Shared with you
Three years before production began, Steven Spielberg assembled a team of sixteen future experts in Santa Monica to brainstorm out the year 2054 for him. This team included: Neil Gershenfeld, professor at the Media Lab at MIT; Shaun Jones, director of biomedical research at DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency); William Mitchell, dean of the school of architecture at MIT; Peter Calthorpe, the New Urbanism evangelist; Jaron Lanier, one of the inventors of virtual reality technology; Douglas Coupland, author and commentator; Stewart Brand, author, scientist and co-creator of The Well on-line community; Kevin Kelly, founder of Wired Magazine; Harald Belker, car designer and John Underkoffler, the science and technology advisor for the movie.
(at around 1h 2 mins) The scene where Lois Smith (Dr Iris Hineman) kisses Tom Cruise was not scripted. Tom's reaction is of genuine surprise.
(at around 1h 21 mins) For the scene where Anderton holds his breath in the bathtub, Steven Spielberg was going to create the air bubble rising with CGI, but Tom Cruise took the time and learned how to do it himself.
Tom Cruise and Steven Spielberg both agreed to waive their usual salary to help keep the film's budget under $100 million. They agreed to take 15% of the film's gross instead.
The "Precogs" were all named after famous mystery writers: Dashiell Hammett, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and Agatha Christie.
Cinematographer Janusz Kaminski did a bleach bypass on the film, effectively skipping the bleaching of the silver halide crystals in the film in order to create the desaturated silver tinted colors.
Cameron Crowe: (at around 47 mins) Tom Cruise's director from Jerry Maguire (1996) and Vanilla Sky (2001) appears as a commuter on the train who looks at Anderton over the top of his newspaper and recognizes him. In the same shot, the blonde woman sitting behind him is Cameron Diaz.
Paul Thomas Anderson: (at around 47 mins) Tom Cruise's director in Magnolia (1999) as a man on the train. It is reported that he is so hard to find that Anderson himself does not know where he appears.
William Mapother: (at around 1h 35 mins) Tom Cruise's cousin as a hotel desk clerk. He's likely best known for his role as Ethan on the television series Lost (2004).
Scott Frank: (at around 1h 35 mins) The co-writer appears as a customer in the cyber parlor, the one who receives an award and is being congratulated ("You're the man").