Trivia / Hoosiers

• Completely Different Title:
  • German: Freiwurf (Free Throw)
  • French: Le Grand Défi (The Great Challenge)
  • Catalan: Més que ídols (More than Idols)
  • Russian: Команда из штата Индиана/Komanda iz shtata Indiana (A Team from Indiana)
  • And in English-speaking markets (like Britain) it was called Best Shot.
• One-Take Wonder: The scene with Jimmy and Coach Dale talking while Jimmy shot baskets was filmed in one take. Maris Valainis said that he "wasn't even listening to him. I was just concentrating on making them, and I made one, and they kept going in."
• Hostility on the Set: Gene Hackman and David Anspaugh clashed throughout most of the production. "Gene had me on the verge of a nervous breakdown," Anspaugh told Vulture. "He gave me my first anxiety attack: One morning I woke up and I couldn't walk; the room was spinning. I thought every day on the film was going to be my last because Gene's agent was trying to get me fired." According to Anspaugh, the only thing that saved his job was the dailies. "The producers said, 'Look, David's not getting fired,'" the director recalled. "And we showed a half-hour of dailies to Gene's agent, and he saw that what we were making was actually pretty good."
  • Angelo Pizzo described how Hackman caused problems during filming:
  When he arrived, he was in a generally foul mood. We called him the black cloud. He started complaining about everything. There were some blowups on the set, some throwing of jackets and near-fistfights. There was all sorts of drama on the set. Then Dennis Hopper arrived three weeks into shooting, and he settled Gene down. I think Gene decided to just suck it up and finish it and get out of there.
• Wag the Director: In the original script, Shooter leaves rehab to attend the state championship game. Dennis Hopper, who had just gotten sober, thought this plot point was detrimental to the story. Said director David Anspaugh, "We sat down over coffee, and [Hopper] said, 'Guys, I wish I had brought this up earlier. I knew there was something that bothered me about this scene. It doesn't work. It can't happen. It would suggest Shooter didn't take his sobriety seriously. And I know from experience that Shooter made a real commitment, and there's no way he would leave that hospital.' And Angelo and I had been living with that scene in our heads for years. And we really argued against [cutting] it. And Dennis said, 'No, trust me.' And we trusted him, and he was absolutely right."
• What Could Have Been:
  • Jack Nicholson wanted to play Coach Norman Dale, but he was serving as a witness in a lawsuit, which sidelined him for six months. He told the producers he knew they were on a tight schedule to shoot, and if they found another actor, to go ahead. If not, he could do it the next year. Gene Hackman then signed on for the part. After the film came out, Nicholson said to David Anspaugh that the movie and its stars were great, but that it would have been a "megahit" if he had been the star.
  • Harry Dean Stanton turned down the role of Shooter. In 2013 he expressed regret over saying no to the film, and couldn't remember his reasons for declining it.

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