Big Wednesday (1978)
Trivia
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Spoilers (1)
Jeff Bridges turned down the role of Matt.
The character of Matt Johnson is based on real-life surfer Lance Carson, who struggled with alcoholism throughout the 1960s and 1970s.
Matt (Jan-Michael Vincent) and Peggy's (Lee Purcell) daughter was played by Vincent's real-life daughter, Amber.
The role of the "Enforcer" was loosely based on longtime Malibu icon and waterman Ray Kunze, who looked out for Screenwriters John Milius and Dennis Aaberg in the late 1950s.
This is the final theatrical film of Barbara Hale.
Tom Berenger auditioned for the part of Jack Barlow.
The character of Jack Barlow was loosely based on surfer Kemp Aaberg. Moreover, Kemp's younger brother Dennis Aaberg co-wrote the script for this film.
Australian champion surfers Peter Townend and Ian Cairns doubled for William Katt and Gary Busey in the surfing sequences.
Gary Busey would later star alongside Keanu Reeves, in another surfing movie, Point Break (1991), but his character never surfed.
Barbara Hale, who portrays William Katt's character's mother in this film, is his mother in real life.
The 'Bear' brand depicted in the film was a real company, in part established by director John Milius, and is still trading as of 2020.
Director John Milius wrote the screenplay for Apocalypse Now (1979), which includes a depiction of a surfer named Lance Johnson.
Jan-Michael Vincent and Robert Englund appeared in Police Story (1973) and Buster and Billie (1974).
Initially, the Bear brand surfboards were just intended to be props for this film. With the worldwide release of the picture, it generated demand for actual boards with the Bear logo. This morphed their manufacture into a real company that is still in business in 2020.
Warner Bros. initially budgeted $5,000,000 for this film, but production costs went way over that figure, finally costing the studio $11,000,000. Anthea Sylbert, an executive at Warner Bros. at the time, in an interview in the 30 August 1981 edition of the Boston Globe newspaper, said the film was "...a classic example of an egomaniacal man going over budget and not listening to anyone."
This film was a huge flop for Warner Bros. at the box office, bringing in significantly less than half its negative cost.
The trio's car with the surfboard rack on top is a 1952 Chrysler Saratoga Town and Country. Less than 1,300 were made, so in 2020 this would be a valuable, collectible automobile.
George Lucas and Steven Spielberg thought this film would be the American Graffiti (1973) of surfing films - that it was destined to be such a hit that they famously traded profit points on their next two films, Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) and Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) with director John Milius. This trade would earn Milius millions of dollars while his own film would flop at the box office.
The yellow and white Fire-Rescue helicopter seen in the finale of the film is a 1967 Bell 47G, registration N4737R. It was re-certified as airworthy in 2010, but it's registration was canceled in 2016.
Tommy Lee Jones and Robert Duvall auditioned for the part of Bear, that went to Sam Melville according to screenwriter Dennis Aaberg.
The second unit's trip to El Salvador to film big wave surfing turned into a disaster. The waves didn't appear for the most part, the whole crew came down with dysentery, cameras were stolen and the military harassed the production. Half a million dollars was spent on the trip that yielded just four minutes of usable footage. It was after this the second unit was sent to the north shore of Oahu, Hawaii for the big wave shots.
Spoilers
Bill Hamilton, father of surfer Laird Hamilton, doubled for Jan-Michael Vincent's character, as well as the scene in which lifeguards abandon their small boat in the pit of a gigantic oncoming wave. Afterward, Hamilton began shaping under the Bear label depicted in the movie. The success was fleeting, as John Milius sued for patent rights, leaving Hamilton back where he started.
