Box Office Bomb: Budget, $15 million. Box Office, $8.6 million. This first adaptation of the novel Red Dragon was one of several busts for producer Dino De Laurentiis that ultimately ended his production company DEG. De Laurentiis sold the sequel rights to Orion for a pittance, but when the result was The Silence of the Lambs, the famous film producer returned to the Hannibal Lecter franchise.
Creator Backlash: While Brian Cox has never regretted playing the role in Manhunter, he has expressed disdain over how the character has become idolized and treated as an Anti-Hero by both fans and official media.
Dyeing for Your Art: Tom Noonan began body-building to prepare for the role and felt that his size intimidated the crew when filming began, as the first scene to be shot was his character's interrogation and murder of another.
Life Imitates Art: William Petersen found the role of Will Graham mentally exhausting and had trouble shaking Graham's characterisation even when he went on to other roles (he had to radically change his own appearance in order to look in the mirror and see someone else, according to The Other Wiki). Very appropriate, given that he's playing a criminal profiler who was institutionalised because he couldn't shake the thoughts of the serial killers he hunted.
Method Acting: Tom Noonan avoided all contact with cast members in order to heighten the isolation and tension between himself and other people, particularly William Petersen.
Technology Marches On: Like the original novel, the film also suffers from this in that a major plot point revolves around the fact that Francis Dollarhyde works in a film processing lab, developing 8mm and 16mm home movies and choosing his victims based on their films. By the time of the film's release in 1986, motion picture film had already been largely supplanted in amateur use with the rise of videotape camcorders, which didn't need any post-processing as a result of the instantaneous nature of magnetic tape, but was still in use among some circles. By the time the film adaptation of The Silence of the Lambs debuted in 1991, film stock was functionally eliminated as the medium of choice for home movies, and the rise of digital camcorders and cell phone cameras in the 2000's would act as the final nail in the coffin.
David Lynch was an early consideration for the director's role, having still been under contract to De Laurentiis after making Dune (1984). However, Lynch rejected the role after finding the story to be "violent and completely degenerate".
Working Title: The film was originally going to be entitled Red Dragon, the same name as the novel. However, when Year of the Dragon became a box office failure, Dino De Laurentiis decided to avoid a "dragon" title. He also did not want audiences to assume that this was a kung-fu movie.
The Video Game:
Multi-Disc Work: New York's DOS version comes on five 5.25'' or two 3.5'' disks. The Amiga version has two, the Apple II version has six, and the Apple IIgs version has four. San Francisco's DOS version instead comes on eight 5.25'' or three 3.5'' disks.
Two more games were planned after San Francisco, though only one had a confirmed setting of London. Some sources indicate that the London game was going to be the finale, with a third set in Chicago, while others claim London was up next and one set on the Orbs' homeworld would be the end.
Advertisements for the games claimed the player would have to decide whether to remain a loyal servant of the Orbs or join the resistance. There are no opportunities for such decisions in the actual games.
Brian Cox, Brian Dennehy was "sort of in the loop" to play Lektor. Dennehy, for whatever reason, recommended that they check out Cox, who was performing in a play at the time. Also considered were Bruce Dern, John Lithgow (who was also Jonathan Demme's second choice for the role in The Silence of the Lambs) and Mandy Patinkin. Curiously, Mann also considered fellow filmmaker William Friedkin.