Trivia / Bless the Child

• Box Office Bomb: Budgeted at $65 million, made only $45 million in its theatrical run.
• Creator Killer: This disaster practically wiped out director Chuck Russell and screenwriter Tom Rickman's careers. Russell, after The Scorpion King two years later, didn't direct a film for fourteen years afterwards, with his projects following that recess failing to do decent business; Rickman, on the other hand, wrote Made-for-TV Movie material exclusively before his death in 2018.
• Star-Derailing Role: Following this film's release in 2000, Kim Basinger would never headline a mainstream, widely released motion picture again. This film, in particular, is noteworthy as one of two flops (the other being I Dreamed of Africa, which likewise underperformed critically and commercially the same year) that she chose to follow up her Academy Award-winning performance in L.A. Confidential with. Since this time, virtually all of Basinger's on-screen performances have either been in low-budget, limited-release independent films or small, low-key supporting roles for a fast paycheck, the most notable of these arguably being 8 Mile (which reunited her with her L.A. Confidential director, Curtis Hanson) and Fifty Shades Darker, which earned Basinger a Razzie for Worst Supporting Actress.
• What Could Have Been: In the original script Kim Basinger's character, Maggie, was Cody's grandmother, but at age 45 Kim was considered too young to play a grandmother considering that she had a daughter Ireland, who was four years old at the time. The character was re-written as Cody's aunt.

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