This article was originally published on tv-bee and has been republished here with permission.
The movies. Don’t you just love the whole experience of either going to the cinema or organizing a movie night? The smell of popcorn, the visit to the arcade before the movie, getting to your seats, preparing all the snacks before hitting that Netflix button. It's just magic. If you are a movie lover you know that a lot of movies have hidden details or amazing stories behind the scenes. Those details add that extra flavor to the movies and the art of making them. We collected 40 of those details for you to enjoy. Grab some popcorn, take the best seat and enjoy the journey!Avengers
The Marvel movies really exploded in the last decade. They created an entire universe and gifted us with the Avengers. These movies are just pure joy for the kids and the adults, especially the geeky ones.
In Avengers: Endgame, there is a scene where Bucky says goodbye to Captain America as he is going off to return to The Stones. It almost seems like a testament to their friendship. The rest of the characters are expecting him to return, but Bucky knows that Captain America won't be returning to his timeline.
Home Alone
Perhaps one of the most loved Christmas movies ever made had one cool detail! If you watched the movie, you probably asked yourself, how come they never notice that their kid was missing?
In the scene where they are getting on the 2 vans to go on the trip, they count 17 people in total. An odd number, that meant that they would be split 8/9 between the vans. Since Kevin was missing, there were 8 people on both of the vans. Each group just assumed that they were in the 8-people van!
WALL-E
The computer-animated romantic-comedy science fiction movie, WALL-E became an instant classic when it came out back in 2008. One of the reasons people loved it was the amazing writing. Both kids and adults loved the movie.
The opening scene shows that nuclear plants and wind turbines were built on top of trash mounds. This clever scene implied that mankind never converted to clean energy and at that point, it was too late.
Lord Of The Rings
J. R. R. Tolkien gifted us with the books. Peter Jackson gifted us with epic fantasy adventure films. The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit franchises earned them, as well as the cast and crew a whopping 18 Oscars!
The effects, the costumes, the make-up, the acting, the story all of it is just amazing. The famous ring has many close-up shots with gold reflections. A cool giant ring was used for all of those shots!
Mulan
Disney cartoons from our childhood were just amazing! Perhaps one of the favorites is Mulan. A girl warrior defending her family, it’s just a super empowering story. The music in it was also phenomenal.
Performed by the Hollywood Symphony Orchestra, the music played only in the first half of the cartoon. After the village destruction scene, there was no music at all. This was done on purpose by the creators to set a darker tone.
Scrooged
The ’80s had a lot of great movies with the hilarious Bill Murray, and one of them was “Scrooged”. The movie is a mixture of two themes that everyone adores, Christmas Carol and Ghostbusters.
The movie is filled with goofy yet funny scenes. One of them is when Bill Murray's character slips, falls down, and quickly gets back up as if nothing happened. This was an unscripted fall, he actually slipped on the water he threw on the waiter.
Interstellar
If there is a list of “Best Space Movies” Interstellar is definitely on it. One movie critic called it “Stephen Hawking's Star Trek”. The movie has a great cast and an amazing story with many “What the?!” moments.
One of those moments is when the crew got back to the spaceship from the water planet only to realize 23 years passed on Earth. The soundtrack leading up to that scene had a prominent ticking noise, each tick represented a day on earth.
The Fellowship Of The Ring
Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring is the first movie from the amazing trilogy. The characters' costumes from the movie showed a great number of details and authenticity to the books.
One of the characters, Boromir, dies in the first movie. Aragorn, his brother in arms and one of the coolest characters honors him by wearing his bracers. For the rest of the trilogy, Viggo Mortensen, who played Aragorn, wore the bracers.
Inside Out
One creative way to educated kids about emotions is through art. The Pixar cartoon Inside Out perfectly demonstrated five core emotions, fear, anger, joy, disgust, and sadness. This movie became a success around the globe in that respect.
The creators of the cartoon knew one little detail about Japan. Kids in Japan don’t like bell peppers. So for the Japanese version, the creators localized the cartoon and replaced the pizza toppings from broccoli to bell peppers.
The Clocks In Joker
Arthur Fleck AKA Joker left the audience in shock. The movie was not your typical superhero movie. It was very dark and sinister, with a bold ending that no one saw coming.
hAt the end of the movie, the audience realizes that everything is happening in Arthur's head. Throughout the movie, the writers gave viewers little hints that this is happening. Every clock from every scene was set to 11:11.
Harry Potter
The great and powerful J. K. Rowling, the woman, is a magician herself. She gifted us with the Harry Potter books. The books resulted in an eight fantasy film franchise that generated $7.7 billion just from the box office alone.
In the Prisoner of Azkaban, on the train ride to Hogwarts Professor Lupin is shown sleeping the entire scene. That scene is set on the 1st Of September, 1993. In real life, that day had a full moon. Lupin was exhausted because he'd transformed the night before into a werewolf.
The Incredibles 2
The Incredibles is an incredible cartoon series. The first cartoon came out back in 2004 and kids loved it! After all, what's there not to like? It was one cool family of superheroes.
After 14 long years, the second part came out and kids loved it. The plot was that Helen, AKA Elastigirl, becomes a superhero once again and is separated from the family fighting crime. When Helen is shown in her hotel room there is a painting on the wall that illustrates her separation from the family.
Man Of Steel
Man of Steel, the reboot of the Superman film series, portrayed the origin series of Clark Kent. The comic fans fell in love with the movie and the way it honored the authenticity of the character.
Henry Cavill, who portrayed Superman, had a scene where he saves oil rig workers while being shirtless. For that scene, the director asked him to shave his chest. He refused, citing “Death Of Superman” comics, he said, “Superman had chest hair”.
Gandalf
We can’t stop telling you about the Lord of the Rings. It's just that great of a movie franchise. Perhaps best known for yelling out “Run you fools”, the protagonist Gandalf is loved by fans of the novel.
Starting from the first movie he is shown with a cool, long pipe that he smokes. As he exhales the smoke he makes rings and even a Galleon ship! Throughout the whole movie, he carries his pipe in his staff.
Legend
Identical twins Reggie and Ronnie Kray rose to power of the criminal underworld in London and became legendary gangsters of the ’60s. Tom Hardy skillfully portrayed the two in the movie Legend that came out in 2015.
The movie received mixed reviews. Some people loved it, some people didn't and criticized it for idealizing the criminals and that life. But one thing for sure is that the movie was creative just like the poster. With clever positioning, it mocked the negative reviews.
IT
“Hi, Georgie!” a line that sends chills down our spine as we imagine what Pennywise does next. IT is a must-watch horror movie. Actually, both the original one and the remake.
Pennywise is always watching his victims, it is a secret to them but the audience knows it. But in some scenes, it takes an eye for detail to notice that. Like in this scene where the clown appears on the drawing on the wall.
The Truman Show
Jim Carrey's performance in the psychological comedy-drama, The Truman Show, is considered to be one of his best. The movie script is no different. It’s just very original and there is no other movie out there that resembles it.
In one scene of the movie Truman takes a high dose of vitamin D during breakfast. The character has no clue that he is taking it to counteract the deficiency of the vitamin from not experiencing any exposure to real sunlight.
The Return Of The King
So again, it’s the Lord of the Rings, we promise this is the last one from the franchise. This time let's take a look at a scene from The Return Of The King.
The Rohirrim Charge, an important scene where the good guys charge at the bad guys on a battlefield. In the front line, Peter Jackson placed extras only that read the books since they understood the importance of the battle. This is how this epic rider made the cut.
Avatar
James Cameron's 3D epic movie Avatar was a big hit when it came out and broke many box office records. The movie in many ways had a hidden message about the problems of colonialism, capitalist greed, and racism.
In the movie, there are a few scenes where the soldiers gather in a room to get their daily brief. The background of that room is shaped like an American flag hinting that the country has the issues shown in the allegory.
Tangled
“Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair, so that I may climb thy golden stair.” Every kid knows the fairy tale, so what did Disney do? A movie! Tangled that came out in 2010 was actually quite good.
Rapunzel is locked up by her protective mom in a tower. In one scene, the movie animators cleverly show how the mother kisses Rapunzel's hair, not the forehead. And as she kissed it she said: “I Love You The Most”.
Heath Ledger
The psychologically intense Joker is one of the darkest movies of 2019. Todd Phillips created a masterpiece and Joaquin Phoenix masterfully portrayed the character. The movie is full of Easter eggs that have to do with the DC universe.
As a salute to the great performance by Heath Ledger the designers that worked on the movie did something special. The back of the ambulance that was shown in Joker has a design that closely resembles the makeup Heath Ledger wore.
Titanic
One of the most memorable movies of the '90s won 11 of the 14 Oscars for which it was nominated. The main characters are fictional but many other characters were based on real people from the ship.
The couple that accepted their fate laying in bed is based on Isador and Ida Straus. Ida refused to leave her husband when he refused to get on the lifeboat because there were more children and women on the ship. The couple was last seen holding hands on the deck as the ship sank.
The Iron Giant
The Iron Giant was a kind of cartoon from the late ’90s that kids fell in love with. But did you know that the voice of the giant was done by no other than Vin Diesel? That’s right. Before voicing Groot he had some practice in voice acting.
Brad Bird made the cartoon as a memorial to his sister who was mortally shot by her husband. When pitching the cartoon to Hollywood producers the main message was "What If A Gun Had A Soul And Didn't Want To Be A Gun?"
Big Hero 6
Kids who love technology were geeking out when Big Hero 6 came out back in 2014. A robotics genius living in the future decides to assemble a high-tech superhero team to fight the bad guys! One hero in the team is called Honey, she has a power purse that stores some cool nanotechnology components and chemical substances.
To activate the power chemical ball that shoots out from the purse she always taps on to something on the side of the purse. If you zoom on it you can see it’s the periodic table!
Thor
Thor: The Dark World was a second installment of the Thor franchise. The movie features a scene where Chris Hemsworth kisses Natalie Portman. It's the final scene that is supposed to leave the audience wowed.
For technical reasons, the scene had to be reshot post-production. The actress couldn't make it to the reshoot of the scene so Chris Hemsworth brought in his wife. She wore the same dress and a wig and the final scene was made.
Schindler's List
Indiana Jones, Star Wars, Superman, Harry Potter, Jaws, ET, Jurassic Park and so many more have one thing in common, the movie theme songs have been written by the talented John Williams.
One of his most beautiful works is in Schindler's List. Williams saw the rough cut of the movie and was so moved he had to go outside to regroup. After that, he declined the offer believing the movie deserves a better composer. Steven Spielberg told him that "I Know, But They're All Dead".
A Grand Day Out
A Grand Day Out is a British stop-motion animated short film that is a cute warm picture about a cheese-loving inventor and his dog. Both of them fly to the moon when they run out of cheese. Why the moon? The moon is made out of cheese in the cartoon.
The main character, Wallace, mentioned Wensleydale brand cheese in the cartoon. The creators chose this cheese specifically because it made his face look “nice and toothy”. This gave rise to the popularity of the cheese brand. Before the cartoon came out the cheese factory was on the verge of bankruptcy.
Die Hard
Yippee ki-yay… you know the rest! The baddest, biggest, and coolest Christmas movie ever made, Die Hard! The movie became a classic after it was released. The popularity of Die Hard eventually turned out to be a franchise of its own.
In the scene where Alan Rickman's character falls to his death, the petrified expression on his face is genuine. During the preparations for the scene, the stunt team said they will drop him on 3. The director secretly asked them to do it on 1!
Hercules
The animated musical fantasy cartoon Hercules was a big deal in 1997. Every kid wanted a happy meal just to get the toy with the character! And Greek mythology became an interesting subject in school.
The cartoon is a really spectacular show of art for 92 minutes. There is a scene where the evil Hades says “Guys, Relax. It's Only Half-Time", the scene is right in the middle of the cartoon (minute 46).
Up
There is not a single person who watched the Pixar cartoon Up and didn’t like it. Just think of the scene when the love story is shown. It hits the feeling just thinking about it.
The dog, Dug, is the one who successfully finds the tropical bird that all the dogs were searching for. The reason for this is because he is a Golden Retriever, a hunting dog. The rest of the dogs were guard dogs, mostly Dobermans.
Cars
While we are on the subject of Pixar cartoons, let’s look at another Up-related secret! Well, actually it’s related to another cartoon Pixar made called Cars. The carton became a franchise and even had spin-offs called Planes.
Disney has been really pumping out many many great animated cartoons over the past 2 decades. So when someone noticed the identical set of this scene from Up and Cars 2 it was no surprise they reused their work.
E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial
If you love movies you probably know that Steven Spielberg is a true genius. The list of movies he made is amazing. What also is amazing is his ability to make great movies with different genres.
One great movie that he made was E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. The movie shows how a group of kids help friendly alien travel back to his home planet. Spielberg shot the movie in chronological order so the child actors have genuine emotions in the last scene. This would be the last time they are all together!
Star Wars: A New Hope
George Lucas is best known for creating Indiana Jones and Star Wars movies. Just like his creative storytelling abilities Lucas has creative movie-making skills. Of course, we are talking about skills before that he used before computer-generated imagery.
Back in 1976, during the production of Star Wars: A New Hope, a creative prop was designed. To show the high speed and levitation of the ship Luke was flying a mirror was placed underneath a prop, covering the motors and wheels.
The Incredibles
Bob and Helen Parr AKA Mr. Incredible and Elastigirl are one of the coolest superheroes out there. They are the main characters of the hit Disney animated cartoon The Incredibles. Their kids Violet Parr, Dash Parr, Jack-Jack Parr are also cool.
The original costume that Mr. Incredible had before retirement was blue and Elastigirl had a red one. When the writers had to come up with the name for their kids it only made sense to name their first kid Violet, a mixture of those two colors.
Ant-Man
A superhero who can shrink in scale? A superhero who has two goofy friends that steal the show every time there is a scene with them? That’s Ant-Man! The name might not be as catchy as Spider-Man but the movie is pretty cool.
But before Paul Rudd played Ant-Man there was a hilarious SNL skit back in 1979 where Ant-Man was portrayed by actor Garrett Morris. As a tribute to his SNL role, he had an appearance in the movie as a cab driver for Ant-Man!
Batman Universe
We already mentioned that Joker is perhaps one of the best superhero movies ever made. When making the movie, Todd Phillips, wanted to make sure that he packs it with references to other characters from the Batman universe.
The intense moment the audience gets to see the Clown Prince of Crime AKA Joker put on his makeup has a secret in it. The lights and the background are cleverly positioned to resemble Batman's mask!
Coraline
A stop-motion animated dark fantasy horror movie? Yep, there is one, it’s called Coraline. It’s about a girl who likes adventure and one day enters a secret small door. Only to find out some sinister secrets.
The movie writers decided to add a small detail to a scene where Caroline is gifted with a cake that says “Welcome Home”. The O on it has a double loop. According to graphology, the double loop means the person is lying, this implied that she is not really welcomed.
Lilo & Stitch
Lilo & Stitch is a very successful cartoon that Disney produced. The cartoon had a sequel, spinoffs, video games, theme park rides, and so on based on it. But it wasn't always like that.
During the production, Disney did not believe in the project that much and cut the fundings from the budget to accommodate other ambitious projects it worked on. This forced the studio in Florida, which was working on the cartoon, to use watercolor to draw the backgrounds.
Finding Nemo
Finding Nemo, a cartoon about a clownfish and a forgetful fish embarking on a journey to find a baby clownfish named Nemo. The cartoon did a great job at showing different sea animals and their characters.
One of them was Gill. A Moorish Idol fish, who is stuck in an aquarium. Gill was the one who constantly came up with clever funny plans to escape the aquarium. This species is known to not handle captivity well and that’s why the writers made him the “escape plan master” role.
How To Train Your Dragon
Based on the 2003 book of the same name, How To Train Your Dragon, is yet another great DreamWorks cartoon. The cartoon has it all, Vikings, dragons, fire, and lots of funny moments.
One funny moment is when the dragon gets a new tail and is learning how to move it. The animators had trouble making this scene and wanted to add a natural look of confusion. They ended putting some tape on a cat's tail and captured its reaction. They were able to model this reaction and use it in the animation!