21 Wildly Juicy Events In ’80s Movie History That Are All But Forgotten Today
1.
Academy Award winner Ke Huy Quan only became Indiana Jones’ sidekick because he tagged along with his brother to an audition at their elementary school.
The boy’s younger brother, Ke Huy Quan, said at the Niagara Falls Comic Con, “So as he (Quan’s brother) was auditioning for the casting director, I was off to the side, giving him notes, giving him directions like a director, actually. And the casting director saw me and asked me, this precocious kid, if I wanted to give it a try.”
2.
When movie goers spotted a specter in the background of a scene in the 1987 hit Three Men and a Baby, a rumor spread like wildfire that the movie had been filmed at a home that was haunted by a boy who died there years before.
But what about the boy in the window? If he wasn’t a ghost, what was he? Well, it turns out it was a cardboard cutout of Ted Danson’s actor character, Jack. In fact, the cutout can be seen later in the film.
4.
Anthony Michael Hall confessed that — when he was 14 years old and playing Rusty in 1983’s Vacation — he tried to sneak on set to watch his on-screen mom Beverly D’Angelo film her nude scene.
5.
Fatal Attraction originally had a much darker and low-key ending, which test audiences found utterly unsatisfying…and sent the filmmakers scrambling to come up with something better.
Screenwriter James Dearden and director Adrian Lyne soon hatched the now-famous ending where Alex sneaks into Dan’s home and the two have a knock-down, drag-out fight before Dan’s wife (played by Anne Archer) shoots her dead. However, before they could do the reshoots, they ran into a problem: Glenn Close didn’t want to do it.
6.
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial almost had a sequel entitled E.T.: Nocturnal Fears.
7.
N!xau — the star of 1980’s The Gods Must Be Crazy — was a Namibian bush farmer who had A.) only seen three white people in his entire life, and B.) never seen a settlement larger than the village huts of his people when he was discovered by South African director Jamie Uys. His lively performance helped the movie become an absolutely massive worldwide success. He went on to star in the 1989 sequel as well.
8.
Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas had to be re-cut after people angrily stormed out of a test screening.
9.
John Candy filmed one of his most iconic scenes in Splash drunk after a run-in with Jack Nicholson.
10.
Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford partied all night with the Rolling Stones and then showed up to film The Empire Strikes Back flying high.
11.
As a young actor, Ben Stiller yelled, “Cut!” after screwing up a line on the set of Steven Spielberg’s Empire of the Sun.
12.
The classic ’80s comedy Revenge of the Nerds was almost remade in 2006 — and the new version even got so far as to film (briefly).
Fox Atomic was two weeks into filming the remake with Adam Brody, Jenna Dewan, and Kristin Cavallari when they pulled the plug. Why? Well, it seems two things went wrong — Georgia’s Emory University rescinded their agreement to let the production film on campus after reading the script, and film dailies weren’t impressing Fox Atomic executives.
13.
Like Three Men and a Baby mentioned earlier, 1985’s Teen Wolf, starring Michael J. Fox, also had a viral urban legend spread about it. Supposedly, a mischievous extra on the set pulled out his penis during filming of the final scene, and it made its way into the released film, unnoticed.
But is that what really happened? A closer look at the moment indicates…nope. The extra appears to be a woman, not a man, and visible beyond her unbuttoned pants is the white of underwear, not a private part.
14.
Sean Penn was arrested after punching an extra on the set of his 1988 cop drama Colors.
The production was taking a break from filming a scene at Venice Beach when an extra named Jeffrey Klein, who had been hired to skateboard past Penn and co-star Robert Duvall, decided to take a few photos of the two Hollywood legends.
Why was he on probation, you ask? Well, at the time, Penn was married to Madonna — one of the ’80s’ biggest music icons — and there were a LOT of eyes on the couple. Penn, it seems fair to say, didn’t deal well with all of the attention, and was arrested both in 1985 and 1986 for assaulting photographers. Then, later in 1986, he was charged with misdemeanor battery for assaulting a man he believed tried to kiss Madonna at a club.
15.
R. Lee Ermey was incredibly memorable in Full Metal Jacket as Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, but it was his first major role in a film…and it earned him a nomination for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture at the Golden Globes.
16.
James Remar (seen here in 1979’s The Warriors) was originally cast as Hicks in James Cameron’s 1986 film Aliens, but after being arrested for drug possession during filming, was fired.
Remar filmed with the Aliens cast and crew for a month before his apartment was raided by police who found heroin and hash. Cameron replaced Remar with Michael Biehn, who he had previously worked with on a little movie called The Terminator.
Thankfully, Remar overcame his issues with drugs and went on to have a long and successful career, appearing in everything from Sex and the City to Django Unchained.
17.
Jean-Claude Van Damme played the title character in Predator — briefly — before being replaced by Kevin Peter Hall.
Things quickly descended into a comedy of errors. What exactly happened isn’t clear (this Hollywood Reporter deep dive is the closest we may ever get to the truth), but it seems Van Damme arrived on set expecting to show off his martial skills as the deadly alien, but was instead fitted with a gigantic alien mask that limited his mobility and restricted his air so much that he kept passing out. Van Damme either quit, was angrily fired by producer Joel Silver, or was no longer the right fit for the role when the costume was redesigned for a 7-foot man.
18.
So many cast members of the Poltergeist films died that rumors spread that the production was cursed.
Just five months after the release of the first film, 22-year-old Dominique Dunne, who played the family’s teenage daughter, was tragically murdered by an abusive boyfriend. Then, only a few months after the release of Poltergeist II, 60-year-old Julian Beck, who played Kane in the film, died. His costar in the film, Will Sampson, 53, died less than 18 months later.
19.
Let’s end on some facts about everyone’s favorite ’80s film — Back to the Future. Most movie goers who went to see Part II back in the day didn’t realize that two major characters were portrayed by different actors: Elisabeth Shue replaced Claudia Wells as Marty’s girlfriend, Jennifer Parker, and Jeffrey Weissman replaced Crispin Glover as George McFly.
The situation surrounding the role of George McFly was much more complicated. Crispin Glover told Howard Stern that he was offered only $125,000 to return, which he claimed was significantly less than what his costars were being paid. In response to this offer, Glover, who didn’t like the script, demanded a million.
20.
Of course, the role of Marty McFly in Back to the Future was famously replaced mid-production when Eric Stoltz — who had played Marty for for seven whole weeks — was fired and replaced by Michael J. Fox.
21.
Lastly, Michael J. Fox is probably best known for playing Marty McFly in Back to the Future, but he doesn’t have the clearest memory of filming the legendary film. He explained on Live With Kelly and Michael, “When I did the movie, I was doing Family Ties at the same time. So I was doing Family Ties in the daytime and Back to the Future at night. So a lot of it is a blur to me. I mean, I saw the movie, and I was like, ‘Oh! That’s what we were doing?'”
One classic scene he does remember filming, though, is the one where Marty’s teenage mother (played by Lea Thompson) flirts with him after her father hit him with his car. Fox said, “Lea was so fantastic in that scene. She was so innocent and sexy and flirty at the same time, and she did it perfectly. So it was fun to play off of, and when I saw her doing what she was doing, I said, ‘This is going to be charming. This isn’t going to be weird.'”
