Trivia / Striking Distance

• Box Office Bomb: Budget, $30 million. Box office, $24,107,867.
• Creator Backlash: Bruce Willis notoriously apologized for the (lack of) quality of this movie several years after it was released.
• Missing Trailer Scene: The theatrical trailer shows lot of deleted, extended and alternate scenes, probably ones which were decided to be cut or changed after bad test screening of the original cut. There are also lot of promotional stills which show several other deleted scenes, like Tom and Jo pulling some man out of the water while group of people watches them or deleted part from the ending showing Tom kneeling over Nick's body.
• Release Date Change: The film was scheduled to be released on May 21, 1993. But after the original cut was shown to a test audience that hated it, extensive re-shooting was done in Los Angeles. Story changes, and removal of some plot points, were done to try and and make the movie better. Because of this, release date was pushed from May to September 17th.
• Troubled Production: The film had to deal with Bruce Willis' huge ego:
  • Namely, Willis would often rewrite scenes and have them directed the way he wanted them to be done, to the point where one crew member called him "Orson Willis". This is not the first time this has happened with Willis.
  • Since audiences found the original cut confusing, they had to do loads of reshoots to make the movie more sexy and violent; Willis didn't want to do them, and even blamed the director for the original cut's poor quality. Overzealous executive Mark Canton, known for being behind various other troubled productions, wanted many scenes altered, and even shielded the movie's production problems from the public.
  • Finally, the title was changed at the last minute from Three Rivers due to the increase in action scenes. All of this resulted in a product that flopped at the box office, and is now an Old Shame to Willis.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Originally, the lead role was to be played by Ed Harris. It was then rewritten for Robert De Niro and, finally, Bruce Willis.
  • Ron Perlman was considered to play Jimmy.
• Working Title: Three Rivers.

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