FILM 1750: THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI

FILM 1750: THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI

TRIVIA: Frances McDormand was hesitant to take the role when it was offered, but was eventually convinced by her husband, Joel Coen: "Because at the time he gave it to me I was 58... I was concerned that women from this socioeconomic strata did not wait until 38 to have their first child. So we went back and forth and we debated that quite for a while, and then finally my husband said, 'Just shut up and do it.'"

Martin McDonagh wrote the screenplay with Frances McDormand as the lead role in mind.

Sam Rockwell wore padding to make his character appear chubbier.

The town where the movie is filmed is actually a small mountain town in western North Carolina called Sylva.

McDonagh was inspired to write the movie after seeing billboards about an unsolved crime while traveling "somewhere down in the Georgia, Florida, Alabama corner".

First feature film directed by Martin McDonagh not to star Colin Farrell.

Upon winning the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role for her role in the film, Frances McDormand became the first actress to win two awards in the category; she had previously won her first award in the category in 1997 for Fargo (1996).

There are several allusions to Don't Look Now (1973). Not just the storylines of both films being about parents grieving the death of a daughter. The film Dixon's mother is watching on telly about "the dead girl" is Don't Look Now; we hear a few brief notes from Pino Donaggio's score. Red is the key colour in both films: the eponymous billboards are bright red and the agency guy is called Red. Both films have a dwarf, a useless priest and hopeless cops, a nasty fall and a massive knife, children left to play alone by water, a kids' toy bobbing in water.