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Trivia / Where the Buffalo Roam

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  • Billing Displacement: During the opening credits, Peter Boyle receives first billing and Bill Murray receives second billing. DVD and video covers, movie posters, and promotional materials tend to give Murray top billing.
  • Box Office Bomb: Budget: Unknown. Box Office: $6,659,377. The film was shredded by critics for its bizarre and episodic plot and was quickly vanquished from theaters.
  • Disowned Adaptation: Hunter S. Thompson hated the film, saying that he "was very disappointed in the script. It sucks – a bad, dumb, low-level, low-rent script."
  • Keep Circulating the Tapes: Due to licensing issues, the film's DVD release from Anchor Bay was forced to replace the music with generic 80's synth, so for the longest time the only way to see the film with the original soundtrack was track down an old VHS copy. In 2019, Shout! Factory released a Blu-ray of the film with the original soundtrack restored.
  • Method Acting: Bill Murray prepared for playing Hunter S. Thompson by meeting with him and hanging out with him at his Colorado ranch. They would get drunk and misbehave together. On one occasion, Thompson tied Murray to a chair and pushed him in a swimming pool.
  • Screwed by the Lawyers: Because of the high cost of music licensing, most VHS and all DVD releases have retained only the Neil Young score and the Creedence Clearwater Revival song, "Keep on Chooglin'", with the rest of the music replaced by generic approximations of the original songs. Only the theatrical release and early VHS releases contained the songs found on the soundtrack. The choice of songs for the DVD version was somewhat anachronistic, since it featured 1980s-style songs in a 1960s and 1970s setting.
  • What Could Have Been: Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, Chevy Chase and Jack Nicholson were all considered to star as Hunter S. Thompson.

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