No one expected much from "Jeepers Creepers" when it was released 15 years ago this week, on August 31, 2001. It was a low-budget horror film with no star power, being released at the bitter end of the summer dog days.

Yet, it made a star out of Justin Long, made a success out of director Victor Salva, and, with its record-breaking box-office, made Labor Day weekend into a prime spot for launching horror movies. Most of all, it introduced the Creeper, a winged monster that feasts on human flesh, and the star villain of a franchise whose long-awaited third installment is finally due in 2017.

Even after two hit movies, the Creeper remains shrouded in mystery. But here are some of the startling facts behind the film that brought him to life.1. Is the Creeper legend based on a true story? Salva has said it's a complete fiction, but the movie's first 20 minutes bear a striking resemblance to a 1991 episode of "Unsolved Mysteries," centering on the case of Dennis DePue, a Michigan man who allegedly killed his wife in 1990 and dumped her body behind an abandoned school.

The "Jeepers" opening and the eyewitness account of a couple cited on the show share such details as a traveling man and woman playing license-plate name games, their pursuit by a mysterious vehicle (a van, not a truck) on an otherwise deserted highway, a derelict building (a school, not a church), and bloody bed linens. Even individual shots from the film seem to resemble similar shots from the TV episode. Compare and decide for yourself.

2. Justin Long had impressed Salva with his performance in "Galaxy Quest," but what won him the lead role of Darry was his audition. Salva said it contained none of the false bravado and machismo the director had seen in other male actors who were teens or young adults. Salva knew Long could appear funny or genuinely frightened, depending on what the scene needed.3. Both Long and Gina Philips, who plays Darry's sister, Trisha (above), have said that Salva's screenplay was so scary that they had to put it down after reading the first 20 pages or so and come back to it hours later.

4. Long and Philips are supposed to be college students, but while Long was 22 at the time of filming, Philips was already 30.
5. MGM wanted more bankable names to play the two leads, but Salva's longtime mentor and producer, Francis Ford Coppola, used his clout to stick up for Salva's casting choices.

6. The Creeper's truck was every bit the jalopy it appears in the film. The exhaust system didn't work, and after every take, the driver had to open the door to let out a cloud of smoke.
7. Jonathan Breck scared the filmmakers enough during his audition to win the part of the Creeper. He mimicked the moments where the Creeper gets in the faces of terrified potential victims and starts sniffing them to see if they have any body parts he wants to consume. You can watch part of his successful audition here.

8. Salva likes to make Hitichcock-style cameos in his films. In the sequence where you see psychic Jizelle's record collection, there's a photo of a young man wearing a necktie; that's Salva's high school senior photo. You can also see Salva's head among the bodies of the victims in the Creeper's House of Pain.9. The movie was shot in northern Florida, around Ocala. The highway where much of the film was shot didn't appear deserted enough, so Salva got local homeowners to uproot their mailboxes temporarily.

10. The church above the Creeper's lair was a real abandoned church that, after the movie's success, became a tourist attraction until, in a life-imitates-art moment, it mysteriously burned down a few years ago.11. To Salva, Florida seemed like the jungle. The director, who weighed 400 pounds at the time, found the heat and humidity unbearably oppressive, though he noted that Breck had it worse, having to endure the weather from under mounds of latex. There were so many noisy insects that during outdoor shots, a crew member had to fire a pistol before cameras rolled in order to silence the bugs long enough to capture a take with audible dialogue.

12. When you hear the Creeper whistling the Johnny Mercer standard that gives the movie its title, the whistling voice actually belongs to the movie's editor, Ed Marx. His rendition of the tune was just supposed to be a place filler until Salva could find someone whose whistling he liked better, but he never did.13. The roadside diner was a set built for the film, but it looked real enough that passers by would try to stop and get food and gas.

14. The house where the cat lady (Eileen Brennan) lived was the home of an actual cat lady, though the film's felines were provided by an animal trainer. Initially, Salva had planned for a more extensive sequence inside the house, but budget cuts forced him to trim the scene. 15. Once Salva arrived in Florida, he discovered that $1 million worth of his financing had fallen through, and he was forced to cut some 20 pages of script from the end of the film. There would have been a fiery climax where Darry manages to get behind the wheel of the Creeper's truck and drives it into an oncoming train in a suicidal attempt to destroy the creature.

16. After budget cuts, Salva was left with $10 million to make his movie. When it premiered, it grossed $15.8 million, a record for a four-day Labor Day weekend. Ultimately, "Jeepers Creepers" earned $37.9 million in North America and a total of $59.2 million worldwide.17. While Long had a cameo in 2003's "Jeepers Creepers 2," Philips chose not to return after Salva minimized Trisha's role in the script. The sequel broke the Labor Day record set by the first film, with an $18.4 million debut. It made a total of $63.1 million worldwide.

18. As early as 2009, Salva was floating the idea for a third "Jeepers," one that would bring Philips' Trisha back in the lead.

She was to have grown into a successful businesswoman who marshals her financial resources to combat the Creeper and stop him from targeting her now-teenage son. "Jeepers Creepers 3: Cathedral" finally went before the cameras this spring, though reportedly with a much-revised screenplay and a smaller role for Philips. It's due in theaters next year.

Before she died in 1977, Joan Crawford reportedly said that, if a movie were ever made from her life, Faye Dunaway was the only actress who could do the role justice. But "Mommie Dearest" was certainly not the biopic she had in mind.

Based on the 1978 memoir by Joan's daughter, Christina Crawford -- a controversial best-seller -- the 1981 film portrayed Joan as an alcoholic, a compulsive clean freak, and an abusive parent. And Dunaway's operatic performance, widely ridiculed when the film was released 35 years ago this week, tarnished not only Crawford's reputation but Dunaway's as well.

"Mommie Dearest" was actually a box office hit, though more for its over-the-top theatricality than its harrowing drama or truthfulness. Today, it's acknowledged as a camp classic and we celebrate its 35th anniversary with these facts every movie fan should know.1. Anne Bancroft was initially cast as Joan, but she dropped out because she didn't like the screenplay. Back in 1963, when Crawford failed to get the Oscar nomination she expected for "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?", she offered her services as a surrogate for the several East Coast-based women up for Best Actress, should any of them win. Bancroft did win (for "The Miracle Worker"), and Crawford accepted the statuette on her behalf at the Hollywood awards ceremony.

2. Campaigning for the part, Dunaway showed up at producer/co-screenwriter Frank Yablans' house dressed and made up as Joan and nearly gave him a heart attack.

3. "We all had a good time making it," Yablans said in 2006. "This was a really happy set." No one else associated with the film seems to agree with him.4. Rutanya Alda (above, right), who played Joan's long-suffering assistant, Carol Ann, came out with her own tell-all book last year about the production: "The Mommie Dearest Diary: Carol Ann Tells All." She has nothing but praise for Dunaway's performance, but she says the star would routinely upstage her. She also says Dunaway held nothing back during the knock-down, drag-out sequence where Joan attacks Christina, Carol Ann, and a visiting journalist.

5. Alda claims Dunaway was a terror to nearly everyone on the set, even to veteran, multiple-Oscar-winning costume designer Irene Sharaff, who came out of retirement to swathe Dunaway in period glamour. Sharaff walked off the film, for the first time in her 45-year career, out of frustration. Alda quotes Sharaff as saying, "You can enter Faye Dunaway's dressing room, but first throw a raw steak in there to distract her."

6. The notorious wire hanger scene is even worse in the film than in the book. In the book, Christina says Joan beat her for having wire hangers in her closet, perhaps because, when Joan was a girl, her mother had to work at a dry cleaner's, and the star hated being reminded of her former poverty. In the movie, which omits that bit of backstory, Joan actually beats Christina with one of the wire hangers.7. After shooting that sequence, Dunaway was so hoarse from screaming that she lost her voice. She would go on to summon a vocal coach to set: Frank Sinatra. The legendary crooner, who had just co-starred with Dunaway in "The First Deadly Sin," spent 15 minutes showing her some vocal exercises that would ultimately restore her voice.

8. Other curses befell the production. Pages from Dunaway's script went missing on more than one occasion, and so did some of her costumes. An entire reel of film went to the developer and came back blank.

9. A pharaoh's throne from the 1956 classic "The Ten Commandments" found its way into "Mommie Dearest." Paramount set designers painted it white and included it among the furniture at the Crawford mansion.
10. The kitchen set, where Christina's soap opera "The Secret Storm" is filmed, may look familiar to some viewers. It's the same set on the Paramount lot used for the kitchen of the Cunninghams' house throughout the run of "Happy Days."

11. "Mommie Dearest" cost a reported $5 million to make. It grossed $19 million in North America and another $6 million overseas.

12. After a month of release, Paramount recognized that viewers were coming to see "Mommie Dearest" for its camp value and treating it like "The Rocky Horror Picture Show," shouting back dialogue and even bringing their own cans of cleanser and wire hangers.

Over Yablans' objections, the studio changed the ad campaign accordingly. The new posters featured Dunaway's line (already a catchphrase) "No wire hangers, ever!" They also depicted a wire hanger dangling from the movie's title. And they had a new slogan: "Meet the biggest mother of them all."
13. An Oscar winner for 1976's "Network," Dunaway may have been hoping for another nomination for playing Joan Crawford, but while she did come in second for Best Actress at both the National Society of Film Critics and New York Film Critics Circle, "Mommie Dearest" was destined to sweep the Razzies instead.

Along with Dunaway's Worst Actress prize, the movie also won Worst Picture, Worst Director (Frank Perry), Worst Screenplay, Worst Supporting Actor (Steve Forrest, as a composite of Joan's boyfriends), and Worst Supporting Actress for Diana Scarwid, who played the older Christina. Scarwid beat her two nominated co-stars, Alda and Mara Hobel (the younger Christina), for the dubious honor.

14. Twins Cindy and Cathy Crawford, Joan's youngest children, didn't like the movie, and not just because they were written out of it. They disagreed with Christina's portrayal of Joan as a monster. "Christina says Joan was rotten, and I say she was a good person," Cathy said at the time of the movie's release. "She was tough on us, sure. You'd get a swat once in a while, but none of the physical beatings -- the coat hangers!"

15. Even Christina doesn't like the film, having called it "an enormous lost opportunity." When it came out in 1981, she complained that it should have been made more from her point of view than her mother's. "They made a Joan Crawford movie," she said. Nonetheless, she's introduced "Mommie Dearest" in person at numerous screenings over the past 35 years.16. Christopher Crawford, depicted in the movie as having been strapped into his bed by his mother -- the film doesn't explain that this was Joan's attempt to curb his sleepwalking -- seems to be the only one of Joan's four children who felt "Mommie Dearest" accurately portrayed his childhood. As he said of the movie upon its release, "I lived it."

17. Now 75, Dunaway prefers not to discuss "Mommie Dearest," but earlier this month, she told People she had hoped the movie would provide a "window into a tortured soul, but it was made into camp."

Of the impact the film had on her reputation, she said, "I think it turned my career in a direction where people would irretrievably have the wrong impression of me, and that's an awful hard thing to beat. I should have known better, but sometimes you're vulnerable and you don't realize what you're getting into," Still, she said, she stood by her acting choices in "Mommie Dearest." "You can't be ashamed of the work you've done. You make a decision, and then you have to live with the consequence."

25 years ago, Terry Gilliam's wildly visual "The Fisher King" premiered on September 27, 1991.

The fantastical, New York-set film stars Jeff Bridges as a Howard Stern-like shock jock who inadvertently inspires a listener to go on a shooting spree. Robin Williams steals the movie, though, as a man who lost his wife in the shooting tragedy -- now reduced to a raving homeless man obsessed with finding the Holy Grail. Mercedes Ruehl won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as a kooky video store owner and Williams was nominated for Best Actor.

In honor of this exceptional film hitting the quarter century mark, here are some things you probably didn't know about the film.
1. It was the first film by Gilliam (left), who co-directed "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," that didn't feature any of his fellow Monty Python members.

2. James Cameron was reportedly considered to direct, but instead did "Terminator 2: Judgment Day." Years later, Gilliam would blast Cameron, saying that mega-million movies like "Avatar" make it harder for smaller filmmakers to succeed.
3. As Gilliam said in a 2011 American Masters interview, he was inspired to cast Jeff Bridges after seeing him in "The Fabulous Baker Boys," but Bridges spent most of his meeting with the director trying to get Gilliam to cast someone besides him. He even brought a list of his friends who should do the part instead.

4. When Bridges showed Gilliam a book of photographs by Joel-Peter Witkin with "missing limbs and heads that have been chopped open," he was convinced Bridges had the necessary darkness for the role. "It's the most disturbing, horrifying, beautiful, magical photographs I'd ever seen." the director recalled on American Masters. "Here's this sweet all-American lad in the depths of all this. I thought, 'Wow. You impress me.'"
5. Gilliam told American Masters in 2011 that he and Williams were the "hot air that flies off into the stratosphere" and that Bridges was "the guy who anchored the movie." Added Williams, "Even playing an out-there drunk, he's still the voice of sanity. Especially with me being the voice of insanity."

6. Robin Williams helped turn things around on a particularly tough evening. Recalled writer Richard LaGravenese: "I remember one night in particular, filming the Chinese restaurant scene. It was about five in the morning, and we'd been there since seven the night before. Everyone's energy was drained. Suddenly, Robin did twenty minutes of nonstop impersonations and comedy. I remember one of the grips turning to me with tears in his eyes, he was laughing so hard. Everyone was rejuvenated and juiced. Then Terry turned to me and said: 'Thank God for him.'" (Gilliam would share his own, slightly-different account of this to The Hollywood Reporter.)
7. Producer Lynda Obst recalled another night when Williams came to the rescue: "We were shooting the scene where he waltzes in Grand Central Station through all the extras. Commuters would be arriving at 5 a.m. We were so late, we couldn't break for the extras to have water. The AD was so freaked out, he threw down his walkie talkie and quit. So as Robin's waltzing in this heavy costume, he's grabbing water on the sidelines and handing to all the extras when they were hot, tired, crowded, and ready to faint. We could never have wrapped that scene -- which might be the best one in the movie -- without his spirit."

8. One of the men who attacks Jeff Bridges at the beginning of the film is played by Dan Futterman, who went on to play Robin Williams' son in "The Birdcage."
9. In college, Mercedes Ruehl wrote a thesis about T.S. Eliot's poem "The Wasteland", which features the Fisher King, so she had had a good feeling when she saw the script for the "The Fisher King."

10. The night of the Oscars, Ruehl was trapped in traffic and nearly missed her own category, as she told Hoda Kotb and Kathie Lee in 2009. Since the show is live, she couldn't be seated until they went to commercial break. "Luckily," she said, "Jack Palance started doing those pushups and it gave me a few minutes to get my equipoise back."

11. Ruehl also revealed that she nearly fell when going up the stairs to accept her Best Supporting Actress Oscar, but someone from the audience came to her aid -- Warren Beatty!
12. You might have missed singer Tom Waits (above) as the beggar in the wheelchair at the train station.

13. Howard Stern reportedly asked to be a consultant on the film since they were basing Bridges's character on him. But since the studio wouldn't pay him, he refused to share tapes from his show with the production.
14. The day after Williams's death, Jeff Bridges was doing a press conference in New York for his film "The Giver." He opened by paying tribute to his late friend:

"I remember pulling up to the boathouse where we had our party and I look out I say, "Is that Robin? Is that his ghost? No, it's Radioman." [Radioman, a homeless movie fan, has appeared in dozens of films in New York.] "It brought back all of these wonderful feelings of what an amazing time we had shooting 'The Fisher King.' Bridges said that, when he hugged Radioman, "I felt Robin's spirit, as I'm feeling him now in this room with us."

For better or worse, when many Americans think of Australia, they think of Paul Hogan and "Crocodile Dundee."

After all, the Australian travel pitchman cleverly designed the movie (released 30 years ago this week, on September 26, 1986) as part travelogue, part send-up of popular stereotypes. The comedy's plot -- about a fabled Australian outdoorsman and a New York newswoman who survive the challenges of each other's jungles -- and Hogan's winning performance made "Crocodile Dundee" the most successful imported film in U.S. box office history.

Still, as many times as you've watched Hogan cheerfully flash that giant Bowie knife, there's plenty you may not know about "Crocodile Dundee." Here's the behind-the-scenes story, and it's no croc(k).
1. Hogan came late to show business. He was a 32-year-old rigger and painter on the Sydney Harbor Bridge when his mates dared him to try out for an Australian TV talent show. He won and was soon writing and starring in his own sketch comedy show.

2. After a decade of small-screen success, Hogan and his behind-the-camera team decided to make a movie, something none of them had ever done before.

3. The real-life Crocodile Dundee was an Aussie named Rod Ansell, a hunter who, in 1977, famously survived seven weeks in the wild while stranded in a remote corner of Northern Australia. When he came to Sydney to talk about his adventure, he appeared on a TV interview barefoot and stayed in a luxury hotel, where he slept on the floor and was mystified by the bidet.

4. Hogan and his co-screenwriters clearly drew much of Mick Dundee's character and exploits from Ansell. The character was also a canny brand extension of the character Hogan had played in Australian tourism commercials, the ones that had made him moderately famous on this side of the Pacific for his offer to "slip an extra shrimp on the barbie for you."
5. Linda Kozlowski, the lone Yank during the Australian portion of the shoot, was a Juilliard classmate of Val Kilmer's who'd appeared on Broadway with Dustin Hoffman in "Death of a Salesman." Nonetheless, the 26-year-old was largely unknown on either side of the ocean before she landed the role of reporter Sue Charlton.
6. The wilderness section of the movie was shot in Kakadu, a national park roughly the size of Germany. The only crocodile Hogan and Kozlowski ever tangled with was the mechanical croc built for the film (above). Nonetheless, the animatronic prop was realistic-looking enough that someone reported the crew to the authorities as suspected poachers.

7. Hogan got a lot of comic mileage out of the bidets in the Plaza Hotel during the Manhattan section of the film. In real life, however, there are no bidets at the Plaza.

8. There were two versions of "Crocodile Dundee": an Australian version, and an international version. In the latter, the incomprehensible Australian slang dialogue was snipped out, resulting in a cut 10 minutes shorter.
9. In America, distributor Paramount advertised the film as "'Crocodile' Dundee," with extra quotation marks to make clear that it was a movie about a man nicknamed "Crocodile," not a movie about a crocodile named Dundee.

10. The film cost about $10 million to make. Not only did it become the biggest domestic hit in Australian history, but it was a smash all over the world. In the U.S., it earned $175 million, making it the second-highest grossing film of 1986, behind only "Top Gun."11. Hogan, Ken Shadie, and John Cornell were nominated for an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. They lost to Woody Allen (for "Hannah and Her Sisters"), but Hogan did win a Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Comedy Motion Picture.

12. "Crocodile Dundee" made Kakadu into a popular tourist attraction. The film's success prompted developers to build a hotel there shaped like a crocodile.13. Hogan and Kozlowski fell in love for real on the set. She continued to play love interest Sue in sequels "Crocodile Dundee II" (1988) and "Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles" (2001). Unfortunately for the couple, Hogan was already married, to Noelene Edwards, whom he first wed in 1958, the year Kozlowski was born. They had five children together, divorced in 1981, and remarried in 1982. Their second split was considered one of the ugliest celebrity divorces in Australian history.

Shortly after their second divorce became official in 1990, the 50-year-old Hogan married the 32-year-old Kozlowski. They had a child of their own, son Chance. They divorced in 2014.

14. At one time in the early 1990s, Paramount was considering a crossover sequel with one of its other big 1980s franchises: "Crocodile Dundee Meets Beverly Hills Cop." Fortunately, Eddie Murphy nixed the idea.15. Now 76, Hogan is the subject of a forthcoming small-screen bio, an Australian mini-series starring Josh Lawson (known to American audiences from "Anchorman 2") as Hogan. The mini-series will be called "Hoges," which is the nickname Hogan is known by Down Under.

It's been 15 years since the release of "Zoolander" (on September 28, 2001), but being really, really, ridiculously good-looking never goes out of style.

Ben Stiller's fashion industry satire remains a fan favorite (even if this year's sequel "Zoolander 2" tarnished the brand a bit). As many times as you've watched David Bowie (RIP) referee that epic walk-off between Stiller's Derek and Owen Wilson's Hansel, there's a lot you may not know about "Zoolander." So put on your best Blue Steel and read on for the behind-the-catwalk dish.
1. The character of Derek Zoolander originated in 1996, when Stiller's friend Drake Sather told him he wanted to cast him in a short satirical film about male models, commissioned for the VH1 Fashion Awards.

"I said, 'That's ridiculous,'" Stiller recalled in 2013, "and Drake said, 'Yeah, that's why I want you to do it." The short was a hit, so Sather and Stiller made another one the following year. These gave Stiller the blueprint for the film. The character's last name is a blend of Mark Vanderloo and Johnny Zander, both prominent models at the time.
2. Stiller named "Zoolander" villain Mugatu after a white-haired, ape-like monster from the original "Star Trek" series. The tufts of curly white hair on Will Ferrell's head are also inspired by the venomous creature.
3. Ferrell won the antagonist role when frequent Stiller collaborator Andy Dick had a scheduling conflict, having been booked to star in a TV project that ultimately failed to materialize. Dick did have enough time for a cameo as Olga the hairdresser.

4. Future "True Blood" and "The Legend of Tarzan" star Alexander Skarsgård made his American film debut as Meekus, one of Derek's ill-fated, gasoline-spraying male model friends.
The Swedish actor was visiting his dad, actor Stellan Skarsgård, in Hollywood when he was offered the chance to audition for the bit part. He read with Stiller, won the role, got flown to New York ("Business class!" he marveled.), and shot the sequence. Returning to Sweden, he told his friends what a "piece of cake" Hollywood movie acting was. It took him a few thousand more failed auditions, he recalled while promoting "Tarzan" in June, to set him straight.

5. Should moviegoers have known that Meekus and his ridiculously good-looking pals were doomed? The license plate on their Jeep reads, "RFK 575," the same as on similarly fateful vehicles in the original "Final Destination" and "The Long Kiss Goodnight."

6. There were other future stars in "Zoolander." One was Mark Ronson, playing a DJ years before he became famous for spinning platters in real life.
7. Justin Theroux (above) was a little-known actor when he played a small role in "Zoolander" as the dreadlocked, breakdancing, evil DJ. (Yes, those are his own moves.) He'd later collaborate again with Stiller on the screenplays to "Tropic Thunder" and "Zoolander 2," in which he'd reprise his evil DJ role.

8. Mugatu's homeless-themed "Derelicte" show was a spoof of a fashion line unveiled by John Galliano in 2000.
9. Stiller had a Zoolander moment for real during the scene where David Duchovny explains the conspiracy. He asked, "Why male models?", and after Duchovny's lengthy explanation, Stiller forgot his next line, so he just asked, "Why male models?" again.
10. In one scene, Wilson's Hansel wears a jumpsuit with a name tag that reads, "Kumar." This is supposedly an homage to actor Kumar Pallana, the Wes Anderson regular. Stiller and Wilson acted opposite him in Anderson's "The Royal Tenenbaums," released three months after "Zoolander."

11. "Zoolander" was one of the first films forced to make changes in the aftermath of 9/11, which occurred less than three weeks before the film's scheduled release date. Aside from digitally editing out images of the Twin Towers, the filmmakers went ahead with the release as planned.

"I could never think of a reason that we shouldn't release the movie at that time," Stiller said in 2013, "other than it might not do that well, which to me wasn't the right reason to not release it."
12. "Zoolander" cost a reported $28 million to make and earned back $45 million in North America and another $16 million abroad.
13. The unflattering references to Malaysia got "Zoolander" banned in that country. Elsewhere in Asia, the references were changed to "Micronesia."
14. A surprise "Zoolander" fan is artsy director Terrence Malick. The "Tree of Life" director reportedly considers the comedy one of his favorite movies, and he even programmed it into a festival slate at the Philbrook Museum of Arts in Tulsa in 2013. Stiller learned of Malick's fandom and recorded a special video greeting in character for the director's birthday.
15. It took a while for "Zoolander" to be appreciated as a cult hit, thanks to cable and home video. Stiller has said that's why it took so long to get a sequel greenlit.

He first announced a follow-up in 2008, but it took until February of 2016 for the film to hit theaters. "Zoolander 2" was a critical and commercial dud, but that hasn't stopped Stiller and Wilson from starring in "Zoolander: Super Model," a cartoon that sees Derek and Hansel becoming superheroes. It debuted in August on Netflix in the U.K.; no word on whether we'll ever get to see it here.

With Denzel Washington, Ethan Hawke, and director Antoine Fuqua topping the box office charts last month with their "Magnificent Seven" remake, it's worth looking back at the first time these three strapped on their guns together: "Training Day."

Released 15 years ago this week (on October 5, 2001), the instant-classic crime drama offered a pioneering, still-relevant look at abusive policing, made a star of Eva Mendes, and won Washington his second Oscar for his atypical villainous role. Still, as many times as you've heard Denzel's Alonzo Harris boast, "King Kong ain't got sh** on me," there's plenty you may not know about the film. So make like Hawke's rookie Jake Hoyt and prepare to be educated.
1. The primary inspiration for "Training Day" was the Los Angeles Police Department's Rampart corruption scandal of the 1990s. In fact, Washington chose to wear a goatee in order to resemble Rafael Pérez, an officer central to the scandal.

2. Screenwriter David Ayer, who grew up in an area of Los Angeles affected by the scandal, put his personal knowledge into the story. "I spent a lot of time observing and talking with people who live and work in these areas," he said at the time of the movie's release. "I really wanted to get beneath the surface of what it's like to be a cop out here and how the community looks at them."
3. Fuqua (far right) was raised in a tough Pittsburgh neighborhood. Of power-abusing policemen like Alonzo, Fuqua said in 2014, "I grew up with that. I've seen that. I know that guy. That guy choked me out before. I was just a kid who was playing basketball and walking home with my friends."

As a result, Fuqua said, "I had a love-hate relationship with police officers as a kid. Whether it be color or just feeling powerless. That's why 'Training Day' was so appealing to me, because I had known some black officers who were worse, because they were part of the neighborhood, so they would manipulate that situation."

4. Tobey Maguire, Freddie Prinze Jr., Scott Speedman, Paul Walker, and Ryan Phillippe all auditioned for the role of Jake. Fuqua chose Hawke after seeing the "Reality Bites" star in a TV appearance.
5. For research, the two stars met with several undercover cops, gang leaders, and drug dealers. Hawke even went out on patrol. "I did a bunch of these drive-arounds to figure this whole thing out," he recalled.

6. Fuqua's street background helped the production secure permission to film in some of the most notorious gang-controlled areas of Los Angeles, including the Imperial Courts housing project -- which had never allowed a movie shoot before.
7. Fuqua also put members of both the Crips and the Bloods in the movie as extras. Fuqua came to the project with a street credibility that uniquely prepared him for what was to come. "Antoine Fuqua might be the only director around who can move through Hollywood and the gritty streets of Watts or Rampart or Crenshaw with equal agility," producer Bobby Newmyer said during the production. "And that's what this movie required."

8. "Training Day" features notable dramatic cameos from prominent musicians, including Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre, and Macy Gray. Fuqua praised the famously laid-back Snoop as a serious, disciplined actor. To play a thug's wife, Gray went undercover herself, wearing a wig and a gold tooth to mingle with neighborhood women.
9. Mendes had played tiny roles in half a dozen movies, but playing Sara, Alonzo's baby mama, turned out to be her big break. She was 27 when she played the love interest opposite 47-year-old Washington. They would work together again a couple years later in "Out of Time."
10. Washington has said he ad libbed the famous "King Kong" line.

11. (Warning: This item contains a major spoiler.) Washington has said that the original screenplay ended with Alonzo escaping punishment for his crimes. Washington said he told Fuqua that the ending felt like a cop-out, and that Alonzo ought to die violently because "the wages of sin is death." Fuqua agreed and shot a bloodier, more cathartic ending.

12. Hawke claimed to have predicted his co-star's Oscar win even before shooting started. "I said to my close friends when I got that job, 'If I do my job right, Denzel Washington will win the Academy Award for this,'" he said in 2014. "It's a Jason Kidd job. You're throwing the passes, and Denzel was making the shots."
13. Similarly, Fuqua claimed he predicted Hawke's nomination for Best Supporting Actor during production, while filming one of Alonzo and Jake's intense conversations in Alonzo's car. The director recalled telling Hawke, "You get this right, Ethan, and you're gonna get nominated for an Oscar."

14. "Training Day" cost a reported $45 million to make. It earned back $77 million at the American box office and another $28 million abroad.
15. A decade after the film's release, there were rumors that Warner Bros. was developing a direct-to-video sequel involving none of the principals behind the original "Training Day," though its script was supposedly written by Antwone Fisher, whose memoir famously became a Washington-directed movie in 2002.

16. The second "Training Day" would supposedly have taken place years later, with a much older-and-wiser Jake mentoring a younger, African-American officer. The rumored project never came to fruition.
17. Nonetheless, there is going to be a small-screen follow-up. Fuqua is developing a "Training Day" TV series for CBS. In the show, an update set in the present day, the races are reversed, with the corrupt-but-effective older cop played by Bill Paxton and the idealistic rookie by Justin Cornwell. It's expected to debut mid-season in 2017.

When you think of Best Picture Oscar winners, you think of grand epics or weighty historical topics, not grimy, intimate cops-and-robbers dramas.

"The French Connection" changed all that when it was released 45 years ago this week (on October 9, 1971). It proved that true-crime dramas could be the stuff of both high art and blockbuster action filmmaking. It won Best Picture and four other Oscars, made A-listers of Gene Hackman and director William Friedkin, and thrilled audiences with what is still one of the most hair-raising car chase sequences ever filmed. In honor of its 45th, here are 23 things you never knew about this classic. 1. "The French Connection" is based on a real-life 1961 drug bust made by New York cops Eddie "Popeye" Egan and Sonny "Cloudy" Grosso. The bust netted 112 pounds of heroin with a street value of $32 million. Egan (the inspiration for Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle, Hackman's character) and Grosso (the inspiration for Buddy "Cloudy" Russo, Roy Scheider's character) not only served as technical advisers on the film, but also can be seen in cameos. Egan plays Walter Simonson (the character based on Egan's own boss) and Grosso plays Detective Klein.

2. Friedkin -- then an up-and-coming young director with four financially disappointing movies under his belt -- took on the project after seeking career advice from legendary old-school director Howard Hawks. "People don't want stories about people's problems or any of that psychological sh**," Friedkin quoted Hawks as telling him. "What they want is action stories. Every time I made a film like that, with a lot of good guys against bad guys, it had a lot of success."

3. Hackman was not Friedkin's first choice to star. In fact, the filmmakers had considered Steve McQueen, Lee Marvin, James Caan, Paul Newman, Robert Mitchum, Peter Boyle, and Jackie Gleason, all of whom turned the role down. They even considered casting Egan to play himself before ultimately hiring iconic New York newspaper columnist Jimmy Breslin. But Friedkin fired Breslin quickly after discovering that the newsman wasn't much of an actor and, like many New Yorkers, didn't know how to drive. So Hackman won the role without even having to audition.4. According to Friedkin, Hackman balked at having to talk and behave like a racist thug. He had a hard time getting into character for a scene early in the shoot, where Popeye rousts a suspect in a vacant lot.

After following Egan around for a week, however, Hackman realized that the character's casual brutality was simply the theatrical way Egan rattled suspects. ("A lot of what Egan did," Friedkin explained later, "was bravado in order to seize control and make sure that all of these suspects, most of them dealers and often users of heavy drugs, would do what he told them to do.")

5. Friedkin also took advantage of the actor's anti-authoritarian streak by behaving like a tyrant and goading his star into rage. By the end of the shoot, Hackman had fully inhabited the character. He reshot the vacant lot scene and nailed it.

6. To adapt Robin Moore's book about the case into a screenplay, Friedkin and producer Philip D'Antoni hired Ernest Tidyman after reading his novel "Shaft" (source of another unforgettable 1971 New York crime drama). But Friedkin claimed that very little of Tidyman's dialogue ended up in the film because Hackman and Scheider improvised most of their lines, using police slang they picked up while following Egan and Grosso around. Tidyman disputed that claim and indeed wound up winning an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay.7. Fernando Rey (above) was cast as smuggler Alain Charnier by mistake. Friedkin had instructed his casting director to hire an actor he'd admired from Luis Buñuel's "Belle de Jour." Friedkin had wanted Francisco Rabal; instead, he got Rey, who'd appeared with Rabal in Buñuel's "Viridiana."

8. Not only was Rey the wrong actor, but he arrived on the set speaking not a word of English. Friedkin decided to keep him when he learned that Rabal was not only unavailable but also spoke no English.
9. The car chase sequence developed because D'Antoni wanted to top the celebrated chase from his earlier movie, McQueen's "Bullitt." It was while scouting New York locations that D'Antoni and Friedkin came up with the idea of having Popeye commandeer a civilian's car and chase a hitman who's riding an elevated subway train.

10. Friedkin and his crew filmed the chase, beneath the Stillwell Avenue tracks in Brooklyn, using two modified 1971 Pontiac LeMans models: one with cameras mounted on the bumpers for low-angle exterior shots, and one that had the back seat removed so that a cameraman could crouch unseen behind Hackman in the driver's seat.
11. None of the camera crew, who were family men with wives and kids, wanted to be in that car, so Friedkin, then single, operated the camera himself.12. The chase sequence was shot over the course of five weeks, with police clearing stretches of just five blocks at a time. Nonetheless, the two-car crash that occurs partway through the chase (above) was unplanned, caused by an unwitting Brooklyn driver on his way to work who crossed onto the set and into the path of Popeye's Pontiac. Fortunately, he wasn't hurt.

13. Stunt driver Bill Hickman drove Popeye's car at speeds up to 90 miles per hour; in one shot, he was going 90 for 26 straight blocks. Friedkin's cinematographer, Owen Roizman, made much of the chase seem even faster by under-cranking the exterior camera to shoot just 18 frames per second instead of the standard 24.

14. Hackman did much of the driving himself... until he hit another car and smashed into a concrete pillar. At that point, the producers forced Friedkin to quit shooting the chase sequence and move on. Friedkin complained that he didn't have all the footage he needed, but he did what he was told. 15. The actor who was supposed to play the subway conductor in the sequence didn't show, so Friedkin replaced him with a real conductor. The motorman was also a real motorman, since the transit authorities wouldn't allow an actor to drive a train. The ill-fated transit cop was a real transit cop, one who also had a Screen Actors Guild card.

16. In movies about heroin, the drug viewers see is invariably a prop made of an innocuous powder. But Friedkin has said that the heroin shown in the scenes involving the chemist's purity test is the real thing.

17. "The French Connection" cost $1.8 million to make, a pittance by today's standards but considered risky in 1971. (In fact, 20th Century Fox panicked because the film went $300,000 over budget.) It earned back $51.7 million.18. The Academy nominated the movie for eight Oscars, including Best Supporting Actor (Scheider), Best Sound, and Best Cinematography. It won Best Picture (making it the first R-rated film to win the Academy's top prize), Best Director, Best Actor (Hackman), Best Editing, and Best Adapted Screenplay.

19. The real case was nowhere near as violent as the movie, according to Egan, who claimed he'd fired his gun only three times over the course of his career.

20. On the day he was to retire from the NYPD in December 1971, Egan found himself fired and deprived of his pension. Although Moore's book had been in print for two years, Egan claimed he'd been fired because the film had embarrassed the department by showing the harsh tactics he'd used on suspects.
21. The real-life Charnier, Jean Jehan, was eventually captured in France, but the French government refused to extradite him to America.

22. That part of the story was broadly fictionalized in director John Frankenheimer's 1975 sequel, "The French Connection II," with Hackman and Rey reprising their roles. Friedkin claimed Jehan was being shielded because of his history as a resistance fighter during World War II.

23. Egan's exploits inspired several other projects, including the 1973 Robert Duvall movie "Badge 373" and the 1986 TV movie "Popeye Doyle." The latter was intended to be a pilot for an NBC drama series that never materialized. It starred future "Modern Family" patriarch Ed O'Neill, then unknown and still a year away from becoming famous as the star of "Married... With Children."

We thought we did a pretty good job unearthing the secrets of "Donnie Darko" when the cult hit marked its tenth anniversary five years ago (it was released on October 26, 2001). But it seems that, with "Donnie Darko," there's always some new revelations to go along with the endless spinning of fan theories about the meaning of Jake Gyllenhaal's twisted time-loop journey.

So, in time for the film's 15th anniversary, here are 15 more things you didn't know about the eerie, funny, philosophical teen drama.
1. When "Darko" writer/director Richard Kelly graduated from UCLA film school in the late 1990s, instead of making movies, he was a lowly production assistant. He fetched coffee for the likes of Madonna, Jennifer Lopez, and Sean "Diddy" Combs. He realized he needed a calling card project and wrote the "Darko" screenplay in just six weeks.
2. Kelly said the germ of the story was the falling jet engine, which he said in a 2011 interview was inspired by a newspaper story he remembered reading as a child in his hometown of Richmond, Virginia, "about a big piece of ice that fell from the wing of a jet plane and smashed through this kid's roof and landed on his bed. He wasn't there at the time, but if he had been it would have killed him."
3. The script impressed many power players in Hollywood, but Kelly refused to sell it unless he could direct it as well. After sitting on the screenplay for a year, he found two bankable actors impressed enough with his vision to produce the film and let him direct it: Jason Schwartzman and Drew Barrymore. With them on board, Kelly was able to raise a modest budget and recruit the rest of his cast.
4. Shortly before the movie was to shoot, however, Schwartzman had to drop out over a scheduling conflict. Barrymore reassured Kelly that they'd be able to find a new Donnie. It wasn't long before the then-little-known Jake Gyllenhaal showed up in Barrymore's office to audition. "Right away, I knew he had the part," Kelly recalled in 2011. "Right away, he was Donnie."
5. As for the source of Frank, the film's creepy rabbit-guy, Kelly cited Richard Adams' novel "Watership Down," which was assigned reading in his eighth-grade English class, much like in the movie. "I came up with the idea of a kid in a Halloween costume," Kelly said in 2011, "and it just became a rabbit."
6. Kelly shot "Darko" in just 28 days -- the same time frame as in Frank's apocalyptic prophecy. Things went so fast that Kelly often forgot to eat. In a recent interview, Kelly claims this is typical film-set behavior for him and that he always loses between 10 and 15 pounds during a movie shoot.
7. It wasn't all stressful. In 2004, Kelly recalled that the scene where Kitty Farmer (Beth Grant) tells the principal exactly where Donnie told her to stick her lifeline exercise card made the director laugh so hard, that he had to be removed from his own set because he was ruining the takes.
8. As the sinister Jim Cunningham, Patrick Swayze (above) knew exactly how much he was trashing his own reputation as an '80s and '90s movie hero. Kelly said Cunningham's costumes came from Swayze's own stash of '80s clothing, and that the infomercial footage was shot on Swayze's own ranch.
9. The Halloween movie double-feature of "The Evil Dead" and "The Last Temptation of Christ" is one of "Darko's" slyest 1980s jokes. Kelly said he used "Last Temptation" because there was a scene, later cut, referencing the 1988 censorship scandal surrounding that controversial film. "Evil Dead" joined the bill because the rights-holders to the horror movie Kelly initially wanted, "C.H.U.D.," wouldn't process his request in time, while "Evil Dead" director Sam Raimi not only said yes right away but let Kelly use the film for free.

In a weird coincidence, Kelly claimed, on the night he filmed the theater marquee in Santa Monica, Raimi himself drove by with one of his children, who asked Daddy if his movie was really playing there in a double bill with "Last Temptation." BTW, Raimi's father-in-law was Lorne Greene, the "Bonanza" star whom Kitty Farmer confuses with author Graham Greene.
10. "Darko" premiered at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival, where it looked like it was going to join the folklore of Sundance discovery success stories. Even indie mogul Harvey Weinstein was walking around Park City with a "Darko" cap. But then the film screened, and its echoes of the then-recent Columbine High School massacre left buyers squeamish. Despite some critical buzz, Weinstein loudly passed on the film, and other distributors avoided it, too. Kelly went home without a deal.
11. "Darko" nearly went straight to cable before indie distributor Newmarket came to the rescue. It had enjoyed success with another 2001 Sundance orphan -- "Memento" -- so it had the resources to take a chance on another difficult film.
12. Newmarket faced an even bigger challenge marketing the movie after 9/11. Here was a grim, apocalyptic tale whose inciting incident is debris from a jetliner accident falling over Virginia. Its poster featured Arabic-style lettering, which Newmarket quickly changed to a more traditional Trajan font common on movie posters.
13. The film cost $4.5 million to make, but earned back just $515,000 upon its initial release. Even the 2004 Director's Cut release, after the movie had become a cult smash, earned just $728,000 in theaters.
14. Still, the movie made more than $10 million on home video, thanks to an ardent fan base that arguably started at Pioneer Two Boots, a pizzeria/theater that showed midnight movies in New York's East Village neighborhood. Kelly was walking past it one night when he saw his movie's poster in the window and learned that "Darko" had been selling out 2 a.m. screenings there for weeks.
15. Fans enjoy arguing over whether Donnie is a delusional schizophrenic or really has time-warping powers. Kelly has said both interpretations are valid, though he prefers the latter.

"I always thought of it as a superhero story," he said in 2011. "There's that line where Gretchen says, 'Donnie Darko? What the hell kind of name is that? It's like some sort of superhero or something...' And Donnie's like, 'How do you know I'm not?' That, to me, is the whole movie."

Every generation seems to get the Shakespeare adaptations it deserves, and in the mid-'90s, that meant Baz Luhrmann's music-video-style, visually extravagant "William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet."

The hit film helped make a romantic leading man out of Leonardo DiCaprio, a movie star out of Claire Danes, and Bard fans out of a generation weaned on MTV. To mark the film's 20th anniversary (it was released on November 1, 1996), here are the whys and wherefores behind the making of the movie.
1. Hollywood courted Luhrmann after the Australian director's low-budget debut, "Strictly Ballroom," became an international smash. Asked to write his own ticket, he announced that what he really wanted to do was adapt "Romeo and Juliet," done the way Shakespeare might have done it himself if he had the resources of a 20th century movie studio instead of a 16th century theater.

"We're trying to make this movie rambunctious, sexy, violent and entertaining," Luhrmann said, "the way Shakespeare might have if he was a filmmaker."

2. Luhrmann wanted to keep as much of the original text as possible, but he also wanted it spoken with American accents -- not just to help the box office, but because he also believed it was more authentic. No, really -- Luhrmann cited the work of "A Clockwork Orange" author and Shakespeare scholar Anthony Burgess to claim that the Elizabethan accent sounded a lot more like contemporary American speech than like the plummy tones of Laurence Olivier or Kenneth Branagh.
3. The idea of making the Montagues and Capulets into rival street gangs had been done before, most famously in "West Side Story." But the idea of setting it in a community that resembled Miami was new. "We thought, 'Scarface,' 'Miami Vice,'" explained co-screenwriter Craig Pearce. "Miami seemed to be a world in which the very wealthy and glamorous live alongside the very poor, a society influenced by Latin culture and punctuated with violence."

4. Even so, Luhrmann discovered that there was a Latin city even more Elizabethan than Miami, with even greater extremes of wealth and poverty, more pronounced codes of tribal honor, and religious iconography everywhere that would look great on film: Mexico City. Most of "Romeo + Juliet" would be filmed there, either on soundstages, among local landmarks, or in whole cities constructed in the middle of nowhere.
5. Luhrmann found his leading man in a magazine's party picture pages, shortly after DiCaprio's Oscar nomination for "What's Eating Gilbert Grape." The Aussie was unfamiliar with the rising American star, but his idea for the project so intrigued DiCaprio that he flew to Australia on his own dime to workshop the part with Luhrmann, just to see if he could master the tricky language and the combat scenes.

6. Indeed, it was footage of DiCaprio fighting that convinced 20th Century Fox to greenlight the movie.
7. For Juliet, Luhrmann cast Natalie Portman, then hot off her star-making role in "The Professional." She was 14, which was about the right age for Juliet in the text.

8. Unfortunately, DiCaprio was 21, and Paul Rudd (as Dave Paris, Juliet's fiancé) was 26. The age gap between the legal-age leading man and the pubescent starlet appeared so unnerving in early footage that the studio fired Portman. "Fox said it looked like Leonardo DiCaprio was molesting me when we kissed," she said at the time.9. Luhrmann embarked on a worldwide search for a new Juliet, and while he was unfamiliar with 17-year-old Danes, DiCaprio was an admirer of hers, based on her starring performance on TV's "My So-Called Life." The feeling was mutual; in fact, she had a fangirl crush on Leo. Nonetheless, she kept it together when she read for the part. "She was the only girl that looked me in the eye in auditions," DiCaprio said. "She was right there, in front of my face, saying every line with power."

10. With pistols instead of swords, the Montague and Capulet posses had to spend two months learning how to wield guns and do trick moves with them.
11. John Leguizamo, who played Tybalt (above), recalled being a klutz who repeatedly dropped his weapon at first, but eventually, he mastered the art of gunplay. "I can do shows in Vegas now," he joked.

12. For many of the Verona Beach scenes, the shoot moved out of Mexico City to an elaborate set built in Veracruz. There, the cast and crew had to cope with plagues they later joked were biblical in scope, including a hurricane and killer bees.
13. The production design is so full of references to various Shakespeare plays -- in retail signs (Rosencrantzky's Burgers), names of consumer products (Agincourt cigarettes), and graffiti on walls -- that it takes many repeat viewings to notice them all.

14. One reference you probably didn't spot? As Romeo is on his way toward his encounter with Juliet via the fish tank, he passes a man at a urinal who's wearing a Renaissance costume. This is supposed to be William Shakespeare himself. There's no way to tell, as we never see the man's face; it's just an in-joke so exclusive that Luhrmann put it in the film to amuse only himself.
15. "Romeo + Juliet" cost a reported $14.5 million to make. It earned back $46.4 million in the United States and a total of $147.6 million around the world. Luhrmann was especially pleased that the film opened at No. 1 at home in Australia, ahead of imported Hollywood disaster movie "Daylight." Said Luhrmann, "I know Shakespeare will be happy to hear that he outgrossed Sylvester Stallone."

16. The movie was nominated for just one Oscar, for its production design.
17. Three years after gospel choirboy Quindon Tarver's rendition of Rozalla's "Everybody's Free (To Feel Good)" adorned the "Romeo + Juliet" soundtrack, Luhrmann remixed it with a spoken-word essay, an imaginary graduation speech written by Chicago Tribune columnist Mary Schmich but commonly misattributed to novelist Kurt Vonnegut. The result was the worldwide hit "Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen)."

Worst. Prom. Ever.

Four decades later, we're still creeped out by "Carrie," still the ultimate high school horror movie. Released 40 years ago this week (on November 3, 1976), "Carrie" not only made a star of Sissy Spacek and introduced movie audiences to Stephen King, but it also marked the big-screen debuts of Amy Irving, P.J. Soles, and Betty Buckley, as well as giving early film-career boosts to William Katt and John Travolta.

Still, as many times as you've watched Spacek wreak telekinetic vengeance over her bloody prom-night humiliation, there's a lot you may not know about "Carrie." Celebrate the 40th anniversary with these need-to-know facts.

1. "Carrie" was both Stephen King's first novel and his first to become a movie. Back then, he was still obscure enough that the makers of the film's trailer misspelled his first name as "Steven." See below:

2. Directors Brian De Palma and George Lucas staged open auditions together for both "Carrie" and the original "Star Wars." Both sought Amy Irving for their female lead, and William Katt almost ended up starring in Lucas' movie instead of De Palma's.

3. Eventually, of course, Lucas cast Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia (after De Palma had picked Sissy Spacek over Fisher for Carrie) and Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker, while Irving and Katt wound up in supporting roles in De Palma's film. Even so, Irving and Fisher ended up becoming close friends.
4. Irving and Katt (above) had dated a year before making "Carrie." Their screen test included a makeout scene in the back of a car, a scene that didn't end up in the movie.

5. Spacek was already 26 when she was cast as a teen having her first period. (Her husband, Jack Fisk, was the film's production designer.) In fact, all of the principal stars were well past their teen years.
6. For Carrie's religious-fanatic mother, De Palma considered Louise Fletcher, then fresh off her scary, Oscar-winning performance as Nurse Ratched in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest."

7. Eventually, however, he sought out Piper Laurie (above), even though she hadn't made a film in 15 years, since her Oscar-nominated turn in "The Hustler." She had all but retired from acting to raise a family and was reluctant to return in what could have been a two-dimensional role. But De Palma convinced her that she could bring some dark humor and even sex appeal to the character beyond what was scripted.
8. The prom sequence was shot on an MGM soundstage that had been the site of another celebrated fire scene, the burning of Atlanta in "Gone With the Wind."

9. To keep the red stains on her prom dress and all over her body consistent throughout the three days it took to shoot the prom sequence, Spacek slept in the bloody gown. Yeah, it wasn't really pig blood, just corn syrup and food coloring. Still, De Palma said that it made Spacek smell like gummy candy that had been sitting on a radiator.
10. During the prom shoot, Soles got hit so hard with the water jet from the fire hose that she burst an eardrum. She didn't regained her full hearing for six months.

11. Nancy Allen, who played mean-girl Chris, started dating De Palma during the shoot. They were soon married and made three more movies together.
12. During the "Carrie" shoot, De Palma also fixed up Steven Spielberg with future wife Irving (above). Soles has said De Palma invited his filmmaker pal to the set because of all the attractive actresses, and that the "Jaws" director asked several of them out, including her, but that Irving was the only one who didn't turn him down.

13. Irving recalled the matchmaking a little differently. She said De Palma fixed them up by sending her to read for Spielberg's "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," for a part she was obviously not old enough to play. Either way, Irving and Spielberg were soon living together, though they didn't get married until 1985. They had one child before they divorced in 1989.
14. At the end of the movie, Carrie and Margaret's house was supposed to be destroyed by a rain of boulders, but the conveyor belt moving the pebbles toward the tiny model house jammed. So De Palma just burned the little house down.

15. The notorious dream sequence at the end was shot in reverse (with Irving walking backwards and cars driving in reverse), then played forward. De Palma borrowed the hand-thrusting-from-the-grave shot at the end from the climax of "'Deliverance." De Palma wanted to use a stunt woman, but Spacek insisted on doing the shot herself.
16. Fisk buried her (because De Palma was too squeamish to do it himself) in a pit under a board covered with pumice stones. There, she received a signal to reach out and grab Irving's arm. The rocks scratched up Spacek's arm, but she felt the result was worth it.

17. Studio executives watching an early test screening were appropriately terrified by that last shot; they hadn't known it was coming, since De Palma had purposely left it out of the script.18. Since it was not taken from King's book, that final moment startled King, too, when he first watched "Carrie." "Man, I thought I was going to sh** in my pants," he recalled of the scene years later.

19. King's first time seeing "Carrie" was during a sneak preview on Halloween night in 1976, three days before it opened. As he has recalled a number of times, he and his wife Tabitha attended the screening in Boston, where the sneak was the second half of an unlikely double feature with the Redd Foxx comedy "Norman... Is That You?"
20. The Kings were the only two white people in the theater, and the author worried that an African-American audience that had come to watch the "Sanford & Son" star's sex farce wouldn't be receptive to his high-school horror story. "They're not gonna have any sympathy at all for this little white girl and her menstrual problems," he remembered thinking. But the audience got into "Carrie." When he saw two large men seated near him jump out of their seats and clutch each other during the final scene, he knew "Carrie" would be a hit.

21. Indeed, "Carrie," which cost $1.8 million to make, earned $33.8 million at the box office, making it a smash by 1976 standards.

22. "Carrie" earned Spacek an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress and a Best Supporting Actress nod for Laurie, making them two of only a very few performers who've ever been nominated for their roles in a horror movie.
23. The film has spawned numerous follow-ups, including a sequel, a notorious flop Broadway musical, and the 2013 remake with Chloë Grace Moretz. All of which King thought were superfluous. Why bother, he wondered in 2011, "when the original was so good? I mean, not 'Casablanca,' or anything, but a really good horror-suspense film, much better than the book."

Released 25 years ago this week (on November 13, 1991), Disney's "Beauty and the Beast" was an instant landmark.

It was the first animated feature nominated for a Best Picture Oscar, the first to earn more than $100 million during its initial run, and the first Disney cartoon to spawn a Broadway musical. And in March, it'll be the first film from Disney's 1990s animation renaissance to join the studio's growing list of live-action movie versions of its vintage cartoons, with Emma Watson playing Belle in "Beauty and the Beast."

Naturally, a film so celebrated is rich in behind-the-scenes lore. So rich that, five years after our last unearthing of "Beauty and the Beast" trivia, we've discovered 15 more things you didn't know about the beloved toon.
1. There are only five minutes in the film with no music.

2. Another first: "Beauty" was the first Disney cartoon feature scripted by a woman, Linda Woolverton.

3. Coming on the heels of Disney smash "The Little Mermaid," the production almost hired that film's Ariel, Jodi Benson, for princess duty again to play Belle. Instead, they went with Broadway vet Paige O'Hara.
4. Woolverton modeled the fiercely independent, book-smart Belle after Katharine Hepburn, especially her performance as Jo in "Little Women." Accordingly, her bickering, bantering relationship with Beast was modeled after Hepburn's screen romances with with Spencer Tracy.

5. For Beast, the filmmakers initially considered several performers who could do gruff and angry voices, including Tim Curry, Laurence Fishburne, Val Kilmer, Mandy Patinkin, and even Regis Philbin.

6. But Robby Benson, known for his sensitive-guy parts, won the role by summoning up a deep, growling bellow that suggested inner torment without all the roaring bluster.
7. Animator Glen Keane designed the Beast's hybrid features after several visits to London's Regents Park Zoo. He gave Beast a lion's mane, a buffalo's head and beard, a gorilla's brow, a wild boar's tusks, a bear's body, a wolf's legs and tail, and a man's eyes.
8. Rupert Everett auditioned for Gaston, but the filmmakers didn't think him arrogant enough. He took that lesson to heart a decade later, when he read for -- and won -- the similar role of Prince Charming in "Shrek 2." The part in "Beast" went instead to Richard White.
9. Julie Andrews was considered for the role of Mrs. Potts before the filmmakers cast Angela Lansbury as the singing kettle.

10. "M*A*S*H" alum David Ogden Stiers was neither the first nor the second choice to play talking clock Cogsworth. The producers offered John Cleese the role, but he turned them down. (Like Everett and Andrews, he'd end up in "Shrek 2.")

11. Patrick Stewart was to take on the role, but he couldn't resolve a scheduling conflict with "Star Trek: The Next Generation."
12. Stiers improvised the punchline in Cogsworth's romantic advice to Beast. Along with "flowers, chocolates," the actor added, "promises you don't intend to keep."

13. The Oscar-winning title song was originally composed as a light rock number. Lansbury didn't feel comfortable with that arrangement, so she offered to sing it as a more traditional ballad. On the way to the recording session in New York, her plane was delayed by a bomb threat. Though she arrived hours late, she wasn't rattled and insisted on going straight to the studio. She nailed the song in one take. A quarter-century later, O'Hara recalled that there wasn't a dry eye in the house.

14. The smoke that appears when Beast turns back into a man wasn't animated. It was footage of real smoke, recycled from Disney's "The Black Cauldron."
15. If you freeze the frame on Gaston's face (above) during his fatal plunge, you'll see tiny skulls in his pupils.

16. Disney was inspired to release the 2002 extended cut -- featuring "Human Again," a number cut from the original release but used in the stage musical -- by the example of all the "Star Wars" special editions released to home video.
17. Keane grumbled that his creation should never have been turned back into a man. He suggested that Belle could at least ask her newly-human love if he would ever consider growing a beard. Oh, well, maybe that line will make it into the Emma Watson version.

It's been five years since the wedding of the millennium. No, not Kate and William -- Bella and Edward.

It was five years ago this week (on November 18, 2011) that saw the release of "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1," featuring the long-awaited nuptials between the perpetual-teen vampire and his mortal bride, the equally long-awaited consummation of their romance, and the horrific birth of their hybrid baby.

As obsessively as fans pored over every detail of the supernatural romance, there's still much you may not know about the five-film series. Here are the dark (and not-so-dark) secrets of how the best-selling Stephenie Meyer novels sank their fangs into the multiplex.
1. MTV Films optioned the "Twilight" books way back in 2004, but their version of the saga would have been so unlike the novels as to be nearly unrecognizable. There was talk of night-vision goggles and making Bella a cool jock instead of a shy loner and... oh, we just can't even.

2. Thankfully, when Summit Films wound up with the rights, the indie studio promised Meyer greater fidelity, even writing into its contract language that stipulated the modest length of the vampires' fangs.

3. Meyer's casting ideas for Bella and Edward were Emily Browning (then best known for "Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events") and future Superman Henry Cavill (then best known for Showtime's "The Tudors").

4. Director Catherine Hardwicke thought of Kristen Stewart after seeing the 17-year-old in her brief but acclaimed performance in "Into the Wild." She confirmed her instinct once she flew to Pittsburgh to audition Stewart while the actress was in the midst of shooting the indie film "Adventureland."
5. Robert Pattinson came aboard as Edward just three weeks before production started, at the suggestion of a low-level Summit staffer who was impressed by the English actor's performance as the ill-fated Cedric Diggory in "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire." Summit flew him to California, where his audition consisted of a love scene with Stewart, acted out on Hardwicke's own bed at her Venice home. "It was electric," Hardwicke told Entertainment Weekly. "The room shorted out, the sky opened up, and I was like, 'This is going to be good.'"

6. The first "Twilight" movie cost just $39 million to make, a budget that was sofa-cushion change for a would-be blockbuster / franchise launcher even in 2008. It earned back $193 million in North America and another $201 million overseas.
7. As Jacob, Taylor Lautner proved as much a fan-fave heartthrob as Pattinson's Edward. Yet the producers almost recast Jacob after the first film, fearing that Lautner wasn't brawny enough to play the maturing teen werewolf. Fortunately, before shooting began on "New Moon," Lautner hit the gym and added 30 pounds of muscle. Mostly in his now-iconic abs, we'd guess.

8. Rachelle Lefevre wasn't so lucky. After playing the villainous vampire Victoria in the first two movies, she lost the part in "Eclipse" due to a scheduling conflict with "Barney's Version." That indie drama needed her on the set for just 10 days that overlapped with the three-month "Eclipse" shoot. She figured Summit would make accommodations for her. Instead, the studio replaced her with Bryce Dallas Howard, who'd turned down the chance to play Victoria in the first "Twilight" because she'd felt the part was too small.
9. The final two movies, "Breaking Dawn" Parts 1 and 2, cost a combined $230 million to make. Of that $230 million, Stewart, Pattinson, and Lautner each got $25 million, plus 7.5 percent of the gross receipts, making them (for a brief, shining moment) among the highest paid actors in Hollywood history.

10. All told, the five-movie franchise grossed $1.4 billion in North America and a total of $3.3 billion worldwide.
11. Might there be further "Twilight" movies? There might, if Meyer revisits her universe the way J.K. Rowling has with her "Harry Potter" spinoff "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them."

"It's a possibility," Lionsgate co-chairman Patrick Wachsberger said in September. (Lionsgate took over the franchise when it bought Summit in 2012.) "Not a certainty but it's a possibility. It's about Stephenie. If she wants to tell a story related to those characters, we're here for her."

Time to feel old, everybody: "The Addams Family" was released 25 years ago this week on November 22, 1991.

The film, based on the 1964 TV show, was a hit -- and a starter pistol for Hollywood to rush their TV adaptations to the big screen. It also put its first-time director and actor Christina Ricci on the map. In honor of the comedy's 25th anniversary, here are a few things you may not know about this creepy, kooky, spooky family.
1. Orion Pictures originally developed the adaptation of the classic 1964 TV series, as they had the rights to the show at the time. But Orion was struggling financially, so Paramount stepped in with funds to complete the film and scored North America distribution, too, as a result. But Orion kept international rights, which now belong to MGM after they purchased Orion. (Everybody got all that?)

2. The film is the feature directorial debut of cinematographer Barry Sonnenfeld ("Miller's Crossing"). He would go on to direct all three "Men in Black" films.
3. Sonnenfeld shot most of the film where the TV show used to shoot -- Stage 3/8 at Hollywood Center Studios in Los Angeles.

4. Angelica Houston, who plays matriarch Morticia, was surprised when she got the role. She expected the part would go to someone like Cher.
5. When Houston got the role, according to her autobiography, she "was looking for a template on which to base Morticia Addams, a key to giving this potentially cartoon character some humanity." She decided to base aspects of her performance on friend and model Jerry Hall. Houston felt that Hall's "kind, gentle disposition and utter devotion to her children would lend some warmth to Morticia's chilly, unflappable nature."

6. The final film resolves the issue of whether or not Fester is an imposter, but that was not the director's original intent. In a 2012 interview with Vulture, Sonnenfeld revealed that the principal cast did not like the idea of keeping Fester's fate ambiguous.
"Two weeks before we started shooting," the director recalled, "when we started rehearsing with all the actors, all the actors rebelled, because the movie Scott Rudin and I were going to shoot had this thing where Fester was perhaps an imposter, but you were never sure if he really was or not. But on the day we started to rehearse, and I remember this really fondly, the spokesperson that all the other actors chose to speak on their behalf was a 10-year-old Christina Ricci. And she gave this really impassioned plea that Fester shouldn't be an imposter." The director also acknowledged that his cast was right -- "it was the better way to go." (Christopher Lloyd, who played Fester, was the only actor who didn't care.)
7. Not everyone was a fan of Gomez and Fester's "Mamushka" dance number. The full version was cut from the film following -- what else? -- a test screening complaint that the bit stalled the movie's pacing.

8. On a $30 million budget, "Addams Family" was a hit -- earning $191 million at the box office. Despite being a hit that was somewhat well-received by critics, Roger Ebert gave film two out of four stars. He argued that the movie's chuckle-inducing moments "don't add up to much."
9. The film was a hit in arcades, too. The pinball machine (above) based on the movie, released in March 1992, is the bestselling pinball machine of all time.

10. Legal troubles plagued the film after its release. David Levy, producer of the original TV series, sued Paramount, claiming that elements of the film were taken from his ideas in the show -- and were not based on the Charles Addams cartoons. Levy cited Fester's lightbulb trick, the characters of Thing and Cousin Itt, and Gomez's love of toy trains among his ideas the movie borrowed. The lawsuit was later settled out of court.
11. It opened opposite some then-fierce competition: "An American Tail: Fievel Goes West" and Disney's "Beauty and the Beast." It opened in the top spot and stayed there for two weeks.

"My Girl," the sophisticated, somewhat sugary coming-of-age drama released November 27th, 1991, is turning 25 this year.

The movie, which stars Macaulay Culkin and Anna Chlumsky (25 years later, who would have thought she'd be the one with the successful career?), dealt with death and love and finding yourself, all set against a honeyed, nostalgia-choked period setting. Ah, the '70s, when what you really had to worry about was bees. Simpler times, simpler times.

To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the movie (and our continued, slow lurch towards the grave), here are seven things you probably don't know about "My Girl."

1. Child Psychologists Were Worried It Would Wreck ChildrenOne of the larger plot points in "My Girl" is (spoiler alert for a movie that's 25 years old) Macaulay Culkin dies after getting stung by many, many bees. It's a powerful moment and adds to the movie's themes of maturation and personal growth. But, back in 1991, child psychologists were worried about the damage it would inflict on children who watched the film. Yes, seriously.

A Baltimore Sun article from November 17, 1991, proclaimed that "some child psychologists are worried" about the movie due to the Culkin character's death, especially since the film was being released after the global phenomenon that was "Home Alone." Please keep in mind that 1991 was the same year "Silence of the Lambs" became an unexpected blockbuster and would go on to sweep the Academy Awards. But, yes, let's worry about the bees.

2. It Won an MTV Movie Award for Best KissBack when the MTV Movie Awards were more of a thing (and much, much more fun), "My Girl" won the award for Best Kiss. Years later, Chlumsky would marvel that her first kiss (ever!) would win an award. (It was Culkin's first onscreen kiss, for those keeping score at home.) And even more years later, we would all marvel that the MTV Movie Awards are still around.

3. Anna Chlumsky Hasn't Spoken to Macaulay Culkin in More Than 20 YearsWhen E! caught up with Clumsky, who is having an incredible second wind thanks to parts in television series like "Veep" and "Hannibal" (where -- it's all connected! -- she played a Clarice Starling stand-in) and movies like "In the Loop" and "The End of the Tour," in 2013, she admitted that she hasn't spoken to her "My Girl" costar in 20 years. Considering his somewhat outrageous behavior in the years since becoming a child superstar, it's not all that surprising. But it's still sad.

4. It Inspired a Weird Video GameIn 2014, the film inspired an online video game rendered in the classic 8-bit style. In the game, you play as Culkin's character and are directed, as the game begins, to "Accept your fate." And yes, there is a run-in with bees. UK paper The Guardian described the moment when the bees attack you in a surprisingly philosophical tone: "At this point, realise that you're merely delaying the inevitable. You take your hands off the keyboards and let the bees attack Culkin at will. He dies. Anna Chlumsky wails: 'HE WAS GONNA BE AN ACROBAT!' The game ends." Yikes.

5. The Original Title Was TerribleAccording to the semi-reliable IMDb page for "My Girl," the movie's original title was "Born Jaundiced," which is just terrible. Producers then offered up $500 to whichever Imagine Entertainment employee could come up with the best title. (Imagine Entertainment is Ron Howard and Brian Grazer's company, by the way.) Since the movie is largely set in a funeral parlor, many suggested things like "Mourning Glory" (pun!), "In Lieu of Flowers," and "Dearly Departed" which, arguably, are all just as horrible as "Born Jaundiced." It was Grazer who came up with "My Girl," probably because he was thinking about all of the trailers and TV spots that could trot out the Temptations song of the same name. It's unclear whether or not he took the $500 and subsequently spent it on hair-care products.

6. Thrash Rock Band Anthrax Loved ItApparently, Anthrax, the noisy rock band whose music inspires countless bored husbands to head bang in their cars on the way to the accounting firm where they work, was a huge fan of the movie. There's a line of dialogue spoken by Griffin Dunne's teacher character in the film (Chlumsky is in love with him, but Culkin said it wouldn't be fair because he'd give her straight As -- ah, youth), "Be dangerous and unpredictable ... and make a lot of noise." At the end of their 1993 album "Sound of White Noise," singer John Bush says that exact phrase. Incredible. Also, I had to go to the Ultimate Metal message boards to chisel this nugget out for y'all, so please give thanks.

7. The House They Used for the Funeral Home Is Supposedly HauntedHidden inside an Orlando Weekly article about the history of the building that served as the funeral home in the film is this tantalizing detail: The house, which for many years was known as The Stanford Inn, was supposedly haunted. According to the highly scientific Apollo Paranormal website, in 2010, a paranormal investigation took place and the evidence (weird sounds, blurry photos) speak for themselves. Actually they don't speak to anything at all, but it's still fun to think about. According to the site, "Guests for years have reported hearing what sounds like a party going on at various times of night in the dining and bar area of the Stanford." Frustratingly, the site doesn't talk at all about who the ghosts or supposed to be or if anything horrific or otherworldly went down inside the house, besides Dan Aykroyd's ghoulish over-acting.

"Jerry Maguire" had us at hello.

Released 20 years ago this week (on December 13, 1996), Cameron Crowe's sports-themed romantic dramedy gave us Tom Cruise at his most charming, made a star of Renée Zellweger, made an Oscar-winner of Cuba Gooding Jr. and generated at least three indelible catchphrases. To celebrate the 20th anniversary of this '90s classic, here are some mission statement-worthy facts you need to know.
1. After the failure of his 1992 movie "Singles," Crowe felt like he learned who his true friends were. That feeling was the seed of his next film. "I originally wanted to do a movie that was about how you would arrive at your greatest success through incredible failure," Crowe has said of the "Jerry Maguire" script. One inspiration was a newspaper photo of an athlete and his agent, "They were two guys of very different sizes and loud shirts. But they were clearly two guys against the world."

2. Much of the inspiration for Jerry as a sports agent came from Leigh Steinberg, a real-life agent who served as a consultant on the film. You can see him in the movie as the man who introduces Jerry to Troy Aikman (a real-life Steinberg client). He'd have had a bigger role in the movie, playing Jerry's brother, who gives an unflattering toast at Jerry's bachelor party, but he didn't want to come off as a villain. "To this day, I may be the only actor who ever talked his way out of a scene with Tom Cruise," he claims. 3. He also claims to have taught Jerry O'Connell, as aspiring NFL quarterback Frank Cushman, how to throw a spiral.

4. Similarly, Crowe based Rod Tidwell loosely on Tim McDonald, a San Francisco 49er who once walked the media floor with Steinberg the way Jerry and Rod do in the movie.
5. Crowe has also credited McDonald with coining the phrase "Show me the money."

6. Crowe spent nearly four years writing and revising the script, all the while with Tom Hanks in mind for the lead. But Hanks was committed to directing and starring in "That Thing You Do."
7. Cruise was Crowe's next choice, though he'd been told the A-lister wouldn't want to play a struggling loser. "In fact," Crowe learned, "he was dying to play someone who was on the ropes."

8. Connie Britton screen tested for the role of Dorothy and was led to believe she'd nailed the audition. But there was still one more actress the producers wanted to see, and that turned out to be Renée Zellweger. Britton has joked that she probably lost the part because she's too tall for Tom Cruise.
9. Zellweger, then little-known, auditioned for Dorothy three times over the space of a month. Cruise was there for her final reading, and that made all the difference. Crowe videotaped the audition and saw Cruise reacting to Zellweger "in that great way that Spencer Tracy regards Katharine Hepburn. Just someone watching this person who, as it happens, was going to play a big part in his future life. And it was all there in the first moment."

10. Having begun his show business career as a breakdancer, Cuba Gooding, Jr. was also the right actor to perform Rod's end-zone dance, which was choreographed by Paula Abdul.
11. Gooding disarmed and won over Cruise and Crowe during his audition by performing the locker room scene naked as written. His high school football background gave him the chops to play Rod, though he also went through a week of training camp to prepare.

12. To prepare for the scene where she has to clock Cruise, Kelly Preston trained with celebrated boxer Ray "Boom Boom" Mancini.
13. To play Ray, Crowe wanted a child who didn't seem like a professional actor. But the one he hired didn't work out and had to be replaced after three weeks.

He hired a kid with a McDonald's ad on his résumé, Jonathan Lipnicki. The five-year-old and Cruise had a rapport, maybe because, as Lipnicki told Cruise at his audition, "Top Gun" was his favorite movie, one he'd seen 20 times. Lipnicki brought to the picture Ray's look (the spiky hair, the glasses) and the line about the human head weighing eight pounds.

14. Crowe wanted the director he admired most, Billy Wilder -- whose "The Apartment" was Crowe's model for the office romance between Jerry and Dorothy -- to play Dicky Fox, Jerry's mentor seen in flashbacks. Wilder, who was a sparkling conversationalist but not an actor, turned him down. Not even Cruise could talk him into taking the part. Crowe went instead with Jared Jussim, a top lawyer at Sony (the film's distributor) who had no acting experience.
15. No Cameron Crowe movie would be complete without some music-business cameos. There's Crowe's former boss, Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner, playing Jerry's boss at Sports Management International. That's the late Glenn Frey of the Eagles as the general manager of Rod's team, the Arizona Cardinals. Music video director Mark Pellington is the director of the commercial with the camel. And that's Alice in Chains frontman Jerry Cantrell as the guy at the copy shop who helps Jerry print his notorious mission statement.

16. We see very little of that mission statement on screen, but Crowe really did write all 27 pages of it. He posted it online a few months ago here. (It is also on the film's first special edition DVD.)
17. Life Imitates Art moment: Shortly after Gooding filmed the "Are you Hootie?" scene, a fan in an airport really did mistake the actor for Hootie and the Blowfish frontman Darius Rucker. By the way, in Spain, the line is dubbed, "Are you Ice-T?" because Rucker and his band weren't that famous there.

18. As you would expect in a movie about athlete endorsements, product placement runs rampant in "Jerry Maguire," with some 25 retailers' merchandise getting prominent screen time. But then there was Reebok, which spent $1.5 million on placement, including a commercial starring Rod.

That got cut from the film, and all that was left was Rod's rant criticizing the shoe company. Reebok sued the studio for $10 million for breach of contract, a suit that was settled out of court. Rod's Reebok ad was restored to the film in TV broadcasts and on the Special Edition DVD.
19. The movie cost a reported $50 million to make. It earned back $154 million in North America and another $120 million abroad.

20. "Jerry Maguire" was nominated for five Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay, Best Actor, and Best Editing. It won for Best Supporting Actor, a moment that saw Gooding accept his trophy by doing Rod's end-zone breakdance.
21. Of all the quotes in the movie that became pop-culture staples, Crowe was surprised that the idea of "the kwan" did not become as quotable. He really thought that one was gonna take off.

"Feed me, Seymour!"

If there's anything better than "Little Shop of Horrors," we don't wanna know about it. We're not talking about the Roger Corman flick, but rather the 1986 movie musical inspired by it (but mostly based on the hit off-Broadway musical that was inspired by Corman's film. Everybody got that?).

For the last 30 years, we can't get the songs from this crazy-good musical out of our heads. They're as catchy as this movie is effortlessly entertaining -- and the cult-favorite came this close to not happening.

As "Little Shop" and Audrey II celebrate their 30th anniversary, we're going back to Skid Row in search of all the things fans of the movie should know.
1. The film cost nearly $30 million -- at the time, it was Warner Bros. most expensive movie.

2. Director Frank Oz, then best known as the voice of Yoda and Miss Piggy, and the production struggled to find the best ways to bring the singing, man-eating plant to life. Having worked with puppet effects before, Oz decided to go in that direction for Audrey II.
3. To depict the various sizes of the plant shown in the film, the production built six animatronic "mean green mothers." The smallest was four inches tall, while the biggest plant -- used for the finale -- stood a crazy-tall 12 feet.

4. For the climax, the 12-footer -- and its pod of smaller (all-singing) flytraps -- needed as many as 60 operators to execute the complex sequence. Operators would be on the floor, pulling various levers and cables to bring the alien plant to life.
5. It's rare for performers to create a role on stage and also play the character in a movie adaptation. But Ellen Greene managed to pull it off, bringing her unique take on Audrey to the big screen. (On the DVD's special features, the actor and director remark that, at the time, this was the first instance of such a casting move that they could recall in movie history.)

6. Audrey's "I Want" song, "Somewhere That's Green," was created by lyricist Howard Ashman and composer Alan Menken, who also worked together on the musical. They also helped create the memorable tunes in Disney's "The Little Mermaid."

7. In fact, Ariel's "I Want" number, "Part of Your World," was inspired in large part by "Green." In a 2015 interview with Entertainment Weekly, Menken says that they "used to jokingly call ["Part of Your World"] 'Somewhere That's Wet.'"
8. How they got Audrey II to sing opposite Rick Moranis' Seymour was, according to Oz, "a b**ch." The lips on the plant did not look right moving at the normal speed of 24-frames-per-second. They couldn't move fast enough to properly synch up to the pre-recorded songs. The crew's solution? Film the puppets at 12 to 16 FPS, then (wow) speed up the playback to the standard 24 frames.

9. And yes, that means that, whenever an actor sang side-by-side with the puppet, they were lip-synching in slow-motion. (On the Blu-ray, in the vintage EPK featurette, you can see and hear a snippet of Moranis lip-synching to the slowed-down playback of his first duet with the middle-sized Audrey II.)
10. According to Oz on the DVD commentary, Jim Henson's son, was Audrey II's main operator during the "Feed Me" number.

11. And the abused dental patient that comes out to greet Bill Murray's character, the one with the worst braces ever? That's Jim Henson's daughter, Heather.
12. Speaking of Bill Murray, who plays the masochist patient of Steve Martin's sadist dentist, Oz credits producer David Geffen for getting the actor. "David wanted him," Oz told MTV in 2012, "so I called Billy and I said, 'So Billy, you wanna do this thing?' He said, 'Yeah, but do I have to say the lines?' I said, 'Look, as long as you're the masochist and Steve's the sadist, I don't care.' So that's what happened."

13. All of Murray's dialogue was (duh) improvised. "Steve was the hub, he had his part solid," Oz recalled, "and Billy riffed around him, and every take was different, all ad-libbed."
14. Martin hurt his hand while slamming open the door to Audrey's apartment building. On the special edition Blu-ray, there is an outtake real that includes the brief clip of Martin's hand shattering the door's window as Oz provides commentary over the footage.

15. The outtake real, as Oz revealed on the disc commentary, was something put together for the wrap party.

16. Bet you've never seen this deleted scene before. It's the infamous dream sequence cut from "The Meek Shall Inherit" musical montage. It involves surreal Greek columns and a bleeding portrait of Mr. Mushnick. You're welcome.
17. The film scored one of the highest-rated test screenings for the studio... until the audience saw the original ending. Recently restored for the Blu-ray, the original ending features the plant eating our heroes and then joining other giant plants on a city-wide rampage involving, among other NYC landmarks, the Statue of Liberty.
18. Oz and Howard wanted the darker ending (above), producer Geffen did not -- though Geffen respected their vision and did not force the cut on them. But since the film was made for an audience of more than just the filmmakers, Oz relented and reshot a happier ending.

"A Clockwork Orange" was Stanley Kubrick's most controversial movie, and that's saying something for a career that included "Lolita," "Dr. Strangelove," "The Shining," "Full Metal Jacket," and "Eyes Wide Shut."

Today, 45 years after its release (on December 19, 1971), the futuristic fable -- about an ultraviolent thug (Malcolm McDowell, in his star-making performance) who becomes even more soulless after behavior modification therapy -- seems more and more prescient about the way we live now.

Still, as influential and imitated as "Clockwork" has been, there's plenty you may not know about it, from the real-life tortures McDowell endured to the film's unlikely "Star Wars" connection, to the movie's notorious afterlife. Cue up some Beethoven and read on.
1. Kubrick was going to follow up his landmark sci-fi hit "2001: A Space Odyssey" with a movie about Napoleon, which never got off the ground. Instead, his wife brought to his attention Anthony Burgess's 1962 novel "A Clockwork Orange," a book whose provocations punched all of the dark-humored director's buttons.

2. Kubrick cast McDowell as the protagonist, Alex, after seeing him in his starring role as the rebellious schoolboy in the movie "If..."
3. McDowell claims he helped come up with Alex's famous costume, including the bowler hat, the single fake eyelash, and the all-white outfit, inspired by the actor's own cricket uniform. He credits Kubrick with the idea of wearing the jockstrap outside his pants.

4. But McDowell also suffered for Kubrick's art, enduring injuries that mimicked those Alex received on screen. During the sequence when Alex's eyelids are pried open to force him to watch the behavior-modification films, McDowell's cornea was scratched, and he was temporarily blinded -- even though the actor playing the doctor was a real doctor. His true purpose on the set was to administer eye drops to the star and protect his eyes.
5. McDowell also suffered cracked ribs during the sequence where Alex is beaten and humiliated on stage to demonstrate the effectiveness of the therapy.

6. Nonetheless, the star took his lumps without complaint. "I didn't really mind doing it in the end," he told Collider upon the film's 40th anniversary, "because I knew it was a good cause and I knew that the film was going to be extraordinary in many ways, simply because of my own stuff, because, I was in practically every frame of it. So, as an actor, I was doing things that I had only dreamed of."
7. The notorious rape scene, during which Alex dances and belts out "Singin' in the Rain," came about through improvisation. Kubrick and the cast had been rehearsing the scene for five days and had been unable to make it work until the director suggested that McDowell dance and sing. The actor chose the cheery theme from the classic musical because "it was the only one I sorta half knew the words to."

8. Kubrick's adaptation was based on the American edition of the novel, which left out the final chapter, in which Alex matures and finds a measure of redemption on his own. That chapter wasn't published in America until 1986, a quarter-century after the novel's initial printing and 15 years after the movie. McDowell claimed that final chapter was a concession forced on Burgess by his British publishers, a sop to conventional morality that the author knocked off in a couple hours, and that the version with the ironic ending filmed by Kubrick is more authentic.
9. That beefy guy playing Julian, the writer's bodyguard and manservant, is David Prowse (above), still six years away from originating the role of Darth Vader in "Star Wars."

10. Kubrick achieved the point-of-view shot of the approaching ground from Alex's attempted suicidal leap by putting a camera in a box, lens down, and dropping it out a third-story window. The camera managed to survive six takes.
11. Despite Alex's stated fondness for Beethoven, there are actually more pieces in the score by Rossini than by old Ludwig van.

12. After the extravagant "2001," Kubrick made a concerted effort with "Clockwork" to prove he could keep to a modest budget. As a result, almost all of the film was shot in existing locations within a quick drive of the filmmaker's home outside London. Only three sets were built from scratch. "Clockwork" also marked the shortest shoot in the notoriously perfectionist director's career, just 113 days. As a result, he was able to keep the film's costs down to a mere $2.2 million.
13. The movie was a financial success all over the world, including North America, where it grossed $26.6 million.

14. "Clockwork" was initially rated "X" in the United States, back when that rating wasn't automatically considered pornographic. Indeed, the ratings board thought Kubrick was trying to put one over on them with the sped-up sex scene and worried that porn filmmakers would follow suit in the hopes of earning a less restrictive rating. Later, however, when "Clockwork" was re-released in theaters and on home video, Kubrick cut some 30 seconds of sexually explicit footage, and the board reduced the rating to an R.
15. The film was nominated for four Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Editing. It's the only X-rated film, along with 1969 winner "Midnight Cowboy," ever to earn a Best Picture nomination.

16. After a series of alleged copycat crimes in Britain and death threats against Kubrick and his family, the director called for the film to be pulled from circulation in the United Kingdom. It was unavailable there for 27 years, until Kubrick's death in 1999.

17. About a year after the movie came out, McDowell claims, he was at a Hollywood party where he was introduced to Gene Kelly. He says the "Singin' in the Rain" star looked him over, then walked away without saying a word.

McDowell says he understood the musical legend's hard feelings over the way he'd ruined Kelly's song in "Clockwork" and didn't blame him for the snub. It was only in 2011, 40 years after the film's release, that McDowell says he learned from Kelly's widow that the song-and-dance man's grudge wasn't against McDowell himself but against Kubrick, for allegedly stiffing him on royalties from the film's use of his recording.

What's not to like about "Father of the Bride," which celebrates its 25th anniversary this week (it was released on December 20, 1991)?

It has Steve Martin at the peak of his overwhelmed-dad period, a luminous Diane Keaton, a delightful Kimberly Williams-Paisley (in her screen debut), an unhinged Martin Short, and all the drool-worthy, catalog-quality consumerism and home decor you'd expect in a movie from Nancy Meyers.

Still, as many times as you've lusted after Annie Banks's lavish dream wedding -- or groaned like George over its costly excesses -- there's plenty you may not know about "Father of the Bride." Read on for the story of how this bridal party came to be.
1. In the original 1950 "Father of the Bride," it was Spencer Tracy who played exasperated dad Stanley Banks, with Elizabeth Taylor as his soon-to-be-wed daughter. MGM scheduled the film's release to coincide with the 18-year-old starlet's real-life wedding to hotel heir Nicky Hilton, hoping for a once-in-a-lifetime publicity bonanza. Little did anyone know at the time that a Taylor wedding wouldn't be that rare of an event.

2. In the remake, co-scripted by Meyers and then-husband Charles Shyer (who also directed), Stanley became George Banks, now named for the apoplectic dad in "Mary Poppins." But he kept Stanley as a middle name.
3. At 45, Martin was beginning to move on from the wacky comedies that had launched his film career and was starting to play conventional dads in movies like "Parenthood."

"I'm not doing 'wild and crazy,' "Man With Two Brains" comedy anymore," he said at the time of the film;s release. "If I didn't change, I'd be an idiot. I'd look really foolish if I were doing those kind of comedies now. I'm not the same age as I was. I'm wiser than I was."

4. Tom Irish made his debut in the 1950 "Father" and his final screen appearance in the 1991 remake. In both films, he played a relative named Ben Banks.
5. Phoebe Cates was the filmmakers' first choice for the bride, but she was pregnant and unavailable, so they went with newcomer Williams.

6. Martin said he didn't try to pay homage to Tracy's performance, which he considered "flawless." Instead, he just tried to be himself.

"What I'm personalizing in 'Father of the Bride' is the melancholy that I feel, or that people feel," he said. "I like that emotion. It's a very perplexing emotion. All you can do when you're indicated by it is just stand there. You can't do anything about it. If you're angry, you can yell, of if you're sad, you can cry. But if you have melancholy, you just can't believe what's happening. I like to play it."
7. The picture-perfect Banks home (above) is a real house in Pasadena, California that was recently sold in 2016. Shyer filmed most of the interior and exterior shots there, but the backyard where the wedding takes place was that of another house in Alhambra, California.

8. Martin wasn't the only one essentially playing himself on screen. "Everybody in this movie is kind of playing themselves," he said. Citing on-screen wife Keaton, he said, "Diane is very much like that. Her personality is like quicksilver, and she talks like that, and when you first meet her, you think she's doing a Diane Keaton impression. She really is lightning and erratic and crinkling with electrical charge."
9. George Newbern, as bridegroom Bryan MacKenzie, was also drawing from his own life. He'd recently married (in fact, you can see the tan line on his ring finger during the ceremony) and had to win over a formidable father-in-law named George.

"It's just not fun," he said. "Girls don't have to do that. I'm from the South, from Arkansas. My father had to do it. My grandfather was a federal judge, and my father had to go talk to him. He said that was just like descending into hell."
10. Perhaps the only person playing someone broader than himself was Short, as wedding planner Franck. But Short said, if anything, he was underplaying the character.

"If you go meet a wedding coordinator in Beverly Hills, you'd ask, 'Why is he playing it so down?'" Short said he largely improvised Franck's dialogue, which he said was mostly gibberish on the page. As for the character's incomprehensible accent, Short acknowledged, "The accent was a complete mishmash. There was no consistency. Maybe he was from Poland, educated in England, visited Prague, and made side trips to Yugoslavia."

11. Yep, that's future "Scott Pilgrim" and "Fargo" co-star Kieran Culkin as Annie's brother, Matty. Having made his debut as bed-wetting cousin Fuller in "Home Alone," the eight-year-old Culkin enjoyed his first major speaking role in "Father."
12. After the film's release, Martin claimed "Father" marked the first time "I looked at a movie I was in and liked myself."

13. "Father" cost a reported $20 million to make. It made $89 million in theaters, prompting a sequel four years later.
14. Williams and Newbern capitalized on their newfound fame by appearing together as a young couple, much like the MacKenzies, in a series of Hallmark ads.

15. In 2014, Martin shot down reports that he'd signed on to star in a belated threequel, one that would have had kid brother Matty now grown and engaged -- to another man.

Time to feel old, '90s kids: It has been 20 years (gulp) since "Scream" scared you sh**less and changed the way Hollywood made slasher movies.

Since the first film's release on December 20, 1996, there have been four movies that have grossed $604 million worldwide, as well as a spinoff series on MTV. "Scream" not only became the most lucrative slasher-film series ever, but it also revitalized the teen horror genre. Still, as inescapable and relentless as the "Scream" franchise has been, there are still a lot of secrets behind that mask. Here are 16 terrifying tidbits of trivia.
1. "Scream" was originally a screenplay by Kevin Williamson called "Scary Movie," inspired in part by the real-life killings of five college students in Gainesville, Florida in 1990. But Dimension studio chief Bob Weinstein didn't think the title reflected Williamson's blend of horror and comedy.

2. Inspired by the recent Michael Jackson hit, Weinstein renamed the picture "Scream" but kept the "Scary Movie" title for the horror-spoof franchise launched in 2000.
3. Horror master Wes Craven turned down the movie several times, but the director changed his mind when he learned an actress of Drew Barrymore's stature was involved. Barrymore was initially cast as heroine Sidney Prescott, but she then shifted to the smaller role of first victim Casey Becker due to her busy schedule.

4. Courteney Cox wasn't considered for newswoman Gale Weathers because producers assumed audiences wouldn't buy the "Friends" star in a bitchy role. The filmmakers considered Brooke Shields and Janeane Garofalo, but Cox assured them she could play against type.
5. The menacing phone voice of Ghostface in all the movies belongs to Roger L. Jackson, who also voices the villainous chimp Mojo Jojo on "Powerpuff Girls." During production of the first three films, none of the other actors even met Jackson but only heard his voice when talking to him on the phone; Craven thought that would make their fear more convincing.

6. Because of "Scream's" extreme violence and gore, Craven had to recut and submit it to the ratings board eight times in hope of avoiding an NC-17 rating. Craven even lied that he had no alternate, less bloody take of Barrymore's stabbing. Eventually, Weinstein persuaded the board that "Scream" deserved an R because the movie was satirizing violence, not glorifying it.
7. With the success of "Scream," the sequel was rushed into production, shooting in July 1997 for a release date that December. The haste led to a leak of the script, forcing Williamson to rewrite on set and change the identity of the killers.

8. "I hate horror movies," said Liev Schreiber, after he had played the menacing Cotton Weary in the first two installments. So why did he act in the series? Because he liked the idea of horror movies that were "in on the joke." Also, he said, "because I knew I wouldn't have to watch them. I would only have to be in them." Soon after, he signed on for "Scream 3."
9. Cox and David Arquette (Deputy Dewey Riley) met on the set of "Scream." By the time they shot "Scream 2," they were a couple off-screen. Just before the "Scream 3" shoot, they got married. When "Scream 4" was shooting in 2010, they were on the verge of splitting up.

10. The Columbine High School massacre in April 1999 made Hollywood much more sensitive, at least for a little while, about violence in teen entertainment. As a result, "Scream 3" was rewritten, taking it out of its initial high school setting, playing up the humor, and downplaying the violence.
11. Williamson proposed a second trilogy in 2008, but only got as far as "Scream 4." (Blame that film's less-than-expected box office for why the fifth and sixth films never materialized.) Weinstein instead decided to launch the MTV series in June 2015. Craven's death in August 2015 probably puts the kibosh on any more "Scream" movies.

12. Campbell initially didn't want to return for "Scream 4," and Williamson had to write Sidney out of early drafts of the script.
13. The "Scream 4" filmmakers initially offered Ashley Greene the Jill Roberts role that ultimately went to future "Scream Queens" star Emma Roberts.

14. Lauren Graham was cast as Roberts' mom, but left the shoot after just a few days. Mary McDonnell replaced her.
15. The Ghostface mask was designed by retailer Fun World in 1991, inspired (aptly) by Edvard Munch's famous painting "The Scream." It was also inspired by a figure from Gerald Scarfe's artwork from Pink Floyd's "The Wall" album and some ghost figures in an old Betty Boop cartoon.

16. The "Scream" franchise has reportedly made the mask, along with the ragged-edged cloak used in the films, into the best-selling Halloween costume in America.

Do you feel lucky? Well, do you, punk?

If you do, then it's time to celebrate the 45th anniversary of "Dirty Harry," released on December 23, 1971. The landmark movie gave Clint Eastwood his most famous role, invented a new kind of hero and a new kind of police thriller, and heralded the cultural shift away from Westerns toward the modern urban cop drama as the arena for American stories about law, social order, and violence. Celebrate the iconic film's anniversary with these need-to-know facts.
1. The original "Dirty Harry" script, written by Harry Julian Fink and Rita M. Fink and called "Dead Right," was about a middle-aged cop tracking a serial killer in New York.

2. In revisions, the setting changed to Seattle before settling in San Francisco. Among the script doctors who revised it: future "Apocalypse Now" and "Red Dawn" scribe John Milius, who claimed credit for the movie's firearm fetishism and Harry's famous speech praising his Smith & Wesson .44 Magnum. Another was Terrence Malick, still three years away from his breakthrough film "Badlands." He made the killer a vigilante who attacked other killers, an idea that ultimately found its way into the first "Dirty Harry" sequel, "Magnum Force."
3. Frank Sinatra, then 55, was the initial star attached to the film. But he bowed out, reportedly because a hand injury he'd suffered a decade earlier on the set of "The Manchurian Candidate" made Harry's all-important .44 Magnum too heavy for the singer-actor to hold comfortably. ("That sounded like a pretty lame excuse," Eastwood recalled in 2008.)

4. Several A-list leading men turned down the role, mostly out of concerns over the extreme violence. (Even John Wayne found Harry too trigger-happy.) Steve McQueen didn't want to do another cop movie so soon after "Bullitt" (he turned down "The French Connection" for the same reason). Liberals Burt Lancaster and Paul Newman disagreed with the character's seemingly right-wing politics, but Newman recommended to the producers the more right-leaning Eastwood.
5. Eastwood's conditions for accepting the role: hire director Don Siegel, who'd made three previous movies with Eastwood, and go back to the original story that pitted lone-wolf Harry against the killer.

6. With the San Francisco setting, however, came the notion of making the villain more like the Zodiac Killer who'd recently terrorized the Bay Area. The movie's bad guy, "Scorpio," certainly echoed Zodiac in his name, his hippie trappings, and his taunting of the authorities.

7. Siegel's initial pick for Scorpio was World War II hero-turned-movie-hero Audie Murphy, figuring it would shock audiences to see Murphy playing against type. But Murphy died in a plane crash just before "Dirty Harry" went into production. Filmmakers also briefly considered James Caan for the part.
8. Eastwood and Siegel had seen Andy Robinson in a play and picked him as Scorpio, again because his angelic face made him seem like anything but a serial killer. In fact, Robinson considered himself a pacifist and would flinch whenever he had to fire a weapon -- until Siegel made him undergo firearms training.

9. Robinson ad libbed the line "My, that's a big one," in response to seeing Harry's revolver. His improvisation made the crew crack up and ruined the take, but Siegel liked the line and kept it when they reshot the scene.
10. The 41-year-old Eastwood performed a number of his own stunts in the film. If you watch closely the scene where Harry jumps from a bridge onto the roof of a moving school bus, you'll see that it's really Eastwood and not a double.

11. Siegel was out sick the day the scene was to be shot in which Harry confronts a suicidal jumper, so Eastwood directed the scene himself.

12. While Harry's famous Smith & Wesson Model 29 revolver holds .44 Magnum bullets, blanks of that caliber were unavailable in 1971. Whenever you see Harry open fire, he's shooting a nearly identical Smith & Wesson Model 25, which uses .45 caliber rounds.
13. During the classic scene near the beginning when Harry catches the bank robbers, you can see a movie theater marquee advertising Eastwood's directing debut, "Play Misty for Me," which had just been released at the time of the shoot.

14. "Dirty Harry" cost $4 million to make. It returned $36 million in North America, making it the fourth biggest movie of 1971.
15. Robinson was so convincingly evil as Scorpio that he received death threats and had to get an unlisted phone number.

16. "Dirty Harry" had an impact even overseas. Two copycat hostage crimes, one in Australia and one in Germany, were blamed on the film. Meanwhile, in the Philippines, one police department reportedly screened Eastwood's exploits for training purposes.