and Intellivison video game called Pitfall, in which he wore a safari hat. In this film, he wears a similar style safari hat.

Frequently throughout the movie, the first few notes of "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" can be heard mixed into the musical cues.

Dwayne Johnson coincidentally starred in The Rundown (2003), which was originally called "Welcome to the Jungle", a title that it retained in other countries.

FILM 1818: CONGO

FILM 1818: CONGO

TRIVIA: Ernie Hudson stated that playing the character "Captain Munro Kelly" is his personal favorite from his career.

Director Frank Marshall originally intended to use the computer work pioneered on Jurassic Park (1993) for the gorillas, but opted for models as the computers weren't capable of reproducing hair.

Bruce Campbell auditioned for the role of Dr. Peter Elliot. He was given the small part of Charles Travis instead.

The part of the 727 pilot was played by musician and pop icon Jimmy Buffett.

Hugh Grant and Robin Wright both declined leading roles

FILM 1726: JUMANJI

TRIVIA: According to author Chris Van Allsburg, the word "jumanji" is Zulu for "many effects," which alludes to "the exciting consequences of the game" as mentioned in the film.

The Jumanji game board was very popular throughout the years, to the point where a screen used board was sold in 2014 for 60,800 dollars.

During a guest appearance on Clive Anderson All Talk (1996), a UK chat show, Robin Williams told a story about filming the scene where Alan wrestles a crocodile. He said that in one take he got a little carried away and thumped the crocodile with his elbow, forgetting that there was a man inside the suit. He heard a voice inside the crocodile yell "Hey!" in protest.

Scarlett Johansson auditioned for the role of Judy Shepherd.

There are 110 spaces in the board game.

The dual casting of Jonathan Hyde as both Alans father and the villanous Van Pelt is similar to the custom in adaptations of Peter Pan, with Mr. Darling and Captain Hook being played by the same actor. Robin Williams played a grown up Peter Pan in Hook (1991)

FILM 1661: WINGS OF HOPE

Werner Herzog returns to the South American jungle with Juliane Koepcke, the German woman who was the sole survivor of a plane crash there in 1971. They find the remains of the plane and recreate her journey out of the jungle.

Herzog was inspired to make this film since he had narrowly avoided taking the same flight while he was location scouting for Aguirre, Wrath of God. His reservation was canceled due to a last minute change in itinerary.

FILM 1657: AGUIRRE, WRATH OF GOD

TRIVIA: Werner Herzog claims to have written the screenplay in two and a half days. He wrote a good portion of it while traveling with his soccer team, during games and on bus rides. Following one game, the team was very drunk, and the player seated behind Herzog vomited on his typewriter, ruining many pages of the script. Herzog was unable to salvage the pages, and tossed them out the window. He was also unable to recall what he'd written on them.

The monkeys that appear at the end of the film were somewhat difficult to acquire. According to Werner Herzog's commentary, he paid the men who were to provide them only half of what they asked for, as he didn't trust them and thought they would try to run off with the money without providing the monkeys. He was proved right, as they had sold the monkeys to someone else and they were to be flown to Florida. In desperation, Herzog pretended he was the veterinarian and that the monkeys didn't have their vaccination documents, which allowed him to finally get the monkeys and film their scenes. After this, all the monkeys were set free into the wild.

During a particularly rowdy night of production, Klaus Kinski, irritated by the noise from a hut where cast and crew were playing cards, repeatedly fired a Winchester rifle into it. One of the bullets took the tip of an unnamed extra's finger off. Werner Herzog immediately confiscated the weapon and it remains his property to this day.

This film, as well as several other early films by Werner Herzog, were shot on a 35mm camera that he stole as a young man from the Munich Film School, a predecessor to today's prestigious film school 'HFF München'. Herzog himself never was a film student there or anywhere. He readily admits to the theft but also justifies it with the significance of the films he's made with the camera and his right to artistic expression: "It was a very simple 35mm camera, one I used on many other films, so I do not consider it a theft. For me, it was truly a necessity. I wanted to make films and needed a camera. I had some sort of natural right to this tool. If you need air to breathe, and you are locked in a room, you have to take a chisel and hammer and break down a wall. It is your absolute right."[Cronin, 2003]

This was the first Werner Herzog film with Klaus Kinski. It was the start of an extremely stormy, and sometimes violent, professional relationship that lasted 15 years.

Although plot details and many of the characters in "Aguirre, the Wrath of God"(1972) come directly from Werner Herzog's own imagination, historians have pointed out that the film fairly accurately incorporates some 16th-century events and historical personages into a fictional narrative. The film's major characters, Aguirre, Ursúa, Don Fernando, Inez and Florés, were indeed involved in a 1560 expedition that left Peru to find the city of El Dorado. Commissioned by Peru's governor, Ursúa organized an expeditionary group of 300 men to travel by way of the Amazon River. He was accompanied by his mixed-race mistress, Doña Inez. At one point during the journey, Aguirre, a professional soldier, decided that he could use the 300 men to overthrow the Spanish rule of Peru. Aguirre had Ursúa murdered and proclaimed Fernando as "The Prince of Peru". Fernando himself was eventually murdered when he questioned Aguirre's scheme of sailing to the Atlantic, conquering Panama, crossing the isthmus and invading Peru. Many others who attempted to rebel against Aguirre were also killed. The surviving soldiers conquered Isla Margarita off the coast of Venezuela and made preparations to attack the mainland. However, by that time Spanish authorities had learned of Aguirre's plans, and when the rebels arrived in Venezuela, government agents offered full pardons to Aguirre's men. All of them accepted the deal. Immediately prior to his arrest, Aguirre murdered his daughter Florés, who had remained by his side during the entire journey. He was then captured and dismembered. Herzog's screenplay merged this 1560 expedition with the events of an earlier Amazonian journey, that took place in 1541 and 1542. Like Ursúa, Gonzalo Pizarro and his men entered the Amazon basin in search of El Dorado. Various troubles afflicted the expedition and, sure that El Dorado was very close, Pizarro set up a smaller group led by Francisco de Orellana to break off from the main force and forge ahead, then return with news of what they had found. This group utilized a brigantine to journey down the river. Accompanying Orellana was Spanish Dominican friar Gaspar de Carvajal, who kept a journal of the group's experiences. The historic Gaspar de Carvajal (1500-1584) had settled in Peru and dedicated himself to the conversion of the Indians. While Carvajal's diary does indeed exist, the content as presented in the film is mostly invented by writer/director Herzog himself.

The film was originally shot in English, the only language skills that all of the multi-national crew and cast members had in common. The original production sound was recorded on location, but finally not used because of its poor quality. The whole film was later post-synchronized into German. Director Werner Herzog claims that lead actor Klaus Kinski demanded too much money for the recording sessions and therefore another actor with a similar voice, Gerd Martienzen, dubbed him. Even audiences that have seen other performances of Kinski often can't tell the difference.

Francis Ford Coppola cited this film as an influence on Apocalypse Now (1979).

Aguirre's line "What is a throne but a plank red with velvet?" is an authentic quote from Napoleon Bonaparte.

In 1971, while Werner Herzog was location scouting for the film in Peru, he narrowly avoided taking LANSA Flight 508. Herzog's reservation was cancelled due to a last-minute change in itinerary. The plane was later struck by lightning and disintegrated, but one survivor lived after a free fall. Long haunted by the event, nearly 30 years later he made a documentary film Wings of Hope (2000) about it, which explored the story of the sole survivor Juliane Koepcke.

Werner Herzog explained how the choir-like sound was created, "We used a strange instrument, which we called a 'choir-organ.' It has inside it three dozen different tapes running parallel to each other in loops. ... All these tapes are running at the same time, and there is a keyboard on which you can play them like an organ so that [it will] sound just like a human choir but yet, at the same time, very artificial and really quite eerie."

Ranked #46 on Entertainment Weekly's "Top 50 Cult Films of All-Time"

Featured in the teen book "Me, Earl, and the Dying Girl" by Jesse Andrews.

Included among the "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die", edited by Steven Schneider.

FILM 1641: THE LEGEND OF TARZAN 

TRIVIA: Alexander Skarsgård said that one of the main reasons he took this role was to impress his father Stellan Skarsgård. He said, "My dad is a massive Tarzan fan. Growing up, we had these VHS cassettes of the Johnny Weissmuller films, and that was my introduction to the character. But those films are seventy years old, and so much time has passed, that I think mine is a fresh take. I'll never compete with Johnny Weissmuller, but I just wanted to impress my father. He was thrilled; he was more excited than I was."

In the scene where Jane and Captain Rom are eating dinner, she crosses her fork and knife. The Captain rings the bell, and tells the servant Lady Clayton is finished. After she leaves, he places her knife and fork beside each other. In formal dining, when people cross their silverware, it means they did not enjoy the meal. When they are placed next to each other, it means they are finished.

Alexander Skarsgård's first cheat meal occurred more than five months into his training. Skarsgård had been on a very strict diet for five straight months, avoiding any fat completely, as he was in the process of developing an eight-pack. He said, "It was a Sunday, and we were training hard in the gym, and my trainer saw that my will to live was fading. He told me to put down the weights and he took me to lunch. That day he let me order whatever I wanted. I got to eat pizza, pasta, tiramisu. I get emotional just talking about that day." On the last day of filming, the crew congratulated him on the end of his diet by gifting him with a huge "Banoffee Pie," a British dessert. Skarsgård said that to celebrate, he ate the entire pie by himself, in a single sitting.

Alexander Skarsgård joked that he would like Tarzan to be drastically different in the sequel because of the heavy workout and diet demands on him. He said, "We have an outline already in which Tarzan gains weight. Tarzan remains hairy and does not have eight pack abs. It has no action and Tarzan eats cake, lots of cake. I wrote it."

Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps was in talks to play Tarzan. Ironically, Johnny Weissmuller was an Olympic swimmer before landing in the role of the title character in the 1932 film and its multiple sequels.