Trivia / Blues Brothers 2000

• The Character Died with Him: John Belushi as Jake Blues and Cab Calloway as Curtis.
• Creator Backlash: John Landis, who was more or less forced to make the sequel, was so unhappy with it when it was released that he dove right into his next film, Susan's Plan, to "cleanse his palate."
• Creator Killer: John Landis had already been on thin ice for over ten years after his recklessness on the set of Twilight Zone: The Movie killed Vic Morrow and two child actors, and had only made a handful of films since, most of which were poorly received. The film proved to be the final straw, and he's since been relegated to directing the occasional TV show.
• Fake American: Canadian-born Dan Aykroyd as Chicago native Elwood Blues.
• Franchise Killer: Dan Aykroyd said that he had plans for a third film in the mid-00s, a straight-to-video feature that would involve the group visiting Albania after learning of their mass success there. After 2000 flopped, there's no chance of a third film being made.
• In Memoriam: The film is dedicated to John Belushi, Cab Calloway, and John Candy, the original movie's co-stars who had since died.
• Missing Trailer Scene: The trailer for Blues Brothers 2000 includes a deleted scene where the band lines up on a stage. Maury Sline and an unnamed gentleman are sitting in what appears to be a judging panel, and Maury says, "The Blues Brothers band? I thought you guys were all in jail!"
• On-Set Injury: While filming a stunt scene, a car rolled onto two crew members, one of whom needed a leg amputation. Three months later, during filming for a car-crash sequence, stuntman Bob Minor suffered severe injuries to his head.
• Troubled Production: Like its predecessor, the film had a problematic production:
  • John Belushi died from a drug overdose a couple of years after the original film's release, leaving the follow-up in limbo (during which time co-stars John Candy and Cab Calloway also died) for the better part of two decades. During that timespan it was widely assumed that Belushi's younger brother James Belushi would be the obvious candidate to co-star with Dan Aykroyd in a sequel. In the end however, he turned it down, ostensibly because of a schedule conflict, resulting in John Goodman being cast in the entirely new role of Mighty Mac.
  • When Aykroyd and Landis presented their first draft script to Universal, the studio responded by saying their script was essentially just a carbon-copy of the first film, except with Belushi's character swapped out for Goodman's... which Aykroyd later admitted was actually a valid criticism. Unfortunately, what the studio did next would ultimately send the project down in flames, as they decided they wanted the film to appeal to a younger audience, and forced the insertion of a Tagalong Kid sidekick to Aykroyd and Goodman, while also forcing a Genre Shift that made the film much more overt fantasy than the first one.
  • The actual shoot wasn't quite as problematic as that of the first film, but Aykroyd and Goodman had to work essentially for free in order to get the film produced under the less-than-adequate budget that they were given. Aykroyd and Landis became increasingly despondent due to the continued Executive Meddling throughout the shoot, which resulted in the two threatening to quit, until the studio counter-threatened them with a lawsuit for breach of contract. Still, they roughed it out, and eventually finished the shoot.
  • Unlike the first film, 2000 was critically mauled and a Box Office Bomb, completely destroying Landis' career and sending Aykroyd into a career slump that would last well into the following decade, with Goodman probably only avoiding the same fate via his roles in the same year's hugely acclaimed The Big Lebowski and Monsters, Inc. a few years later.
• What Could Have Been:
  • James Belushi was originally planned to co-star along with Dan Aykroyd and John Goodman, but his scheduling prevented this.
  • Macaulay Culkin was offered the role of Buster, but declined as he'd retired from acting a few years earlier.