Eyes Wide Shut (1999): trivia & fun facts

Fun facts

• The actress Vinessa Shaw was initially contracted for two weeks and one scene but ended up working for two months.
• Among the other supporting cast, Alan Cumming later said that he auditioned six times for his small role in the film as a hotel clerk.
• Editor Nigel Galt worked with Kubrick on the editing process using Avid Technology, and indicated he had begun editing the existing footage while the film was still in principal photography, beginning on December 30, 1996.
• The project was revived in 1994 when Kubrick hired Frederic Raphael to work on the script, updating the setting from early 20th-century Vienna to late 20th-century New York City.
• Kubrick originally intended to feature "Im Treibhaus" from Wagner's Wesendonck Lieder, but the director eventually replaced it with Ligeti's piece feeling Wagner's song was "too beautiful".
• South African Hindu Mahasabha, a Hindu group, protested against the scripture being used, Warner Bros. issued a public apology, and hired the singer to record a similar track to replace the chant.
• Cinematographer Larry Smith commented on the censorship: The only issues that occurred were with the MPAA when we were trying to get the rating.
• Overseas earnings of over $105 million led to a $162,091,208 box office run world-wide, turning it into the highest-grossing film directed by Kubrick.
• He revived the project in the 1990s when he hired writer Frederic Raphael to help him with the adaptation.
• It is based on the 1926 novella Dream Story (German: Traumnovelle) by Arthur Schnitzler, and transfers the story's setting from early twentieth-century Vienna to 1990s New York City.
• The film's production, at 400 days, holds the Guinness World Record for the longest continuous film shoot.
• The film was a box-office success, earning $162 million worldwide, making it Kubrick's highest-grossing film in unadjusted dollars.
• Jocelyn Pook wrote the original music for Eyes Wide Shut, but, like other Kubrick movies, the film was noted for its use of classical music.
• Pook ended up composing and recording four pieces of music, many times based on her previous work, totaling 24 minutes.
• Who are they to tell the world what they see in a Stanley Kubrick movie?

Source: Wikipedia

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