Trivia / The Snowman (2017)

• All-Star Cast: The film's cast includes many well-known actors like Michael Fassbender, Rebecca Ferguson, J. K. Simmons, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Val Kilmer, Chloë Sevigny, Toby Jones and James D'Arcy.
• Box Office Bomb: Budget, $35 million. Box office, $6,670,765 (domestic), $42,670,765 (worldwide).
• Creator Killer: Director Tomas Alfredson did not direct any movie again as for now after his panned movie.
• Deleted Role: Jo Nesbø, the author of the book the film was based on, was set to appear briefly in the film, but his scenes were cut.
• Disowned Adaptation: Jo Nesbø has distanced himself from the film, saying it was not his story.
• Dueling Works: With Wind River, another murder mystery film set in a snow-filled area, although unlike The Snowman, it received critical acclaim.
• Fake Nationality: All the major members of the cast are non-Norwegians playing Norwegians.
• Looping Lines: Val Kilmer's lines were re-recorded in post-production due to his throat cancer.
• Missing Trailer Scene:
  • In the trailers, Harry has an exchange with Katrine where he talks about the killer's tendency to cut things into pieces and build snowmen. No such exchange occurs in the film.
  • A scene where Sylvia Ottersen gets her leg caught in a trap while the killer advances on her also didn't appear in the film.
  • A scene at the end of the trailer features Harry breaking open a window to a house that’s in flames followed by a closeup of him screaming as he sticks his head in. Neither scene appears in the final film.
• Newbie Boom: In April 2023, the film was added to Netflix in the US and somehow became the number one film of the week, leading to a boom of people discovering and talking about how bad it is.
• Playing Their Own Twin: Chloë Sevigny plays both Ane Pedersen and Sylvia Ottersen, who are twin sisters.
• Saved from Development Hell: The film had been in development since around 2011, but production only truly began in early 2016 after a critical investor was found.
• Star-Derailing Role: Michael Fassbender was already experiencing a career downturn when films like X-Men: Apocalypse, Assassin's Creed (2016), and Alien: Covenant performed below studio expectations, but this film's negative critical reception, along with its box office bomb status, really snuffed it, with the failure of Dark Phoenix two years later not helping matters. It remains to be seen if he can bounce back.
• Troubled Production: The film ran headlong into this so much that the director spoke openly about its production problems after the film's release:
  • The project was in Development Hell for several years, with Martin Scorsese attached to direct at one point before dropping out (though he stayed on as executive producer). Several directors, including Baltasar Kormákur and Morten Tyldum, either declined or dropped out.
  • Swedish director Tomas Alfredson, who was known for critically acclaimed projects like Let the Right One In and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, joined the project in 2015 while the project was still in development hell. According to Alfredson, the project was dormant for a year, then suddenly sprung to life in January 2016 when a critical investor was found, causing the crew to rush into production in London.
  • Michael Fassbender started shooting his scenes only two days after filming of Assassin's Creed (2016) was concluded.
  • The shoot finished after two-and-a-half months, but to the production team's horror, the film was still missing anywhere from 10-15% of the script, due to what Alfredson described as a "compressed shooting schedule". As a result, the production team had to go back a year later and either re-film or shoot missing parts of the script. A feature story from Den of Geek showed that an entirely different team of production leads (including additional screenwriters and a second assistant director, along with Platoon film editor Claire Simpson) helmed the reshoots.
  • In the final product, all of the scenes featuring Val Kilmer (notwithstanding his frail appearance) are badly dubbed, with the re-recorded lines bearing absolutely no similarity to his own voice. It was widely speculated (and later confirmed by Kilmer in a Reddit AMA and various interviews) that he was suffering from throat cancer at this time, and his lines were unintelligible.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Martin Scorsese was attached to directing the film for a while, before dropping out in 2013 (he still served as the executive producer, though).
  • Jonny Greenwood created a score that was not used.

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