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Spoilers (1)
William S. Burroughs' 1959 novel 'Naked Lunch' contains a chapter concerning "Senders", a hostile organization of telepaths bent on world domination, a clear literary inspiration for this film.
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The crash scene in the record store prominently features a float hanging from the ceiling for the RSO (Robert Stigwood Organization) record label, who paid for this placement. By the time the film was released, RSO had gone out of business.
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The exploding head scene was accomplished by filling a latex head with dog food and rabbit livers, and shooting it from behind with a 12-gauge shotgun.
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A very early treatment from 1976, entitled "Telepathy 2000" takes place in the future, begins with the protagonist (who is named Harley Quinn) telepathically raping a woman in a subway, and was set as a spy movie. In this version, a company called Cytodyne Amalgamate was breeding evil Scanners to take over the world and the U.S. Government was employing good Scanners to stop them.
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The Jennifer O'Neill character, Kim Obrist, is named after the assistant to the producer (Kim Obrist).
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Dr. Ruth tells Vale that he founded Biocarbon Amalgamat in 1942. Patrick McGoohan, who plays the Dr. Paul Ruth character, was 14 years old in 1942.
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David Cronenberg once called this the most frustrating film he'd ever made. The film was rushed through production - filming had to begin without a finished script and end within roughly two months so the financing would qualify as a tax write-off, forcing Cronenberg to write and shoot at the same time. Cronenberg also cited difficulty with and antagonism between the leads, particularly Patrick McGoohan and Jennifer O'Neill.
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Spoilers
Production stills exist of shots in the final duel between Cameron and Revok, where the top of Cameron's head explodes, sending sparks into the air. Apparently this climax was filmed but David Cronenberg chose to omit it from the final print.
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