Trivia / Twilight Zone: The Movie

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• Alan Smithee: As a result of the infamous and tragic Hellish Copter incident, second assistant director Andy House had his name removed from the credits and replaced with the pseudonym Alan Smithee.
• Creator Backlash:
  • Nearly everyone involved in the production was haunted in some manner by the tragedy to take place during filming. Steven Spielberg in particular was so distressed by the incident that he has never spoken to John Landis since.
  • Word of God has it that in the offices of Spielberg's production company Amblin Entertainment the film's never referred to by name.
• Dawson Casting: Nancy Cartwright was 27 when she played a young girl. Her short stature and high-pitched voice help.
• Executive Meddling: With unintentionally tragic consequences. John Landis's original script for "Time Out" simply ended with the Villain Protagonist being punished for his bigotry. Warner Bros. executives suggested that the protagonist should have a Heel–Face Turn, so Landis wrote a new ending where the character helps two Vietnamese children escape from a bombed village while being pursued by a helicopter. This ending could not be used in the finished film due to the helicopter accident, which used a similar ending to the one Landis originally wrote.
• Fatal Method Acting: Vic Morrow and child actors My-Ca Dinh Le and Renee Shin-Yi Chen (both working illegally, without proper work permits and at 2AM, far later than the times allowed for child actors), were killed when a stunt helicopter crashed near them during the filming. This was all due to how John Landis kept insisting that the scene was to be as "realistic" as possible, having shot down several suggestions from the crew to make the shooting of the scene somewhat safer, such as filming it at day and then amending it with Hollywood Darkness later, or using dummies or small people as stuntmen instead of child actors. This led to nearly a decade's worth of lawsuits, changes in the law about child actors doing stunts, and fewer helicopter scenes in movies thereafter until CGI made it possible to put them in digitally. Director John Landis was acquitted of manslaughter charges, but his career went into decline after this.
• Irony as She Is Cast: Jewish actor Vic Morrow played an anti-Jewish bigot.
• Production Posse: For Joe Dante's segment, Dick Miller, Kevin McCarthy and William Schallert all appear. This would also be the director's first collaboration with Jerry Goldsmith; the film composer would continue scoring every single one of Dante's films for the rest of his life.
• Real-Life Relative:
  • Dan Aykroyd (The Passenger) and Donna Dixon (Junior Flight Attendant) are married.
  • In "Kick the Can", Priscilla Pointer (Miss Cox) was the soon-to-be mother-in-law of the director Steven Spielberg.
• Role-Ending Misdemeanor: Prior to this film, John Landis was an up and coming director who was usually put on the same league as Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, or even Francis Ford Coppola, with some of the most beloved comedies of The '70s and The '80s under his belt. Despite the tragedy, he was acquitted of manslaughter over the deaths of Vic Morrow and the two child actors and was still able to work in Hollywood, making Trading Places, the "Thriller" music video, Into the Night, Spies Like Us, ¡Three Amigos!, Coming to America, Beverly Hills Cop III and so on. However, the incident lingered over him for the rest of his career: Spielberg has refused to speak to him since, and Landis' success and recognition quickly dwindled into absolute nothingness by the end of The '90s.
• Troubled Production: The "Time Out" segment was supposed to climax with a scene where Vic Morrow rescues two children during The Vietnam War. John Landis chose to use Morrow, My-Ca Dinh Le and Renee Shin-Yi Chen, the two non-professionals hired to play the children for the scene, rather than stunt doubles, despite the presence of helicopters and explosives. In fact, proper work permits had never been obtained for the kids (to circumvent child labor laws; their families were also paid under the table using the production's petty cash fund). The lengthy setup for the scene at the Indian Dunes ranch near Six Flags Magic Mountain on Thursday, July 22, 1982 delayed filming until the early hours of July 23, which also violated laws about work conditions for child actors. Even though the pilot and special effects people were experienced pros, the mix of controlled explosives and a low-flying helicopter was still very risky, and around 2AM the worst happened—shrapnel from an explosive got caught in the copter's rotor, causing it to crash near the three actors, with a rotor blade decapitating them all and horrifying the public. This led to nearly a decade's worth of lawsuits, changes in the law about child actors doing stunts, and fewer helicopter scenes in movies thereafter until CGI made it possible to put them in digitally. Landis was acquitted of manslaughter charges in 1987. While the film he signed on to specifically to get a break from the immediate wake of the scandal — Trading Places — ended up released the month after Twilight Zone and became one of his biggest hits, and he would remain a bankable director for the rest of the decade (only Into the Night lost money), the disaster understandably cast a long, dark shadow over his career that remains to this day. It also abruptly ended Landis' friendship with Steven Spielberg, who was co-producing the film with Landis. The tragedy happened right when E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial was dominating the summer box office, so media reports constantly mentioned Spielberg's name in connection with it. There were even reports that he was on-set when the accident occurred, which were quickly debunked.
• Uncredited Role: The voice of the mad doctor/monster in "It's a Good Life" is uncredited. Averted with the creature in "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" this time around, with Larry Cedar credited for the role.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The original idea for the movie was to adapt a singular story (that concept became the 1988 sci-fi film Miracle Mile) before the show's success in syndication led to the decision to make it an anthology.
  • The scene with Vic Morrow's tragic accident was supposed to end up with his character pulling a Heel–Face Turn when he rescues two Vietnamese children.
  • Also, Steven Spielberg was to have adapted "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" before Morrow's death led him to change his mind and adapt "Kick the Can" instead (the former was to have required many effects shots and night shooting with children, similar to the segment with Morrow).
  • It was originally intended to have Spielberg's "Kick the Can" be the final segment, but following audience previews the order was changed. (Interestingly, Jerry Goldsmith's end credit music [which represents all but the John Landis episode] unintentionally reflected the change, as he composed the music before that decision had been made.)
  • Wil Wheaton said he was cast in a role, but a parochial school teacher, who was convinced that The Twilight Zone was Satanic, talked him out of appearing in the film. Reflecting on that decision decades later, Wheaton said it was the only time he ever regretted passing on an acting role.
  • Found among his papers was a script outline for a Twilight Zone movie written by Rod Serling, using two original stories. One story was adapted for the syndicated version of the first revival series, and both were used for a CBS TV movie a few years later.

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