Trivia / Event Horizon

• Actor-Inspired Element:
  • It was at Sam Neill's suggestion that the Australian flag patch on Weir's uniform be changed from showing a Union Jack to an Australian Aboriginal Flag, figuring that social attitudes toward the flag would have changed by 2047.
  • Reportedly, Jason Isaacs suggested his character have a large scar on his chest, as a remnant of an unpleasant previous operation, so that when the ship starts preying on people's fears, he ends up with an appropriate death by being vivisected alive.
• Box Office Bomb: Made only $47 million back of its $60 million budget at the box office.
• Cast the Expert: Real life amputees and porn actors were cast in order to make the "blood orgy" visions more realistic.
• Completely Different Title:
  • In Italy, the movie was released as Punto di non ritorno, meaning "Point of No Return" (the 1993 American remake of Nikita starring Bridget Fonda was instead distributed as "Codename: Nina").
  • In Spain, it was renamed Final Horizon. Meanwhile, Argentina and Uruguay had it as The Ship of Death, and the rest of Latin America as The Ship of Terror.
  • In Portugal and Brazil, it's known as The Enigma of the Horizon.
  • In Romania, it's known as Deadly Destination.
  • In Russia, it's known as Through the Horizon.
  • In Hungary, it's known as Halálhajó, "Death Ship".
  • In Poland, it was titled Ukryty Wymiar ("Hidden Dimension").
• Creator Killer: The film decimated the writing career of Philip Eisner right out of the gates. His next cinematic writing credit didn't come for 11 years.
• Executive Meddling: Paramount pressed director Paul W. S. Anderson to complete the editing much faster than usual, as they wanted the film to be released before Titanic^*which was supposed to be released in July 1997, but the difficult production forced it to be pushed back to December, leaving Paramount's summer blockbuster schedule open. The resultant film was rushedly done and originally ran for about 130 minutes, and Paramount forced Anderson to cut around 30 minutes of it (reportedly, mostly gore) after negative reactions at test screenings. (Unfortunately, most of the deleted footage was lost or destroyed after post-production. Even although it was found in 2012, its bad quality means it will never be shown.) Anderson still believes they made him cut too much; which even the then head of Paramount eventually agreed with.
• Similarly Named Works: No, not that one massive-multiplayer crossover fanfic involving a megacorp discovering an artificial solar system composed entirely of famous fantasy settings.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Eisner's initial script contained physical aliens with tentacles. However, Anderson found it too similar to Alien, so he rewrote it to replace them with an alien consciousness in the ship itself.
  • In the script, Miller and the Lewis and Clark had an extended introduction that showed them rescuing a damaged freighter. This scene was not shot.
  • The original cut of the film was over two hours long and contained levels of gore that would have easily given it an NC-17 rating. Rumor has it that when this cut of the movie was screened for a test audience, some of them fainted while others rushed for the door due to being so disturbed by what they had seen.
  • In the original concept of the film, Weir had a smaller role: Miller fought the burning man of his visions instead of him, and Starck didn't hallucinate with Weir upon being rescued (in another version, she would have hallucinated with screams of the dead crew instead).
  • Apparently, according to an interview from Anderson, the lost footage of the film was eventually found in 2012 in an abandoned Transylvanian salt mine (kind of fitting, certainly). Unfortunately, although salt mines are sometimes used for archival storage due to the very dry air they contain (the salt absorbs any moisture), the quality of the found material was so bad it prevents it from ever getting a proper, cleaned-up Blu Ray.
  • Tommy Lee Jones, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis turned down the role of Captain Miller.

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