Trivia / Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man

• Box Office Bomb: Budget, $23 million. Gross, $7 million.
• Creator Backlash: Mickey Rourke and Don Johnson hated this movie. Even when Johnson promoted the movie, he said "If you don't have a single brain cell, this movie is for you".
• Life Imitates Art: This film features a billboard for Die Hard V: Die Hardest, over two decades now there really is a Die Hard 5.
• Money, Dear Boy: Mickey Rourke has said that he signed on purely for financial reasons and that doing so made him feel "like a sell-out" and fueled his descent into self-loathing in the mid-1990s.
• Star-Derailing Role: This flop brought down both Mickey Rourke and Don Johnson in 1991.
  • Rourke, with several hits like Diner, Rumble Fish, 9½ Weeks, and Angel Heart, was once one of the biggest rising stars in The '80s. Unfortunately, he also suffered from substance abuse problems and a temper on-set which alienated cast and crew alike. His decline started the previous year from headlining the reviled failures Wild Orchid and Desperate Hours, which gave him Worst Actor nominations at the Golden Raspberry Awards. Rourke took an acting hiatus when this film bombed to pursue boxing and held a decent record for three years, before quitting in 1994. He then resumed acting with overall mixed results before Robert Rodriguez cast him in Once Upon a Time in Mexico and Sin City. This almost resulted in a comeback when Rourke got critical praise (including an Academy Award nomination) for his lead role in The Wrestler, leading to roles in blockbusters like Iron Man 2 and The Expendables. Sadly, the subsequent flops of Immortals and Sin City: A Dame to Kill For killed that comeback opportunity and reduced Rourke to Direct to Video films afterwards.
  • Johnson was well-known on television via Miami Vice when he tried becoming a movie star with this film, only for its failure to derail his film and television career for a couple of years. He rebounded on television with Nash Bridges, while his film career mostly remained active via supporting roles in Django Unchained and Knives Out.
• What Could Have Been: Bruce Willis was considered to play Harley Davidson in the hopes he would reunite with his good friend Don Johnson.

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