Trivia for
Black Hawk Down (2001) More at IMDbPro »

• All Black Hawks and Little Birds used during the filming were from the 160th SOAR, (Special Operations Aviation Regiment) and most of the pilots were involved in the actual battle on 3/4 October 1993. A lot of the extra Rangers in the film were current Rangers, serving with the 3/75 Ranger Regiment
  
  
• The photo of a wife and child that one of the soldiers is looking at is actually a photo of Eric Bana's wife and child. The props department forgot to take a photo of a wife and child with them, so asked Bana's wife and child who were traveling with him if they could use a photo of them in the movie.
  
  
• Despite the fact that Ken Nolan is the only credited writer there were others that contributed uncredited. Sam Shepard wrote a some pages of dialogue, but they were not used; 'Eric Roth' wrote crucial speeches for Josh Hartnett and 'Eric Bana' to deliver in the closing minutes; Steven Zaillian made a dialogue-driven rewrite; and Stephen Gaghan did one rewrite early on in the development. Nolan was the writer on the set for four months, and worked on the script for over two years. Prior to WGA arbitration, promotional materials for the film (such as theatrical posters) credited the screenplay to both Ken Nolan and Steven Zaillian. This was later changed to award sole credit to Ken Nolan.
  
  
• Disney passed on distributing this film because of its violent R rating. Its eventual distributor, Revolution, is run by ex-Disney studios chairman Joe Roth.
  
  
• This project was originally the idea of director Simon West who urged producer Jerry Bruckheimer to obtain the rights of the book with a view to directing it himself. However, West abandoned the project to direct Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001).
  
  
• Josh Hartnett, 'Sizmore, Tom', 'Bremner, Ewan'William Fichtner and Kim Coates all previously worked together in another movie about war, Pearl Harbor (2001).
  
  
• Eighteen soldiers lost their lives during the raid. The epilogue lists 19. Eighteen of the soldiers who died were Rangers and Delta operators. There was also two soldiers, PFC James Martin from 2-14 Infantry, and Sgt. Cornell Houston of the 41st Engineer Battalion which was attached to the 2-14, 10th Mountain Division, who died during the battles of 3/4 October. The combined task force of 2-14 along with members of the 41st Engineer Battalion were the Army unit sent in to rescue the Rangers. As well, Matt Rierson, who is also in the list, died two days after the battle when Somali mortar-men bombarded the base (as they always did every evening, to no effect)
  
  
• Department of Defense gave the producer a platoon of Army Rangers who did the fast rope scenes
  
  
• Some of the scenes on the monitors behind Major General Garrison are actual satellite images of the battle.
  
  
• 40 of the actors who were portraying Rangers were sent to Fort Benning to attend a two week crash course in becoming Rangers, 15 of the actors portraying Delta Operators were sent to Ft. Bragg and were given a two week Commando Course by members of the 1st Special Warfare Training Group. Ron Eldard went to Fort Campbell and was given a lecture by several Little Bird and Black Hawk pilots, including Michael Durant, about flying and and the battle.
  
  
• On the last day of their week long Army Ranger orientation at Fort Benning, the actors who portrayed the Rangers received a letter which had been anonymously slipped under their door. The letter thanked them for all their hard work, and asked them to "tell our story true", signed with the names of the Rangers who died in the Mogadishu firefight.
  
  
• The massive shoot of the "target building insert" sequence was intended to be among the first sequences shot in principal photography, due to its complex nature. However, negotiations to borrow four Black Hawk helicopters from the United States military were so arduous that an agreement was not reached until a month after shooting had commenced. Director Ridley Scott had prepared a rental of four Hueys from Germany that were ready to be painted black and work as substitutes in the event an agreement with the US Department of Defense could not be reached. Fortunately, the US Government was eventually satisfied that the film would portray the incident in a positive light, and shipped the helicopters to the location in two C-5 Galaxy transports. Ridley Scott says this was very fortunate for the film, since the title is "Black Hawk Down" and Hueys have no resemblance to Black Hawks.
  
  
• Two of the Black Hawk helicopters used in the film were named the "Armageddon" (film produced by Jerry Bruckheimer) and the "Gladiator" (directed by Ridley Scott). Producer Jerry Bruckheimer believed this to be a sign of good luck.
  
  
• The scene where a U.S. soldiers falls out of the truck in the convoy was an outtake, but director Ridley Scott felt that it was funny and should be left in the movie.
  
  
• The film features soldiers wearing helmets with their last names on them. Although this was an inaccuracy, Ridley Scott felt it was necessary to have the helmets to help the audience to distinguish between the characters because they all look the same once the uniforms are on.
  
  
• Specialist Grimes, portrayed by Ewan McGregor, is a fictional character, though given his administrative position and penchant for coffee, he is unabashedly based on the real-life Ranger clerk Spc John Stebbins, who was awarded the Silver Star for his actions during the battle. However, Stebbins was convicted in 2000 for child molestation and is currently serving a 30-year jail term. As a result, the Pentagon apparently pressured screenwriters to alter his name in the film, although a spokeswoman for the movie defended the change as "a creative decision made by the producers."
  
  
• As the soldiers prepare to take off Wolcott plays a version of Voodoo Child (slight return) in the helicopter. This version was performed by Stevie Ray Vaughan who died in a helicopter crash.
  
  
• The movie opens with a quote from Plato: "Only the dead have seen an end to war." An earlier cut of the movie opened with a quote from TS Eliot: "All our ignorance brings us closer to death."
  
  
• The sequence of events portrayed near the end of the movie, where some of the US Rangers were forced to run, unprotected, behind the rescue convoy did, indeed, happen. This unfortunate turn of events was named by the soldiers after the battle as "The Mogadishu Mile".
  
  
• Ben Foster had to drop out of the role as Cpl. James 'Jamie' Smith due to a serious injury sustained during basic training.
  
  
• The donkey that Sergeant Ed Yurek briefly pets was almost not able to be in the film because of budget cuts. In fact, during the rewriting and reediting of the script Ken Nolan, the screenwriter found a note by Ridley Scott saying, "I miss the donkey". The donkey was eventually kept.
  
  
• Some of the radio chatter in the movie was taken from actual radio transmissions made during the battle.
  
  
• The soldiers who volunteer repeatedly to be inserted into the crash site to protect the injured pilot are Gary Gordon and Randall Shughart. They both received the Medal of Honor for their actions. Not shown is the third sniper, SFC. Brad Hallings, who alongside Shugart and Gordon volunteered to be dropped to secure Crash Site Two. Halling eventually found himself manning a mini-gun when one of the crew chiefs was injured.
  
  
• Ridley Scott offered Russell Crowe the role of Sgt. Norm 'Hoot' Hooten, the Delta squad leader. However, Crowe had to turn down the role due to scheduling conflicts with 'Ron Howard' 's A Beautiful Mind (2001). Crowe, a huge fan of the film Chopper (2000), strongly recommended 'Eric Bana' for the role, in his place.
  
  
• When Orlando Bloom auditioned for the role, he informed the casting directors that he knew what it was like to break his back (as he had done so only a couple of years before when climbing out on a drain pipe from a friend's flat). His character in this movie breaks his back after falling from the helicopter.
  
  
• A large number of the actors who played American soldiers are actually from different countries. The list includes: Ewan McGregor (Scottish), 'Eric Bana' (Australian), Kim Coates (Canadian), Ioan Gruffudd (Welsh), 'Ewen Bremner' (Scottish), 'Jason Issacs' (English), Zeljko Ivanek (Slovenian), Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Danish), Tom Hardy (English), Matthew Marsden (English) and Orlando Bloom (English).
  
  
• None of the film was made in Somalia but in the similar looking cities of Rabat and Sale in Morocco. No Somali actors are included in the cast. Somalia then and today remains a dangerous and unstable country.
  
  
• 'Mark Bowden', a staff reporter on the Philadelphia Inquirer, first detailed the disastrous 1993 Mogadishu raid in a serialized, 29-part story that appeared in the paper during November and December 1997. This was expanded into a book the following year.
  
  
• In order to keep the film at a manageable length, 100 key characters in the book were condensed down to 39.
  
  
• When screenwriter 'Ken Nolan' first read 'Mark Bowden''s book, he was so determined to work on the film version that he called up the studio and said "I'll do anything, I'll wash Bruckheimer's car".
  
  
• Ridley Scott had to drop his original ending as he found it too pedantic and boring.
  
  
• This is the first collaboration between Ridley Scott and Jerry Bruckheimer. The producer however has worked with Scott's brother Tony on several occasions, notably Top Gun (1986) and Beverly Hills Cop II (1987).
  
  
• The documentary The Essence of Combat: Making 'Black Hawk Down' (2002) (V) that appears on the DVD is actually longer than the film itself.
  
  
• Although this was released to a wave of patriotic fervor, it was actually completed long before the tragic events of September 11, 2001.
  
  
• 'Eric Bana''s US film debut. He found the experience to be an ultra-realistic one and said he frequently forgot that they were only making a movie.
  
  
• 18 US soldiers died in the incident depicted in the film. The death toll of Somalis however is nearly 30 times that, in excess of 500 people.
  
  
• Originally slated to open on March 1 2002. However, following successful test screenings in October 2001, that release was bumped up to January with special screenings arranged in December to help the film qualify for Academy Award consideration.
  
  
• Unlike Ridley Scott's previous film G.I. Jane (1997), this production received the full co-operation of the US military.
  
  
• The production imported 100 Rangers, a dozen Humvees and 8 Black Hawks into Morocco for filming. This was considerably more firepower than anything else in the country and the Moroccan king was understandably uneasy about allowing such a large foreign military presence into his country. Ridley Scott joked that they could have taken over the country if they'd wanted to.
  
  
• 18 hours of combat is compressed into less than 3 hours of screen time.
  
  
• While Ridley Scott was wrapping up post-production on Hannibal (2001), pre-production and location scouting were already underway for this film.
  
  
• Members of the Royal Moroccan Army played Somali militia men.
  
  
• The opening sequence which depicts numerous starving Somali actually utilizes rubber bodies to represent the dying Africans. Some of the "bodies" had a hose inserted into them through which air was pumped to simulate the appearance of breathing.
  
  
• Josh Hartnett was cast largely at the suggestion of Jerry Bruckheimer who had just worked with him on Pearl Harbor (2001). Hartnett was not overly keen on appearing in another blockbuster so soon after his film with Michael Bay but the strength of the material and the opportunity of working with Ridley Scott soon persuaded him otherwise.
  
  
• A lot of the dust seen swirling around underneath the Black Hawks was computer generated. Real dust would have been too prevalent and would have obscured the action so the ground was dampened before filming to reduce the amount of dust.
  
  
• The Black Hawk going down, spiraling as it crashlands, was achieved largely through real, skilful flying of the helicopter, with some CGI augmentation. The minute it hits the ground, however, the whole thing becomes computer generated.
  
  
• 'Ewen Bremner' partially lost his hearing because of all the gunfire. He did recover however.
  
  
• The set was constantly bothered by stray dogs running into shot. Ridley Scott kept them in because he liked the authentic feel of their presence. 8 dogs were adopted by various members of the production and were eventually brought back to the US with them.
  
  
• Writer 'Ken Nolan''s first experience of a movie set.
  
  
• There was no effort made to cast actors who looked like their real life counterparts.
  
  
• One of the favorite films of George W. Bush.
  
  
• Mohamed Farrah Aidid, the main target, died August 2, 1996. General William Garrison retired from the army the next day.
  
  
• To keep the amount of dust to a minimal blown from the Black Hawks, the crew members would wet down the streets.
  
  

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