When you’re watching an action movie, you probably only care about three things: gunfights, big explosions, and Jon McClane.
But there is so much more that goes on behind the camera lens than you’d ever know — things that even dramatically changed the course of these movies.
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Come see for yourself with these 10+ behind-the-scenes secrets about famous action movies.
1. *John Wick* was originally titled *Scorn*:
“The only reason it’s called John Wick is because Keanu kept referring to it as John Wick [in interviews],” co-creator Derek Kolstad told Comicbook.com .
“Marketing was like, ‘Dude, that’s $4 [million] to $5 million dollars in free advertising so far, so it’s John Wick instead of Scorn.’ I can’t imagine it being Scorn now.”
2. An iconic line from *Thor: Ragnarok* was written by a Make-a-Wish kid:
This is the iconic line that Thor shouts at the crowd and Jeff Goldblum‘s Grandmaster.
“We had a young kid, a Make-A-Wish kid on set that day. He goes, ‘You know, you should say, ‘He’s a friend from work!’” Hemsworth told Entertainment Weely .
3. Quentin Tarantino refused to recast Uma Thurman in *Kill Bill* when she got pregnant:
Instead, he shut production down for months for her!
“She got pregnant, and I was like, ‘Okay, do I wait or do I not?’ But I can honestly tell you that I didn’t have a choice,” Tarantino told the BBC .
“Yes, this is my samurai movie; yes, this is my [expletive] chick movie.”
He continued:
“Yes, this is my spaghetti western and my comic book movie…but it’s also my Josef von Sternberg movie, and if Josef von Sternberg is getting ready to make Morocco and Marlene Dietrich gets pregnant, he waits for Dietrich!”
4. A plaster replica ripped all of Rosie Huntington-Whiteley’s eyelashes out while shooting *Mad Max: Fury Road*:
On-set injuries are never fun!
“They had to put a cast over my head, it was a very weird, surreal moment, and when they took it off it pulled out all my eyelashes,” Huntington-Whiteley said on This Morning .
“Because the — not wax — but the cast had got into my eyelashes and pulled them all out,” she continued.
“So for about three months, I had no eyelashes. That’s probably the biggest makeup or beauty fail and it was quite painful, it was quite traumatic as well.”
5. Michael B. Jordan chose to wear Killmonger’s scars all through shooting *Black Panther*:
Turns out, he was inspired by Denzel Washington who wore his scars while filming Glory .
“You weren’t supposed to be shirtless but you still had the scars put on your back, so you could feel it, so you could know that’s what your character’s been through,” Jordan said about Denzel.
“I tell you right now tonight brother, that’s the only reason why Killmonger, when I played that role, I had those scars.'”
“Even when I wasn’t shirtless because of you, so I want to say thank you for that.”
6. Henry Cavill improvised the “arm reloading” in *Mission: Impossible — Fallout*:
According to the film’s writer/director Christopher McQuarrie, they weren’t even aware that Henry improvised the now-iconic ‘gun show’ move until they were editing the film.
“I don’t know if you’ve ever watched those reaction videos of people watching trailers, but go watch some reaction videos of people watching the Fallout trailer,” he said.
“You’ve got Tom [Cruise] flying helicopters and falling off of mountains and smashing through walls and crashing motorcycles — and the single biggest reaction is Henry Cavill reloading his arms.”
7. Sigourney Weaver actually made that over-the-shoulder basketball shot in *Alien Resurrection*
In case you needed another reason to love the actress, this is it.
The film was going to CGI her landing the basketball in the basket, but she got it on the first try!
8. There’s a famous gunfight that never got filmed in *Raiders of the Lost Ark*:
“The script had a scene in which I fight a swordsman, an expert swordsman, it was meant to be the ultimate duel between sword and whip,” Harrison Ford said in a Reddit AMA .
But since he was feeling sick, he proposed to director Steven Spielberg that he just shoot the guy.
“The poor guy was a wonderful British stuntman who had practiced his sword skills for months in order to do this job.”
He continued:
“And was quite surprised by the idea that we would dispatch him in 5 minutes,” Ford recalled.
“But he flourished his sword, I pulled out my gun and shot him, and then we went back to England.”
9. Frank Sinatra almost played John McClane in *Die Hard*:
The singer was 73 years old at the time!
He was offered the role because of the author, Roderick Thorp, who wrote the book, Nothing Lasts Forever , which Die Hard is based on.
10. Frank played Detective Joe Leland in the movie that’s based off the book, *The Detective*.
As it turns out, Nothing Lasts Forever AKA Die Hard is actually a sequel to a book called The Detective .
My mind is blown.
11. The egg sandwich in *Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn*) was actually made of duck eggs:
They made the switch since Margot is allergic to ducks.
“There’s a protein in chicken egg whites that gives people migraines, and I get them,” Robbie said .
“The prop people were like, ‘Why would you write into the script that you’re eating egg sandwiches if you can’t eat eggs?'”
“And I was like, ‘It didn’t occur to me at the time!’ So we had to make them with duck eggs. It was very elaborate.”
Oh, well. Looked delicious either way!
12. Daniel Craig sliced off the tip of his finger while filming *Quantum of Solace*:
“It wasn’t as extreme as all that. I was bleeding a lot. I had to get it cauterized,” Craig told Playboy .
“Filming stopped and everybody went, ‘Oh God! He sliced the end of his finger off!’ They went looking for it, but couldn’t find it.”
