Welcome back to Trivia Tidbits. For those of you out of the loop, this is a little compilation of 10 movie related facts that I always find interesting. So without further ado, this weeks are…



1: Christopher Walken, Willem Dafoe, Steve Buscemi and Michael Douglas were all originally offered roles in Robert Rodriguez’s “Sin City“. Douglas was offered the role of Hartigan (played by Bruce Willis), Buscemi was offered the part of Junior (played by Nick Stahl) when he became the Yellow Bastard, and Dafoe and Walken were both offered the role of Senator Roark (played by Powers Boothe).



2: In “The Wolf Of Wall Street“, the scene where Brad (Jon Bernthal) punches Donnie (Jonah Hill) is real. In fact, Bernthal hit Hill so hard that the prosthetic teeth he was wearing split and flew out of his mouth. Martin Scorsese then proceeded to film Hill’s face swelling in real time.



3: Al Pacino was offered $5 million but wanted $7 million plus profits from gross to reprise his role as Michael Corleone in “The Godfather Part III“. Francis Ford Coppola refused and threatened to rewrite the script by starting off with Michael’s funeral sequence instead of the film’s introduction. Pacino agreed to the $5-million offer.



4: The title of Cameron Crowe’s “Vanilla Sky” was actually considered for Crowe’s previous movie, “Almost Famous“. The original title for “Almost Famous” was actually “Untitled“. However, Dreamworks would not allow this, so Crowe titled the bootleg edition of “Almost Famous” on DVD “Untitled“.



5: Leonardo DiCaprio and Christian Bale were considered for the role of Tom Ripley in “The Talented Mr. Ripley“. Anthony Minghella originally wanted Tom Cruise for the role but after seeing “Good Will Hunting” he decided to cast Matt Damon.



6: Jennifer Connelly and Paul Bettany’s son Stellan was named after actor Stellan Skarsgård, who is a friend of Bettany’s.



7: As stated in the DVD audio commentary of “The Ides Of March“, the bar where Stephen (Ryan Gosling) meets Tom Duffy (Paul Giamatti) is called “Head First” and is located directly across from the Cincinnati Reds baseball stadium. It’s named for Pete Rose, who would slide head first. Paul Giamatti is the son of the late Bart Giamatti, who as Commissioner of baseball imposed the lifetime ban on Pete Rose.



8: Patrick Swayze began his career as a dancer appearing in Disneyland’s parades as Prince Charming from “Cinderella“. One of the many Cinderellas he danced with was Michelle Pfeiffer.



9: Matthew McConaughey’s production company’s name, “JKL Productions” comes from his character Wooderson in “Dazed And Confused“, whose life credo was Just Keep Livin’!



10: The role of Adrian (played by Talia Shire) in “Rocky” was originally offered to Carrie Snodgress but she dropped out due to a disagreement about money. Susan Sarandon auditioned for the role, but was deemed too obviously attractive for the character and singer/actress Cher was considered for the role. Sylvester Stallone also had originally wanted Harvey Keitel for the role of Paulie (played by Burt Young) and Lee J. Cobb was considered for the role of Mickey (played by Burgess Meredith). Added to which, Warren Beatty claimed he was offered the lead role.

So there you have it. 10 esoteric Tidbits to masticate on. Some you may know. Some you may not. If you have any thoughts, stick your donations in the comment box…

(For earlier editions of Trivia Tidbits click here.)