Miracle Mile (1988)
Trivia
Jump to:
Director Cameo (1)
The punch line to the unfinished joke the loudmouth at the bar was telling (It's the mailman's last day on the job, he goes to a woman's house and she invites him in, makes love to him, makes him a wonderful breakfast and then gives him 5 dollars) is: Mailman: What was that for? Woman: Well I asked my husband what to do for you on your last day and he said, "Screw him, give him 5 dollars." The breakfast was my idea!
According to a story told by casting director Billy DaMota in the documentary I Don't Know Jack (2002), the role of Fred the Cook was originally offered to Eraserhead (1977) star Jack Nance, who refused the role because he wanted to focus on his day job as a security guard.
It took Steve De Jarnatt eight years to get this movie made.
The name of the burger shop that Julie works at is called "Fat Boy". This is a nod to the two atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Fat Man and Little Boy.
The script was considered for Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983) before Steven Spielberg was brought in on that project. The film would have consisted of only this story (instead of the four segments it eventually became) and would have had a slightly different ending with a Twilight Zone twist. Steve De Jarnatt did not like the change in the ending and the idea was eventually scrapped.
Steve De Jarnatt sent a copy of the script to Carl Sagan.
The real life Johnie's Coffee Shop, actually located on the Miracle Mile neighborhood of Los Angeles, closed as a real restaurant in the late 1990s. However, the building was never demolished and continued to be used for many other films. It was designated a historical landmark on November 27, 2013. It is now rented primarily for film and television productions as well as for pop-up shops and similar temporary functions. The building again gained notoriety in 2016 as a campaign headquarter for US presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.
Wilshire Boulevard was closed for two days for the filming of the climax, and Steve De Jarnatt had to shoot additional pieces for the climax at his own expense after principal shooting on the movie had wrapped.
The original script had Walter Cronkite appearing on television toward the end as himself.
When the main character Harry is recounting his phone conversation to Landa, she asked him to repeat the launch code and then mentions the Rand Corporation and how someone who works there could know something about the launch code. The Rand Corporation was a think tank formed in 1948 to advise the United States government on national security issues. Their most well known contribution being the doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) during the cold war.
Before Miracle Mile was made, its production had been legendary in Hollywood for five years. In 1983, it had been chosen by American Film magazine as one of the ten best unmade screenplays. Steve De Jarnatt wrote it just out of the American Film Institute for Warner Brothers with the hope of directing it as well. The studio wanted to make it on a bigger scale and did not want to entrust the project with a first-time director like De Jarnatt. Miracle Mile spent three years in production limbo until De Jarnatt optioned it himself, buying the script for $25,000. He rewrote it and the studio offered him $400,000 to buy it back. He turned them down. When he shopped it around to other studios, they balked at the mix of romance and nuclear war and the film's downbeat ending. At one point, it nearly became the script for the eventually separate made Twilight Zone: The Movie. Before Anthony Edwards was cast, production nearly began with both Nicolas Cage and Kurt Russell. Of the script, Edwards said, "It scared the hell out of me. It really made me angry too ... I just couldn't believe that somebody had written this." John Daly of Hemdale Films gave De Jarnatt $3.7 million to make the film.
The character of Harlan was named in tribute to acclaimed writer Harlan Ellison.
Joe Turkel's small role as a man on the elevator toward the end was ultimately cut from the film.
At that hour, with virtually no traffic, the drive from Johnie's to LAX would take roughly 20 to 25 minutes, tops.
Peter Berg's film debut, and Berg got his SAG card from playing a small role in this film.
O-Lan Jones worked a shift at a diner as research for her role as a waitress.
Crispin Glover auditioned for the voice of Chip.
Miracle Mile is the twelfth soundtrack album by Tangerine Dream and their thirty-seventh overall. The complete score in film sequence order was released in 2017 representing the score as delivered by Tangerine Dream to the director, essentially as heard in the film's mix with tracks 14 thru 23 containing music effects.
In the original script, Julie had a 10-year-old son named Sam. Julie leaves him on the roof to help find a pilot and he is later revealed to have been airlifted to LAX and put on a plane to South America.
The first American film shot by cinematographer Theo van de Sande.
Star Anthony Edwards once said in an interview: "That was a script that everybody wanted to make, but they wanted [writer/director Steve De Jarnatt] to change the ending. It was this great adventure, but they wanted it to have a happy ending, but he stuck it out, and luckily he stuck it out long enough that I was old enough to play the part. So I got to do it, and we did it at a time when there really was no green screen for special effects. You had to shoot what was there. It's amazing how dated that film looks now, because of our ability to do things technically now. I mean, it really looks antiquated. Mare Winningham is one of the greatest actresses ever. It was eight weeks of night shooting, though, so you'd be driving home from work at, like, 6 in the morning, having had a wrap beer, and then you're suddenly going, 'Oh my God, what do people think of somebody having a beer at 6 in the morning whenever everyone else is on their way to work? [Laughs].'"
Some three decades after making this movie together, after both of them had been divorced from other spouses, Anthony Edwards and Mare Winningham actually started dating in their private lives.
Harry was much older in an earlier draft of the script, and was an alcoholic in another draft of the screenplay.
The Pan Pacific theatre makes it's last appearance on film in this movie. It burned to the ground several months before the movie's release.
There are some loose connections with the Terminator Franchise:
- The first of two movies with Earl Boen which end in nuclear war. The second would be Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003).
- This movie has a character named after Harlan Ellison who is also given a writing credit for The Terminator (1984) after he sued James Cameron for stealing his idea.
- Brian Thompson appears in this film and was one of the punks in the first Terminator movie
- Jenette Goldstein appears in Terminator 2.
- Earl Boen starred in the first three Terminator movies.
The area code for where this was filmed was changed to (323) on June 13, 1998. If that payphone were still there today (it isn't), its telephone number would now be 323-254-9411.
Earl Boen(Drunk Man in Diner) and Brian Thompson(Powerlifter) both appeared in The Terminator(1984).
Anthony Edwards and Mare Winningham would later act together on the small screen years later on ER. They would also end up eloping in 2021.
