Trivia / The Revenant

• California Doubling: The climactic fight between Glass and Fitzgerald was filmed in the southern tip of Argentina. Production had to be moved to the southern hemisphere where there was snow in July.
• Content Leak: Screeners were leaked online a few days before its planned theatrical run.
• Darkhorse Casting:
  • Arthur RedCloud (Hikuc) had never appeared in a film before this. He was actually a truck driver from Texas, making a living by transporting oil.
  • Joshua Burge, who plays "Stubby Bill," had never acted in film prior to 2010. His collaborations with director Joel Potrykus were reportedly seen by one of the casting directors, and he was asked to film an audition tape. Shortly after that he was flown to Canada for the duration of the shoot.
• Dueling Movies: With The Hateful Eight, another ultra violent western set during the 1800's and harsh winter.
• Fake American: Tom Hardy and Will Poulter are English. Domhnall Gleeson is Irish.
• Fake Nationality: Fabrice Adde who plays the French-Canadian Toussaint is from France.
• Referenced by...: In the DVD Commentary of Turning Red, Domee Shi, the director, mentions that a previous version of the scene where Mei in giant red panda form attacks Tyler was more intense than the final version and that they "went full Revenant" refering to the scene where Leonardo DiCaprio's character is attacked by a bear.
• Saved from Development Hell: The project had its production stages going back as far as 2001. It gained traction it 2010, died down but slowly got back up in 2011 when Iñárritu and DiCaprio signed on.
• Troubled Production: What was supposed to be a $60 million film had its budget balloon to $135 million and Iñárritu's infamously temperamental nature, the high-pressure schedule, and unpleasant filming conditions made it a very difficult shoot. Filming in only natural light high in the Northern Hemisphere meant the cast and crew only had a few hours of filming every day, meaning filming took place over a period of nine months. Add to that the all-too-real cold, and it's tough to blame the crew members who ended up bailing on the project in response. Some were even fired by Iñárritu himself. Tom Hardy in particular was concerned about the safety of some of the stunts he had to do, which caused friction between him and Iñárritu before Iñárritu allowed Hardy to choke him out in return. Later, the image of Hardy strangling Iñárritu was immortalized in a T-shirt◊ gifted by Hardy to all members of the crew at the end of the shoot.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Park Chan-wook was interested in directing an adaption of the novel, and he wanted Samuel L. Jackson to star.
  • John Hillcoat was also attached to direct at one point, with Christian Bale in the lead.
  • Sean Penn was originally cast in the role of John Fitzgerald, but ended up dropping out and being replaced by Tom Hardy.
  • The movie was originally going to be shot with film, but due to the fact it did not perform well in low light areas, they went with digital.
  • Initial drafts were originally written that Hawk was already dead prior to the story and that the main source of Hugh Glass' revenge over Fitzgerald was not only abandoning him, but also taking his rifle. The rifle itself had an carving on it that reminded Glass of his son and in that sense, as the writer put it, "It was almost a kidnapping story at that point." On top of that, instead of being scalped by the tribe at the end of the film, Fitzgerald drowns after Glass reclaims his weapon from him.
  • A 2007 draft of the script had Hugh as a black man. Eventually he became white, like his real life counterpart.

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