20 Things You Didn’t Know About Se7en

[Music] in 1995 seven sometimes stylized as sev seven and if you want to give it the whole front four stick treatment was unleashed on an unsuspecting public and changed the face of serial killer thrillers practically overnight the film was of course a commercial smash hit but the people that saw it well perhaps loved it is the wrong phrase the film blew their freakin minds it changed people's ideas about cinematic aesthetics nihilistic narratives and down B endings in mainstream thrillers that astonishing industrialized scream of a title sequence has been imitated slavishly ever since and as for popularizing the genre Wikipedia lists 38 serial killer movies in the 70's and 31 in the 19th in the two decades since seven that number goes up to 77 and 81 that is not a coincidence but despite being so important and so revolutionary there are still many things audiences aren't aware of about the film I'm will thwart culture and here are 20 things you never knew about 720 the idea for the movie came from living in New York screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker was working in a Tower Records in New York when he wrote the 7 screenplay as a spec job he had moved away from a very middle-class Pennsylvania suburb in the mid-80s when crack cocaine became an epidemic and the Big Apple felt like it was crawling with maggots that shocking transition and new experience was the genesis of the 7 screenplay 19 Somerset is named after the writers favorite writer Walker named Freeman's character Lieutenant William Somerset after his favorite writer W Somerset Maugham and it's Morgan's most celebrated work of Human Bondage that's name checked in 7 when the detectives have the FBI check for library records that's an oddly appropriate choice for a film obsessed with the carnal brutality of human nature 18 it was nearly directed by the guy who did National Lampoon's Christmas vacation when the screenplay was first optioned by Italian production company Penta who'd been involved when Jeremiah s chechik expressed an interest in directing the movie Walker was required to make substantial changes to his scripts Walker recalls the chechik rewrites finale taking place in a bombed-out with the seven deadly sins represented by a series of paintings and the general feeling that someone was trying to make a quote Batman movie 17 Brad Pitt wasn't the first choice for the mills role before Pitt was cast as detective David Mills the role was offered to Warren Denzel Washington at the time Washington was most famous for playing conflicted but noble men and his reputation reflected that he was one of Hollywood's most respected actors he read the script and turned it down thinking this is so dark and evil quotes supposedly Sylvester Stallone also turned down the mills role and like Washington only realized his mistake once he saw the finished film 16 Spacey wasn't the first choice either the showcase John Doe roll was originally offered to Val Kilmer who declined REM as Michael Stipe was also considered enter Kevin Spacey who was still months away from anyone seeing him in the breakout movie roles that would make him such a hot commodity a year later apparently Spacey killed it in the audition but was asking for too much money so the casting call continued to go out as production on the movie began however after some wrangling he finally signed on to the role 15 neither were Freeman and Paltrow the other two central roles in the film were also cast using second choice candidates Walker first envisioned William Somerset being played by William Hurt but the role was first offered to Al Pacino who declined due to conflicts over the shooting schedule of City Hall Fincher had been incredibly impressed by Gweneth Paltrow performance in the 1993 neo-noir drama flesh and bone and given that she was Pitt's girlfriend at the time she was his first choice for the role of Tracy Mills but she turned the role down in frustration Fincher asked his lead to go to bat for him and Pitts persuaded Paltrow to meet the director which ended up changing her mind and sealing the deal 14 the sloth victim had one of the harder' victim roles to play Fincher needs someone cheap and incredibly thin to play the role of the sloth victim unfortunately when the unknown Michael Reed McKay auditioned he weighed 96 pounds he was asked to lose a little more but sensibly said no and starving yourself for your arts isn't as Noble as people make it sound McKay's makeup took over 14 hours to apply so it's arguable that he wasn't necessarily acting when he was finally ready two head two sets thirteen there's only one on the screen murder considering seven is regarded as one of the most brutal and violent serial killer thrillers in cinema history there are actually very few acts of violence in the film in point of fact John Doe he's never seen committing any of the crimes he takes credit for none of the serial crimes are seen taking place only their aftermath the only murder that happens on camera is when Mills shoots the unarmed doe at the climax all in all it's odd to think that there are daytime soap operas with more on-screen violence than 7:12 there was going to be a sequel alphonso parts terrible terrible solace filmed in 2013 and released in 2016 to a fanfare of absolutely nothing at all was originally intended to be retooled into a sequel to seven which would have hilariously been called a eight foots new line eventually drops the idea and the script was made as was into a standalone piece of trash that barely merited a release thank God it never tarnished sevens legacy 11 instead there was a comic book in 2006 Zenescope entertainment acquired a license to produce a seven part limited series based on John Dos fascination with the seven deadly sins pages of the journal glimpse in the film were included in the arts but the format precluded against there being any real story so it's not really a prequel as such and therefore it's really only for completists and obsessives which is handy because it's actually ounce of prints and the hardcover collection is going for about a hundred bucks on Amazon ten David Fincher only agreed to do it because Sean sent him the wrong scripts when David Fincher was sent the script for seven he immediately signed on but not for the movies the producers actually wanted to make you see they made the mistake of sending him the original version of the seven screenplay the dark as pitch version with the ugly brutal ending that we all know and love when in actual fact that forced the writing team to come up with a less dark version of the script to fire off two directors in the hope of it getting picked up any other director might have passed on this intense script instantly but the writing team was in luck Fincher was a kindred spirit of Eze and he immediately got what they'd been aiming for with the first run of the idea the producers quailed and tried to get him interested in the rewrite but Fincher was in sister that he wanted to make the original version not only did Fincher prevail but he kept Walker the writer involved throughout the development process Hollywood isn't well known for being kind to writers some Fincher's more collaborative approach with his screenwriters is a bit of an anomaly but it makes for cracking movies 9 everyone fought to keep that original screenplay and that ending not only did Fincher go for the original script with the original ending and the original screenwriter but he fought hard to keep them all and so did everyone else on the project by the time the film was in the final stages of pre-production it had Morgan Freeman Brad Pitt and Kevin Spacey attached to it and the blessing of new lines firecracker president of production wunderkind movie executive Michael DeLuca whenever Finch's ideas cause trouble or when lower ranking executives got wound up about the stupefying bleakness of it all especially that ending DeLuca and Finch's leads would step in at one point ideas were coming down the pipe that involved sanitizing the ending by having the dog's head in the box or no word of a lie a TV monitor showing Tracy Mills kidnaps and imperil but technically rescue able Fincher and all his friends stuck to their guns the ending was consonant with the very heart of the story and it needed to be what it was Walker is in no doubt as to what kept his movie on course David Fincher's collaborative mindset and laser focus and the support of people with influence who believed in the projects as much as he did eight Kevin Spacey insisted on removing his credit from the beginning of the movie these days a Kevin Spacey credit in your movie is definitely more bad than good but back in the 90s having Kevin Spacey attached to your movie was a big deal and is the release of the film approached newline stepped in to demand that Kevin Spacey received top billing over Pitts and Freeman given the buzz that the usual suspects and swimming with sharks had been receiving all year however when he heard this Spacey put his foot down insisting that this would Telegraph his appearance in the film as anyone who came to the movie knowing he was in it would spend the whole thing waiting for him to materialize and when he didn't would quickly figure out that he must be the murderer Walker agreed noting how implying that Spacey was the killer would throw the film's audience off-balance for fully two-thirds of the film to compensate Spacey was listed twice in the closing credits as the credits began to roll and again in order of appearance in the cast list proper seven Brad Pitt actually did get injured filming the chase scene during the scene where Mills legs it after doe in the rain Pitts fell and put his arm through a car windscreen supposedly the injury to his hand was so severe that Fincher could see the white of the bone through the jagged hole in his flesh Pitt still maintains this is the only time he's ever seen Fincher quotes turn green the injury required surgery which would ordinarily delay shooting however in this case they worked the accident into the script claiming that doe had attacked Mills and hurt his arm just another case of the grim realities of real life dictating art for the better six the lust victim went method to play his character Leland Orser the poor Schmo who played the poor Schmo who was forced at gunpoint to murder a prostitute with a giant bladed strap-on really went a hundred percent to get all his stuff in for his single scene in the film interrogated by the police after the fact also wanted to make sure that he accurately portrayed someone suffering the after-effects of significant trauma and prepared by breathing in and out rapidly so his body would be overly saturated with oxygen giving him the ability to hyperventilate he also barely slept for several days in order to achieve his characters disoriented look it's a linchpin scene in the film the first time that Somerset and Mills begin to understand the task ahead of them so his commitment is definitely appreciated it's his performance that makes the scene work so well five the other lost victim didn't get quite as much to do the actual murder victim in the lust scenario didn't get as much out of her brief appearance in the movie as her killer did cap Mueller was a set director on the film when Finch's assistant took her to one side and asked whether she fancied playing a dead prostitute in the movie joking that quotes she had the personality for it and definitely the body Muller wasn't an actor and so wasn't a member of the Screen Actors Guild she was paid five hundred dollars for two days gagged and tied naked to a bed with freezing cold fake blood all over her six hours a day luckily as she puts it the main perk was quote being naked in front of Brad Pitt's and that's fair enough Kat that is fair enough for the gluttony sym definitely earned his salary for the gluttony scene whole crates of cockroaches were poured onto actor Bob Mac who was 480 pounds at the time and therefore could be considered to have been preparing for the role for most of his life Mac had no idea he'd have so many tiny scene partners until he saw the call sheet and noted the appearance of a quotes cockroach Wrangler apparently Brad Pitt flicks the insects off in between takes and guards were placed in his ears and nose to stop the critters from crawling in in the DVD commentary for the movie David Fincher said that he felt terribly sorry for Mac who had to wear incredibly uncomfortable prosthetics for up to 10 hours at a time before shooting would even begin so he made the character well-endowed to compensate giving the fiberglass dummy they used in the autopsy a large and shapely penis David Fincher he's got your back bro 3 the greed victim negotiated himself a raise greed victim actor jean balkan on the other hand had a much more pragmatic approach to being asked to strip off and stay still hogtied with wire to a chair in a pool of freezing fake blood he asked for more money he originally answered a casting call for a seedy lawyer character and wasn't told what he'd be needed to do until he actually arrived on sets he refused to completely strip off unless Fincher did himself and was rewarded with a pair of silk boxers which he got to keep because well who'd won them back he also negotiated a pay hike of five times the SI G de scale fee proving that he was certainly well cast as a smarmy shyster to all of john doe's books were real sort of all of john doe's handwritten no books were real books that is none of them were blanks every single one was handwritten specifically for the film although the same text was used for pretty much every page and later on when Somerset reads Mills his portion of one of the books having taken all of them off the shelves to catalogue them he reads from the same page we glimpse earlier on however despite this cost-saving exercise the creation of this monument to monomania took seven's props department two months to complete and cost fifteen thousand dollars coincidentally according to lieutenant Somerset in the movie it probably would take 50 men reading in shifts to to read all of the books in the room won some audiences are still convinced that you can see the heads the human mind is a weird and wonderful thing despite there being no frame of footage in the finished film that shows any part of a representation or Verde capitated head in the courier's box there are those that insist that they've seen a copy of the film where such footage exists fundamentally people just seem to believe that they've been shown more than they actually have in some cases they actually create false memories proving this removing all shadow of doubt from their minds in a 2014 interview with playboy Fincher attributed this to the quality of the screenplay with typical generosity towards his writing partner quotes the thing I appreciated about it and what I thought Andrew Kevin Walker scripted so well was that it got your mind in overdrive it works on your imagination we were in great shape and didn't have to show the head in the box despite this and despite his ongoing a sitations that the head in a box has always been implied Fincher has gone into at least one knock-down drag-out argument with a fan who swears blind that they saw it but then van is just the power of great cinema and there you have it folks 20 things you never knew about 7 feel free to drop this video a like if you enjoyed it and drop me a follow on Twitter at you sly dog you I'm will for what culture thanks for hanging out and I'll see you next time you

Channel: WhatCulture

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Length: 14min 51sec (891 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 17 2020