Trivia / Annie (2014)

• Approval of God: Charles Strouse, composer of the original musical's score, enthusiastically endorsed Quvenzhane Wallis in the lead role of Annie, calling her performance in the film "amazing," and liked the idea of casting non-white actresses in the role, something he'd been lobbying for since the first Broadway run in the 1970s.
• Box Office Bomb: Budget: $65–78 million; Gross: $85,911,262 (Domestic), $136,853,506 (Worldwide).
• Content Leak: One of the victims of the 2014 Sony leaks.
• Creator Backlash: In late 2014, Charles Strouse, composer of the original musical's score, gave an interview to Vanity Fair in which he talked about what he liked and didn't like about the movie adaptation. He said that although Jay-Z consulted him in the initial stages, and he "was paid handsomely for my share of the rights," he stated that he and the other original creators (Thomas Meehan and Martin Charnin) did not get to revise and update their old songs, or write any of the new songs in the movie.
• Cut Song:
  • Daddy Warbucks's solo in the musical, "Something Was Missing", was recorded by Jamie Foxx, but was left out of the final film (it does, however, play as incidental music in a few scenes and is included on the deluxe edition Target exclusive version of the soundtrack).
  • Another song that gets only an instrumental cameo is "N.Y.C.", which appears as the underscore in the other mayoral candidate's campaign video.
• Dueling Movies:
  • Was released one week before Into the Woods, another film based on a Broadway musical that was directed by Rob Marshall and released by Walt Disney Pictures. Marshall and Disney collaborated with Columbia Pictures on the successful and well-regarded TV version of Annie in 1999 for ABC.
  • Released on the same day as The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies. Both are remakes of earlier films. The original 1982 film version of Annie was directed by John Huston, who provided the voice of Gandalf in the 1977 NBC television adaptation of The Hobbit.
• Production Posse: Director Will Gluck reunites with actors Patricia Clarkson, Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher in cameos.
• Promoted Fanboy: Sia describes ''Annie'' as her favourite musical as a kid, and describes working on the soundtrack of the film as a "bit of a dream come true".
• Reality Subtext: In the film, when Guy calls Annie "little orphan Annie", she responds back, firmly, "foster kid." This parallels a conversation that Quvenzhane had with a reporter when it was announced that she would be portraying Annie. The reporter wanted to use her role name as a shortcut because she didn't want to go to the effort of pronouncing "Quvenzhane".
  Reporter: I'll just call you "Annie".
  Wallis: My name is not Annie. My name is Quvenzhane.
• Remake Cameo: Taylor Richardson, who had played Annie in the musical's 2013 Broadway revival following Lilla Crawford, plays the red-haired Annie at the beginning of the film. Doubles as a Casting Gag.
• Star-Derailing Role:
  • After getting rave reviews for her performance in Beasts of the Southern Wild, and becoming the youngest Best Lead Actress Oscar nominee, this movie was made to basically launch Quvenzhane Wallis' career. However the bad reviews and disappointing box office returns were determintal to this and she's barely acted since.
  • This film and Sex Tape proved to be at least one film too many for Cameron Diaz, who took a long hiatus from acting not long after due to her being too tired to travel for filming, and wanting to start a family.
• What Could Have Been:
  • During the earliest stages of development, Willow Smith was in talks to play Annie, with her father in the Warbucks/Stacks role. But it was later decided that Willow was too old for the role but more of her quitting the role. Quvenzhane Wallis (fresh from her Oscar-nominated role in Beasts of the Southern Wild) stepped in to play Annie, and Jamie Foxx auditioned for Stacks, a role which he eventually got when Will Smith decided not to act in the film (he's still credited as a producer - after all, the film is associated with his company Overbrook Entertainment).
  • Sandra Bullock was originally considered for Miss Hannigan, but she declined, citing once how she "hates musicals and vows to never star in one." Melissa McCarthy was also considered.
  • Justin Timberlake and Brad Pitt was considered for the part of Will Stacks before Jamie Foxx was cast.
  • Ryan Murphy was an early contender to direct the film, but declined due to scheduling conflicts over filming new episodes of the TV show Glee.
  • Actress and writer Emma Thompson was attached for a long time on the project as the screenwriter. She wrote several drafts, but ultimately her version was not considered for the final result.

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