1000 Facts about the Greatest Movies Ever vol. 1

Book excerpt: The time machine in Back to the Future was meant to be a refrigerator. Steve Carell wanted to play the Joker in The Dark Knight. William Wallace was never called Braveheart. Die Hard started off as a sequel to Commando. Aliens were meant to appear in Dr. Strangelove. ET - The Extra-Terrestrial was nearly called A Boy's Life. Blade Runner and Alien take place in the same universe. The line "Play it again, Sam" is never said in Casablanca. Russell Crowe thought his dialogue in Gladiator was "garbage." The shark barely appears in Jaws because it kept malfunctioning. The Lion King is the most successful VHS film ever. Although Viggo Mortensen stars in The Return of the King, he thinks the film is overrated. Orson Welles hated the twist in Citizen Kane. In Star Wars, Han Solo was meant to be a green, gilled, noseless alien. Christopher Walken, Sean Connery, Samuel L. Jackson, and Tommy Lee Jones were considered for the role of Morpheus in The Matrix.