Trivia for
Crash (2004/I)

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• Before Ryan Phillippe signed on, Heath Ledger was in talks for the role of Hansen.
  
  
• One of the things that inspired the movie was that Paul Haggis was carjacked himself.
  
  
• Sandra Bullock was so committed to appearing in this film, that she bought her own plane ticket to fly to the set.
  
  

• The role of the TV director was originally offered to Forest Whitaker who turned it down to finish First Daughter (2004).
  
  
• The Cabot house is actually director Paul Haggis's own house.
  
  
• With only a budget of $6m for this film, director Paul Haggis had to cut the costs by using his own house for scenes and even his own car for other scenes.
  
  
• A total of 130,000 screeners were sent out to AMPAS and the various guilds and critics.
  
  
• Although originally released in 2004, it did not qualify for the following year's Academy Awards as it did not play at least one week in L.A. (as Academy Awards rules require for eligibility). When it finally opened in L.A. the following year, the film did qualify for Oscar consideration for 2005, and it went on to win the Best Picture Oscar for that year.
  
  
• The only Best Picture winner initially released before the previous year's Best Picture. 2005 Best Picture (Million Dollar Baby (2004)) release date: 15 December 2004. 2006 Best Picture (Crash) release date: 10 September 2004
  
  
• Arnold Schwarzenegger makes an appearance in the film. Not as an actor, but as the Governor of California - his photo in a frame hangs on the wall of Lt. Dixon's office (Ryan Phillippe's boss).
  
  
• John Cusack was the original choice for the role of District Attorney Rick Cabot, which eventually went to Brendan Fraser.
  
  
• The script was written in 2001.
  
  
• Lions Gate bought the distribution right to the film for $4 million at the 2004 Toronto International Film Festival.
  
  
• First film bought in a film festival (Toronto) to win best picture at the Oscars.
  
  
• First Best Picture film since Rocky (1976) to win only three Oscars (they usually win four or more).
  
  
• The first movie to be set primarily or entirely in Los Angeles and win a Best Picture Oscar.
  
  
• Bird York, who wrote the song "Into the Deep" for the film, makes a cameo appearance as the police officer giving the report to Don Cheadle at the officer shooting crime scene.
  
  
• During a heated argument, Christine (Thandie Newton) tells Cameron (Terrence Howard) that the closest he's ever been to being black was watching "The Cosby Show." Terrence Howard's first professional acting role was on "The Cosby Show" at age 19.
  
  
• Thandie Newton was Paul Haggis' first choice for her character.
  
  
• The movie is dedicated to the late director/producer Anita W. Addison, who was the first person to read Paul Haggis' script.
  
  
• The movie was shot in 36 days.
  
  
• The lowest grossing Best Picture Oscar winner since The Last Emperor (1987) in 1987.
  
  
• Lionsgate spent $2 million to promote "Crash" to Academy members in the run-up to the Oscars.
  
  
• When the Oscar nominations were announced in January 2006, "Crash" (which was the only Best Film nominee to be already available on DVD) jumped from 103 to 23 in Amazon's list of bestsellers.
  
  
• Annie Proulx, author of "Brokeback Mountain", wrote a strong anti-"Crash" polemic in the British newspaper The Guardian, venting her disgust and disappointment that her film was beaten by Paul Haggis' at the Oscars, one of the Academy's more controversial decisions in years.
  
  
• As LA is such an important character in the film, Paul Haggis insisted that the film be shot there. This was despite his producers wanting to save money by filming in Toronto.
  
  
• Make-up artists aged Shaun Toub by about 15 years.
  
  
• William Fichtner's scenes were shot in just one day.
  
  
• The production only had 6 police cars at their disposal due to the low budget.
  
  
• Martin Norseman, who plays Detective Conklin (a non-speaking part), is Paul Haggis' next-door neighbor.
  
  
• For the scene in which Daniel is trying to convince his daughter to get out from under the bed, Director Paul Haggis directed Michael Peña, who plays Daniel, to talk to her like he would talk to a guy in a bar.
  
  
• The story of Officer John Ryan and his father comes from a piece of hate mail Paul Haggis received while he was working as a writer in the TV series "Family Law" (1999).
  
  
• Two Koreans were intentionally cast as the "Chinese" couple to underscore the fact that most non-Asians cannot or don't care to differentiate between the various Asian nationalities and instead choose to refer to all of them (Chinese, Korean, Thai, Japanese, etc.) as "Chinese", like the characters in the movie do.
  
  
• The Yellow Mini Cooper in the garage of stolen cars is Director Paul Haggis' car.
  
  
• Paul Haggis had wanted Christine to drive a Lexus SUV or a similar car that reflected her social status. Since the car was to be destroyed during the accident scene, however, budget restrictions dictated otherwise and a 1992 Jeep was used instead.
  
  

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