Trivia / Chasing Amy

• Actor-Inspired Element
  • Joey Lauren Adams wrote the song Alyssa performs. It was originally a country song, but Kevin Smith requested they pump it up a bit.
  • Hooper's "The Black Man Is God" button was found by Dwight Ewell.
• The Cast Showoff: Joey Lauren Adams wrote the song she sings. It was originally a country song, but Kevin Smith requested they pump it up a bit.
• Cowboy BeBop at His Computer:
  • One reviewer mixed up Jay and Silent Bob, with baffling results.
  • Roger Ebert mixed up Banky and Holden.
• Creator's Favorite Episode: This is Kevin Smith's favorite film of his own.
• Defictionalization: While a full comic book was never created, 8x11 prints of the final page from Holden's comic about Alyssa are sold through Kevin Smith's store Jay and Silent Bob's Secret Stash.
• Mid-Development Genre Shift: Kevin Smith original wanted the film to be a teen comedy, but decided against it when the more teen-friendly Mallrats bombed.
• No Budget: Though not as cheap as Clerks, the film was made for a very inexpensive $250,000, 1/24th of that of Mallrats. The original budget was $3 million, but contingent on a different cast. Producer Scott Mosier was not happy about the budget production.
• No Export for You: The Chasing Amy light novel adaptation by Kenichi Eguchi remained Japan only.
• The Other Darrin: Jared Svenning is clearly played by someone other than Michael Rooker in the "sexual scars" flashback.
• Real-Life Relative: One of Banky's hecklers at the beginning of the movie (accusing him of being a tracer), is Ben Affleck's younger brother, Casey Affleck.
• Technology Marches On
  • Banky's massive duffle bag of porno magazines was already overkill, but in an age where he could just as easily access more porn that he could possibly see on his cell phone, it just comes off as another example of him being an idiot.
  • When the movie was released on Laserdisc as part of The Criterion Collection, Kevin Smith opened the commentary with "Fuck DVD". This commentary was carried over to the DVD.
• What Could Have Been
  • The film was originally in development at Miramax Films on a budget of $3,000,000, but only on the condition that Smith cast Jon Stewart, Drew Barrymore and David Schwimmer in the leads. Smith, who not only thought those choices were terrible, was dead-set on casting his friends, so instead he filmed it independently for a huge fraction on the budget and gave the studio first dibs on distribution.
  • Kevin Smith originally planned to close out The View Askewniverse (then called "the Jersey trilogy") with this film, but changed his mind when Jay and Silent Bob found their way into Dogma, resulting in five more Askewniverse films.
• Write What You Know: The film's story is largely based on Kevin Smith's relationship with Joey Lauren Adams, who plays Alyssa. Although he later pointed out that, while Adams was more sexually experienced than him, it was nowhere near as devious as Alyssa's and that he was more jealous that she had spent most of her youth traveling the world while he had spent most of his life in New Jersey. He also claims that he used to know a movie executive who had feelings for a female colleague, who turned out to be a lesbian.

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