Trivia / Videodrome

• Actor-Inspired Element: James Woods came up with the ending where Max shoots himself.
• Creator Backlash: One of the Japanese porn dealers is played by David Tsubouchi. Just over a decade later, Tsubouchi would be elected as a Member of the Provincial Parliament in Ontario, where he was appointed Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations. This made him responsible for the Ontario Film Review Board, the agency that assigns film ratings in the province. Cronenberg butted heads with the OFRB and other Canadian review boards many times in the late '70s and early '80s and accused them of censorship.
• Creator Cameo: While not intentionally so, David Cronenberg appears as James Woods' body double when Max is wearing the recording helmet. Woods refused to wear it himself since he convinced it was a safety hazard, so Cronenberg wore it instead for the wider shots.
• Dyeing for Your Art: Debbie Harry dyed her signature blonde hair red for this movie.
• Fake Nationality: Torontonians Max Renn and Nicki Brand are played by Americans James Woods and Debbie Harry, respectively.
• Follow-Up Failure: David Cronenberg was coming off the success of Scanners.
• Inspiration for the Work: The basis for the film came from David Cronenberg's childhood. He used to pick up television signals from Buffalo, New York, late at night after Canadian stations had gone off the air, and worry he might see something disturbing not meant for public consumption.
• What Could Have Been: An epilogue was planned but never filmed. In it, Max, Bianca, and Nicki appear on the set of Videodrome. Bianca and Nicki are shown to have chest slits (vaginas) of their own, from which emerge strange mutated sex organs - this concept was also used in David Cronenberg's earlier film, Rabid. The scene was scrapped along with many others due to cost overruns, bad timing (Debbie Harry had stomach flu and James Woods was visiting relatives), and the sheer difficulty of executing such a special effects-laden scene. A number of other ambitious special effects sequences were also dropped.
• Write Who You Know: As a young man, David Cronenberg attended the University of Toronto; first studying science, but eventually gaining his degree in Literature. Marshall McLuhan was a lecturer in media studies at the University during the same time, and is also credited as an influence on Cronenberg's ideas for Videodrome and served as the inspiration for the character of Brian O'Blivion.

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