Trivia for
The Time Machine (2002) More at IMDbPro »

• Director Simon Wells is the great-grandson of H.G. Wells who wrote the book upon which this movie is based.
  
  
• Gore Verbinski was brought in to take over the last 18 days of shooting, as Simon Wells was suffering from "extreme exhaustion". Wells returned for post-production.
  
  
• When Alexander asks Vox for books regarding time travel, one of the ones Vox brings up is "The Time Machine" by H.G. Wells. Vox also mentions the original movie, The Time Machine (1960), directed by George Pal.
  
  
• Originally released for December 2001, the release was bumped to March 2002 because of a decision whether to remove a scene involving a meteor shower crippling New York. The filmmakers were concerned that such a scene may stir memories of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.
  
  
• Alan Young, who played Filby in the 1960 film version, has a cameo as a flower shop proprietor. Also, the production notes on the DVD state that, when he picked out his costume, he found the same period shirt he wore in the earlier film, complete with his name written on the collar!
  
  
• When Vox gives the Vulcan salute and exits his glass, the sound effect of a Star Trek door opening and closing can clearly be heard.
  
  
• The passage that Orlando Jones reads to the Eloi people is from Chapter 17 of the Mark Twain novel "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer".
  
  
• Guy Pearce broke a rib during the filming when he tackled the Morlock from the side.
  
  
• Vox's license number is 114: number that Stanley Kubrick used in many of his films
  
  
• A picture of H.G. Wells is visible in Alexander's house in several shots.
  
  
• Vox (the librarian hologram played by Orlando Jones) was originally written to be a robot. Steven Spielberg, however, was creating Artificial Intelligence: AI (2001) at the same time, and had a similarly-designed robot in his own film for every version of Vox the filmmakers could conceive. Production designer Oliver Scholl came up with the idea of a hologram.
  
  
• At one point, Alexander travels into the far future, and the date shown on the time machine is 635,427,810 AD.
  
  
• The Time Machine itself was the biggest and most expensive prop ever to be built for a movie at the time.
  
  
• Philip Bosco's scenes as the Dean were cut from the final print.
  
  
• Guy Pearce was so consistent in most of his takes that the audio from one take could be put with the video from another and the combination of the two would fit perfectly.
  
  
• Guy Pearce did most of his own stunts, and occasionally got frustrated when he wasn't allowed to do a few.
  
  
• Vox mentions a "Time Machine" musical and starts singing a song with the lyrics "There's a place called tomorrow...". Such a musical and such a song do not exist.
  
  

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