Trivia / Velvet Goldmine

• Box Office Bomb: Budget, $9 million. Box office, $4.3 million. This ode to the 1970s glam rock scene got mixed reviews and was buried in a limited release. Nonetheless, it managed to pick up a strong cult following in the years since its release.
• California Doubling: The outside shots of New York were clearly filmed in London, given that everybody is driving on the left and red double decker buses are driving around with advertisements for Les Misérables.
• The Cast Show Off: Ewan McGregor did his own singing.
• Creator Killer: Following the film's failure, Todd Haynes didn't direct another film for four years until Far from Heaven in 2002.
• Fake American:
  • Ewan McGregor as Michigan's Curt Wild.
  • Toni Collette (Australian) doing two levels of fake accent, one excellent and one Stylistic Suck, while playing American-and-pretentious Mandy.
• Non-Singing Voice: Most of Jonathan Rhys Meyers' singing parts in the movie are dubbed by Thom Yorke.
• Referenced by...: Velvet Tinmine is a compilation of glam-rock obscurities, released after the film.
• Screwed by the Lawyers: The film was originally supposed to feature some of David Bowie's music, hence the title. When Bowie learned that the script for the film was partially based on the unauthorized biographies Stardust: The David Bowie Story written by Henry Edwards and Tony Zanetta and Backstage Passe written by Bowie's ex-wife Angie Bowie, he threatened the producers with a lawsuit. Bowie's songs were, therefore, not used, and the script was partially re-written to avoid unnecessary resemblance between Bowie and the Bowie-style character Brian Slade.
• Throw It In!: During the Festival sequence where Brian sees Curt perform for the first time, Ewan McGregor was only due to moon the disgruntled crowd. But inspired by the antics of Iggy Pop, he improvised, and ended up gesticulating wildly while flashing the audience, leaping about with his trousers around his ankles.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Todd Haynes originally wanted to cast Jarvis Cocker as Jack Fairy.
  • Courtney Love considered supplying music to the film's soundtrack; however, she withdrew after viewing a rough cut, claiming that the character of Curt Wild too closely resembled her late husband Kurt Cobain, both in character and physicality.
• Working Title: The film was originally titled Glitter Kids. In development, the original screenplay was titled Glam!

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