Sean Penn was Christopher Nolan and Warner Bros' first choice for the role of the Joker but he turned down the part because he didn't want to play a role that had already been played by his longtime friend Jack Nicholson.
At the auditions, Henry Thomas thought about the day his dog died to express sadness. Director Steven Spielberg cried, and hired him on the spot.
Julie Andrews sang 'Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious' to the children in the cast to entertain them between shooting. Since 'Mary Poppins' hadn't yet been released, they just thought she'd made up the song for them.
The scene where Daniel knocks down the prosthetic mask and it goes flying out into the street required over 50 takes.
The production crew used real human skeletons because it was cheaper to purchase them instead of plastic ones.
During the train scene, Kate Winslet punches Jim Carrey. This was not staged or planned and Carrey's response is that of genuine surprise.
The code title for this film, used during production, was 'Tights'.
In order to simulate the sound of crumpling metal in the car compactor, sound effects editor Norman Wanstall used the sound of crumpling beer cans.
Early on, the plot was based on a group of activists who liberate the animals from their cages.
Angelina Jolie admitted that she scared little kids while in costume. Her daughter played young Aurora, and was the only kid who wasn't scared of her.
The Dapper Dans, a barbershop quartet that performs in Disneyland's Main Street USA, make a special appearance as the voices of the singing busts.
Visitors to the real American Museum of Natural History increased by 20% during the holiday season following this movie's opening.
Nestlé provided 1,850 bars of real chocolate.
Many of the Wicked Witch of the West's scenes were either trimmed or deleted entirely, as Margaret Hamilton's performance was thought too frightening for audiences.
Shia LaBeouf's first scene filmed was where Sam is attacked by guard dogs. One particularly fierce dog kept chasing him even after the scene was shot. He later summed it up as 'Welcome to Michael Bay's set. Release the hounds!'
This movie marked the first time cartoon characters from both Walt Disney and Warner Brothers appeared together on screen.
Gollum only appears in one scene in the book. Andy Serkis completed that scene during the first week of production, but stayed on as Second Unit Director.
The scene between Tom Hanks and Victor Garber crying over the movie 'The Dirty Dozen' was completely improvised during the take.
The shot of the line-drive knocking over the bag of baseballs next to Kevin Costner was sheer luck off the bat of Ray Liotta.
Bruno Kirby offered his fat suit from 'The Godfather: Part II' to Christopher Lloyd in order to play Uncle Fester.
Robbie tells Linda at one point to 'Get out of my Van Halen T-shirt before you jinx the band and they break up'. David Lee Roth did leave Van Halen in 1985 (the year in which the movie is set).
During one night shoot, problems with the puppets were so severe that the entire cast fell asleep on the set during the delay.
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