Film Facts

The most popular sport as a topic for a film is boxing.

The United States produces enough plastic film annually to cover the entire state of Texas.

In the mid-70s, the actor who portrays Mike from “Breaking Bad” began his acting career in an education film on menstruation and puberty.

Two surfboards left behind during the filming of “Apocalypse Now” are what gave birth to the Filipino surfing community.

At 73, Alvin Straight rode a 1966 John Deere mower 240 miles to his ailing brother in Wisconsin. Too blind for a license, he would not be driven. At about 5 mph, with breakdowns and a stop when his money ran out, it took six weeks. Twin Peaks director David Lynch made it a G-rated film, released by Disney. The mower still sits in his Iowa hometown.

For over two decades, Bill Murray has operated with no agent, no manager, and no publicist. The only way to offer him a role is to call a 1-800 number and leave a voicemail - which he checks when he feels like it. Sofia Coppola spent five months doing exactly that before landing him for Lost in Translation. He missed Monsters Inc. because nobody got through in time.

Julia Roberts became the first actress ever paid $20 million for a single film - a tier that until then belonged only to men like Tom Cruise and Tom Hanks. She broke it with Erin Brockovich, then won the Oscar for Best Actress. The men had to make room.

"Roar" (1981) is the most dangerous movie ever made. The cast spent 11 years living with 150 untrained big cats - no cages, no tranquilizers. Melanie Griffith needed facial reconstructive surgery. The cinematographer was scalped by a lion (220 stitches). At least 70 crew were injured. No animals were harmed.

Winter the dolphin lost her tail after a crab trap rope cut off blood flow when she was two months old. A prosthetics team spent 18 months building her a silicone tail. The gel liner they invented to keep it in place - later named WintersGel - now helps thousands of human amputees worldwide.

The iconic Treasury at Petra - the Indiana Jones temple from The Last Crusade - has a real hidden chamber. Archaeologists found it directly beneath the ancient rose-red facade in 2024. Inside: a sealed 2000-year-old tomb with 12 skeletons. One was clutching a ceramic vessel. It looked so much like the Holy Grail that the excavation team froze. It was the top of a broken jug.

The first art George Lucas ever bought was a drawing of a comic-strip caveman. He was a college student then, years before Star Wars, and the caveman was Alley Oop. He never stopped buying, and that collection has grown past 40,000 works. The museum he built to hold it opened in Los Angeles on September 22.

Rupert Grint became an ice cream man after Harry Potter — not for publicity, but because it had been his childhood dream all along.