Trivia / Mandy (2018)

• Awesome, Dear Boy:
  • Nicolas Cage is a fan of Beyond the Black Rainbow, the film Cosmatos made prior to this one, and wanted to work with him ever since. This makes him a promoted fan as well.
  • Bill Duke joined the film because he really wanted to work with Nicolas Cage.
• California Doubling: Rural Belgium doubles for California.
• Creator Breakdown: Much like Beyond the Black Rainbow, the idea for Mandy was inspired by the death of director Panos Cosmatos's parents, and the making of the film was his way of dealing with his grief. The deep undertones of grief and loss that permeate the movie, especially through the second half after the death of the title character, were channeled into the script as a way for Cosmatos to deal with his feelings over the death of his parents.
• Defictionalization:
  • "Amulet of the Weeping Maze", the song Jeremiah Sand plays for Mandy, is now available on Bandcamp and YouTube. A couple years later, Jeremiah's unreleased album, Lift It Down, was "unearthed" and released on vinyl via Sacred Bones.
  • You can also buy Cheddar Goblin, with real mac & cheese.
• Fake American:
  • Mancunian Linus Roache as Californian Jeremiah Sand. He's had plenty of practice concealing his accent, but he has at least one five-minute monologue in this movie (and a sixteen-minute rant on the soundtrack), and his American accent doesn't slip once.
  • Similarly, the English Andrea Riseborough portrays Red Miller's American wife Mandy.
• The Foreign Subtitle:
  • Brazil: Mandy: Thirst for Revenge
  • Czech Republic: Mandy: The Cult of Revenge
  • Japan: Mandy: Hell Road Warrior
• In Memoriam: At the end of the credits there is a dedication to the late Jóhann Jóhannsson, who composed the score for this film.
• Reality Subtext:
  • The film has applicability to the death of Cosmatos' parents.
  • Nicolas Cage shared in an interview that his 14-year marriage to his wife had come to a sudden, unexpected end just before shooting began, and that he shifted his emotions on the situation into his performance in the film.
• Similarly Named Works: The British film Mandy (1952). It is about a deaf girl whose parents argue about how to educate her.
• Sleeper Hit: While the film was already a critical darling thanks to its showings at festivals like Sundance and Cannes, no one expected the film to blow up quite the way it did. For example, its nighttime-only showings in September went from just a couple of weeks to nearly two months, something that distributor RLJ Entertainment did not expect, with the film's box office haul actually succeeding the company's expectations. This surprise success has actually caused the company to rethink its release strategy for future releases.
• Throw It In!: Red's "A psychotic drowns where the mystic swims. You're drowning. I'm swimming." line to Jeremiah (a paraphrasing of Joseph Campbell) was improvised by Nicolas Cage.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Cosmatos originally wanted Nicolas Cage to play Jeremiah, but Cage insisted on playing Red instead because he thought the latter was a much more interesting — not to mention sympathetic — character than the former.
  • The film was originally going to be shot on 16mm film, but budget constraints pushed it to be shot with digital cameras instead.

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