Trivia / Ready to Rumble

• Box Office Bomb: Cost $24 million to make, made only $12 million worldwide.
• California Doubling: Takes place in Wyoming, filmed around various parts of Southern California.
• Creator Backlash:
  • Downplayed with David Arquette. Being a wrestling fan, he enjoyed working with all the various wrestlers during filming and sees that as a consolation for what he otherwise saw as a terrible film. That he was made to win the WCW World Heavyweight Championship as part of the film' promotional campaign (see Reality Subtext below) is another matter.
  • Rose McGowan hated her time making this film, throwing the script away three separate times before finally agreeing to be in it.
• Money, Dear Boy: The only reason Rose McGowan eventually agreed to be in the film after turning it down multiple times.
• No Stunt Double: Scott Caan did his own stunts.
• On-Set Injury: Randy Savage was accidentally socked in his nose for real by Oliver Platt during their scene in the convenience store. Thankfully the injury was minor, though if you look closely in a couple shots Savage's nose is slightly more swollen than usual.
  • Rey Mysterio also injured his knee while filming the tag team match scene, which unfortunately led to him having to take a few months off from in-ring action.
• Production Lead Time:
  • Diamond Dallas Page was portrayed as a heel in the film as he was during the film's production. By the time the film released, Page had turned face again.
  • The character of Titus Sinclair was meant to be Eric Bischoff, but Bischoff had been let-go from WCW in September 1999. He had returned in April 2000, right before the film released.
  • Some of the wrestlers and talent who appear were also gone by the time the film released, such as Perry Saturn (who left in January of 2000) and some of the Nitro Girls; The Nitro Girls as a concept was even ended literal days before the film's release.
  • The WCW Nitro set had been redesigned in early 2000, the film features the 1999 Nitro set.
• Reality Subtext: This movie about two wrestling fans who get to be involved in the business had David Arquette, who's actually a wrestling fan in real life too, play one of the two fans, and even actually got to win the WCW World Heavyweight Title as part of WCW's attempt to promote the movie, which was denounced by every single wrestling fan on the planet. This includes Arquette himself, who donated all the money he made from being champion even though he was contractually obligated to hold the championship, ensuring that he was the only one who came out of this tragedy with a clean reputation.
• Stillborn Franchise: There were plans to do a sequel which never materialized, likely due to WCW's closure the year after this film released.
• Stunt Double: Gregory Helms and Chris Kanyon did David Arquette and Oliver Platt's stunts respectively, while Scott Caan did his own stunts.
• Trend Killer: Professional Wrestling was at the peak of its mainstream popularity in the late '90s due to the Monday Night Wars between World Championship Wrestling and World Wrestling Federation (now World Wrestling Entertainment), with many wrestlers guest-starring in dozens of shows and movies. That all changed when WCW helped make Ready To Rumble. The movie flopped hard (not helped by portraying wrestling fans as morons). Coupled with many problems inside the industry that eventually led to WCW going out of business, no one in Hollywood would show much more interest in aligning themselves with the product.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Jack Palance was originally cast as Sal Bandini.
  • The WCW considered cancelling the film as part of their 1999 leadership reshuffle, which saw multiple expensive side projects shuttered. It was deemed too far along in production for it to be halted, and so was allowed to continue. For WCW's programming, it’s a minor "what if" as they wouldn’t have booked David Arquette as WCW Heavyweight Champion without the film.
  • The character of Titus Sinclair was originally meant to be Eric Bischoff As Himself, but he was released from WCW before filming began as part of the aforementioned leadership reshuffle.
  • According to an interview he did with YouShoot in 2013, Diamond Dallas Page had his own idea for an alternate ending to the movie, which would've implied that the whole plot around Jimmy regaining his title was a work:
    "I had a whole different end to that movie too, and I pitched it to Warner Bros. and everything, and I think the wrestling community really would've wrapped around at the ending. And how I wanted to do it was, when I get carried through the doors, right? And then Jimmy goes through all his stuff, and then Jimmy comes walking back. And that's... now the credits are just starting to roll, as you're watching Jimmy as he's talking, "Guys, I'll see you at the bar.", come walking in, and you see me and I'm standing there. And he walks up to me, you're like, "These fuckers, they're gonna go at it again!" And then we do what we do - we hug each other! "Aw dude, good! Wow man, thought you was gonna kill me when you dropped me through the blah blah blah blah!" And with that, my scene of the movie was, now you see Arquette and Caan going, "No! They're friends!", you know, and we notice and we're like, "Ah shit." So we walk up to them, Arquette on one side, Caan on the other, I go, "Boys, welcome to the business. Let's go have a drink!" And that's how it ends, like... Yeah, it would've been real, you know, then it would've put all the little bullshit all aside, you know."
  • At least one sequel was in the talks, but the movie's box office failure quickly ended any further developments.

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