Some films are surrounded by sometimes stubborn urban legends about anecdotes or events that allegedly took place during their filming. Myths that have been taken over by the public and which are sometimes still in vogue today. But sorry to disappoint you, for the most part it’s usually bullshit and we’ll see some examples together.
1. The word “SEX” written in the sky in “The Lion King”
This is often picked up by people looking for sex symbols and messages in Disney movies. Basically, in the scene you can watch below, we see quite subtly a message appear in the starry sky above Simba. The studio was accused of hiding subliminal sexual messages in the film and the affair caused a stir in the United States. Well actually there are three letters in the sky, but it’s ‘SFX’ and not ‘SEX’. It was a small “easter egg” from the team to thank the members who took care of the special effects. Well it’s missed, don’t lie to yourself.
2. Brandon Lee’s death is really in the movie “The Crow”
A tragic event that the accidental death of Brandon Lee (son of Bruce Lee) on the set of the film “The Crow”. For those unaware of the story, the character had to return home and find a group of gangsters in his house before they shot him. It was when Lee fell backwards rather than forwards (which was scripted) that the team realized something was wrong and indeed the gun was loaded with real bullets and not blank bullets. Lee died of his injury shortly after arriving at the hospital.
And because that sequence had been filmed, people started saying that the scene that’s in the movie (which was completely reshot) was Lee’s real death. Of course it’s infamous bullshit, the “real” images were first given to the police for the investigation and were subsequently destroyed in order to respect the memory of the actor.
3. The entire movie budget in the “Matrix” intro
You may have already heard of this legend that says that the Wachowskis would have used all the budget allocated to the film by the production to shoot only the first scene of the movie Matrix. Well it’s wrong, well it didn’t quite happen like that, but in the idea their action was still daring. Basically, it’s been 4 months since the pre-production of the film was launched and the actors were training for combat.
A few scenes had been shot but, it must be admitted, really really not very much. The studio therefore began to panic, thinking that in 4 months the shooting should already be well underway and the Wachowskis then sent the only action scene already shot (the intro) to the studio to reassure them and make them understand that they needed more time and money to complete their crazy project. Then we distorted the reality of the thing a little bit by saying that they had only shot one scene for a total of 10 million dollars but no, the story is beautiful but false.
4. The ghost kid in “Three Men and a Baby”
This American remake of “Three Men and a Basket” has been the subject of a very curious legend for years. Basically, in a scene we see a child in the background (visible on the image below) who has nothing to do there. Suddenly a legend was born that a child would have died in the apartment where we shot the film and would be visible in the scene. Then another legend was born that the mother of the child would have attacked the studio and finally a third version said that this poor woman would have ended her life in a psychiatric hospital.
Okay, so already the apartment is not a real one but a film studio and the “child” is a cardboard display of the character of Ted Danson (with the shirt in the photo) which was to be used in a scene by the abandoned suite. So clearly big big bullshit.
5. Hangman in “The Wizard of Oz”
Yeah, he’s a real legend, although it’s pretty hardcore for a movie like that. Basically everything starts from the last shot of the film in which we can see something moving in the background. For decades (literally) people then reported that one of the short actors in the film hung himself during the take and his body was seen swinging in the scene. Well this legend was finally denied with the restoration of the film where we see very clearly that it is an exotic bird which moves its head behind a tree trunk. Yeah frankly there are people who will invent some pretty creepy stuff anyway.
6. The Fatal Accident in the “Ben Hur” Chariot Race
Basically this legend said that a stuntman had died during the filming of the big chariot race scene of the film Ben Hur (1959) and that this passage was even in the final version of the film despite the opposition of the widow of the deceased (you have to be a bit creepy to invent such things). It is completely false. A stuntman (Joe Canutt) was injured during the scene, thrown from his tank, but he escaped almost unscathed with four stitches in his cheek. We are clearly far from a death hidden by the producers…
7. Kubrick’s confessions in the movie “Shining”
So to make it short, people think that the Americans would have filmed the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969 directly on Earth and that Stanley Kubrick would have directed the sequence. Then, the famous director would have hidden several proofs in his film “Shining” in 1980 to confess to having deceived the whole earth. There was a documentary about it called “Room 237” (a reference to The Shining’s hotel room). Obviously it’s completely false, the moon landing did take place, even the whistleblower Edward Snowden recalled it in his book (he who had access to a package of classified documents) story that we stop with this conspiracy theory.
8. The “blair witch project” is a real documentary
The style of “found footage” (found recording) quickly became a prolific sub-genre of horror and horror films with several films (Rec, Paranormal activity, cloverfield, etc.). But the one who paved the way for others is probably the first Blair Witch. When it was announced, there was a strong rumor that the footage was real and it really was a horrific documentary in which three students died. And of course, the production company played a lot with it, raising the sauce around this rumor until the release of the film, which was also a wise choice because it was literally a hit and everything everyone was talking about it.
9. The James bond girl who died in “GoldFinger”
A rumor that surrounded this installment of the adventures of James Bond said that actress Shirley Eaton, who played a famous “James Bond Girl”, died of suffocation after being painted gold. The character dies like that in the film since, as Bond reminds us in it, if you don’t let your skin breathe and you paint yourself completely, you die of suffocation.
So before reminding the screenwriters that we breathe through our nose and mouth, we can still be surprised at the stupidity of this death in a work of fiction. But people really believed that the actress had died of a real suffocation during the filming of the scene to the point of becoming a real legend around the film. Well obviously it’s completely false, you don’t die of suffocation like that and the actress is still alive today.
10. “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” is based on a true story.
This legend also had a fairly stretched longevity. Already because the production of the film played on the fact that the story was well inspired by a true story (which is false, as for Blair Witch). In reality, the character of the killer is inspired by a real serial killer named Ed Gein who would also have inspired “Psychosis” but especially the character of Buffalo Bill in “The Silence of the Lambs”. But the entire plot, characters, and even the motivations of the killer in the movie are pure fabrications and this one isn’t taken from a true story at all.