Did You Know?

When the League arrives at the London Docks, the camera passes by a wall with a poster for a carnival that is coming, there are two names: Dr. Alan Moore and Dr. Kevin O'Neill. These are the names of the gentlemen that created and wrote the comic "League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen". The poster is, in fact, a duplication of the title page of the League of Extraordinay Gentlemen Vol. 1 collected edition.

Monica Bellucci was originally cast as Mina Harker, but had to drop out due to schedule conflicts.

There were widespread rumors that Jason Isaacs was to play the part of British Agent Campion Bond. However, in an interview Isaacs revealed he hadn't even read the script and that all reports of him in the role were, in fact, fabricated.

The film's literary characters are Allan Quatermain, introduced in H. Rider Haggard's "King Solomon's Mines" (1885); Mina Harker from Bram Stoker's "Dracula" (1897); Henry Jekyll and Edward Hyde from Robert Louis Stevenson's "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" (1886); Rodney Skinner, who replaced Griffin from H.G. Wells' "The Invisible Man" (1897) (due to rights issues, and the character in the comic was given the name Hawley Griffin as the original novel gave no first name); Captain Nemo from Jules Verne's "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" (1870) and "The Mysterious Island" (1874); Dorian Gray from Oscar Wilde's "The Picture Of Dorian Gray" (1891); Tom Sawyer from Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" (1876); Ishmael from Herman Melville's "Moby Dick" (1851); and Professor James Moriarty from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Final Problem" (1893), one of the Sherlock Holmes stories. The Fantom's mask design alludes to Gaston Leroux's "The Phantom Of The Opera" (1911). British Intelligence chief "M" alludes to "Casino Royale" (1953) by Ian Fleming as does Campion Bond which is revealed in later editions of the comic to be the grandfather or great grandfather of James Bond.

Quatermain, Nemo, Jekyll and Hyde, Dorian Gray, and Professor Moriarty all "died" in their original novels or stories. In the novel "The Invisible Man" Dr. Griffin went quite mad and was eventually killed. Here, Skinner says he got the serum to turn himself invisible from a mad doctor, a very clever way to get around the rights issues. Both the original Invisible Man, Mr. Hyde, and Nemo were far from heroes in their original incarnations. Nemo was a rebel to the crown and Mr. Hyde and the Invisible Man were murderers and rapists.

The character of Campion Bond was supposed to appear (one media report suggested that he would be played by Roger Moore, thereby having two former James Bonds in one movie), but the character was dropped before filming began to be saved for a possible sequel..

The character of Tom Sawyer was added because the studio thought many people in the American market wouldn't care about the movie unless an American character and cast member was in it.

Although Alan Moore uses "Quatermain", and this is often considered the canonical spelling of the character's name, H. Rider Haggard himself occasionally used "Quartermain", and that spelling is used several times throughout the movie (especially obviously on the grave marker).

A portrait seen in the background of one shot appears to be of a previous League, and corresponds to a similar portrait seen in the comic. This previous (1780s?) League consists, then, of: The Reverend Dr. Syn, pirate and highwayman; Sir Percy Blakeney, the Scarlett Pimpernel; Natty Bumppo, aka Hawkeye or the Deerslayer, hero of "Last of the Mohicans"; and Lemuel Gulliver, of "Gulliver's Travels". Two female members appearing in the comic portrait - Lady Blakeney and Fanny Hill - are absent.

All of the characters except Rodney Skinner (the Invisible Man) have fallen into the public domain, which means that anybody can write about them. Apart from the 19th Century characters used in the film, this goes for many Golden Age comic book characters, including those used in the Marvel Comics AVENGERS miniseries from the 1990s.

According to producer Don Murphy in a making-of featurette on the DVD release, pre-production work on this film actually predated the publication of the first issue of the comic book. This may explain why there are noticeable differences between the film and the graphic novel.

LXG takes place in an alternate universe where technology is more advanced in 1899 than it was in real life. Aside from the use of an automobile and other advanced devices, we also see Captain Nemo's crew using sonar and Nemo refers to solar power many years before they were invented.

While the film contains numerous allusions to literary characters and places, the original comics were so thick with them that many web pages were devoted to panel-by-panel breakdowns of annotations.

Captain Nemo, an Indian, is seen performing martial arts throughout the movie. The martial arts discipline of Shin Sun Do is thought to have originated in India.

The movie is set in 1899, as we're reminded again and again, but the dates on the newspapers following the bank break-in don't match with our reality, reinforcing the "alternate universe" feel: the newspapers read "Monday, April 9, 1899", "Tuesday, April 10, 1899", and so on, but April 9 fell on a Sunday in 1899, not Monday.

Stephen Norrington had such a hard time with this film that he announced he would never direct another film again.

This feature is included in the first wave of Blu-Ray releases by Fox. A total of five movies were included in this initial wave. The others being: Fantastic Four, Behind Enemy Lines, Ice Age and Kiss of the Dragon.

Alan Moore, the author of the original graphic novel, was reportedly unhappy with the adaptation of his story, with it being vastly different from his original story.

Tony Curran's agent did not want him to take the role of Skinner. He reasoned that since the character is invisible for most of the film, no one would care about who was playing him. Once the film came out Skinner became a fan favorite.

Thomas Ian Nicholas auditioned for the role of Tom Sawyer.

Nemo's name is actually a Latin word, which means, "nameless".

Sean Connery had a particularly bad working relationship with director Stephen Norrington. This was his last film before he decided to retire from acting.

A sequel was planned but was canceled due to negative critical reception and the film being a grave disappointment at the box office.

James Robinson:  the screenwriter, is seen as Johnathan Harker in the photograph with Mina.

Stuart Townsend stated in an interview that he was the only one of the seven League members whose contract did not bind him to a three-picture deal. He said they were going to ask it of him, but he observed that it would be pointless since his character is killed in the movie, and they agreed to contract him for only one picture.

The second invisible man (whom Sawyer fights) is actually Sanderson Reed, the man who recruited Quatermain.