Sin City (2005)
Trivia
Because of the way the movie was shot, Mickey Rourke (Marv) and Elijah Wood (Kevin) never met until after this movie was released.
The swords used by Miho (Devon Aoki) in this movie are the same ones used by some of the Crazy 88 in Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003). That movie's director, Quentin Tarantino, had been keeping them in the back of his garage.
Robert Rodriguez has said that he does not consider this movie to be an adaptation so much as a translation. This is why there is no screenwriting in the credits. The only mention of writing is Frank Miller as the creator of the graphic novels.
Originally, Robert Rodriguez didn't plan for Benicio Del Toro to wear make-up, but Del Toro insisted on it. Tarantino later commended the make-up being so good that "people actually forget that's not what Benicio looks like."
The scene in which Marv climbs out of the manhole and staggers up against a wall was acted out in reverse, then shown forwards to give an otherworldly appearance to Marv.
Despite appearing in all three of the major stories, Brittany Murphy filmed all of her scenes in one day.
Guest director Quentin Tarantino directed the scene involving Dwight (Clive Owen) and Jackie Boy (Benicio Del Toro) in the front of the car, before Dwight is pulled over by a police officer.
According to an interview with "Latino Review", Michael Madsen landed the role of Bob by approaching Robert Rodriguez at the "Kill Bill" wrap party and simply asked why he hadn't been cast in this movie. Rodriguez obliged, giving Madsen the only part that hadn't been cast yet: Bob.
Robert Rodriguez scored Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004) for one dollar. Quentin Tarantino said he would repay him by directing a segment of this movie for one dollar. Tarantino, a vocal proponent of film-over-digital, has said that he was curious to get hands-on experience with the high definition cameras which Rodriguez lauds. When asked about his experience, Tarantino merely replied, "Mission Accomplished".
While the three stories in this movie were based on "The Hard Goodbye", "The Big Fat Kill", and "That Yellow Bastard", as well as the short "The Customer is Always Right", there is a very brief scene taken from the story "A Dame to Kill For", in which Dwight (Clive Owen) thinks in a voice-over in Kadie's Bar how Marv "would have been okay if he'd been born a couple of centuries earlier."
According to Robert Rodriguez's commentary, the scourging sequence between Yellow Bastard and Nancy was originally shot faithful to the comic book: considerably longer and more graphic than what appears in the final cut or the extended edition. Rodriguez stated that the torture segment was crossing the bounds of bad taste, even for Sin City.
"The Customer is Always Right" sequence at the beginning of this movie was actually filmed before Frank Miller had completely agreed to let Robert Rodriguez make the movie. Josh Hartnett and Marley Shelton came in and filmed their scenes in one day in front of a greenscreen in order to show Miller that it could be done in a way that complemented the graphic novels.
This movie, and many of its effects and scoring, were all done in Robert Rodriguez's studio, which is immediately across the street from his house, because he refuses to work anywhere else, and shuns other Hollywood traditions. It took his friendship with Miramax Films honchos Bob Weinstein and Harvey Weinstein to make the production of this movie possible, as no other studios would take a chance on either Rodriguez's methods or such a bizarre movie.
The strategy used by Dwight to reclaim Old Town by luring the gangsters into a narrow alleyway is based on the strategy used by Spartan King Leonidas to trap the Persian army in the Battle of Thermopylae. 300 (2006) was based on a book by Frank Miller about this battle. In addition, the line spoken in Dwight's internal monologue, "No escape, no surrender, no mercy", was spoken by the narrator in 300 (2006).
On a night between filming days, Robert Rodriguez put on a rock concert at a local nightclub. His band was the opening act, and the headliner was Bruce Willis and his band, The Accelerators. The concert was attended by this movie's cast and crew, as well as the cast and crew of A Scanner Darkly (2006), which was filming nearby at the same time. All profits from the show were donated to charity.
The signature white blood proved hard to achieve on-screen. Regular movie blood couldn't provide the stark look. The crew had to use fluorescent red liquid and bathe it in black light. In post-production, the liquid was turned white.
The shape of Elijah Wood's chin was changed subtly in post-production to give him a more unsettling appearance.
Jessica Alba went to strip clubs as a part of her research for her character. However, she said that it didn't help because all of the professional strippers were doing "is trying to get tips."
DIRECTOR TRADEMARK (Robert Rodriguez): (Chango Beer): When Hartigan (Bruce Willis) comes into Kadie's Bar, Shellie (Brittany Murphy) is carrying a bottle of "Chango Beer". This is the same fictional brand used in other Robert Rodriguez movies, including Desperado (1995) and From Dusk Till Dawn (1996).
Although the majority of the movie was shot against greenscreen, there were four practical sets created: - Kadie's bar - Shellie's apartment - Hartigan's prison cell, and the hospital in the epilogue.
Robert Rodriguez originally envisioned Johnny Depp in the role of Jackie Boy. Due to prior commitments, Depp could not play the part. While at the Academy Awards, Rodriguez saw Benicio Del Toro with long hair ("Wolfman" hair, as he describes it). Coincidentally,, Del Toro played the title character of The Wolfman (2010) and said that he "was looking at Jackie Boy." He told Del Toro not to cut his hair and mailed him the comic book and a copy of the short, "The Customer is Always Right". Del Toro immediately signed on.
When Marv (Mickey Rourke) visits Lucille's (Carla Gugino's) apartment for his medicine, he says, "this isn't some creep with a gas can trying to torch some wino!" This is a reference to the Sin City story "Just Another Saturday Night", in which Marv wreaks havoc on a group of preppy kids who were burning winos alive.
Leonardo DiCaprio was originally up for the role of Roark, Jr., but eventually declined the role, which went to Nick Stahl.
An obscene pun can be seen on the matchbook found by Hartigan: "Liquor in the front, poker in the rear".
Robert Rodriguez originally asked Hans Zimmer to score the music, but Zimmer couldn't accept it, as he was in England at the time preparing Batman Begins (2005). Zimmer recommended two of his friends, John Debney and Graeme Revell.
Robert Rodriguez, who credits Frank Miller's visual style in the comic as being as relevant as his own in this movie, insisted that Miller receive a "co-director" credit with him. The Directors' Guild of America would not allow it. As a result, Rodriguez resigned from the DGA, saying, "It was easier for me to quietly resign before shooting because otherwise I'd be forced to make compromises I was unwilling to make or set a precedent that might hurt the guild later on." Unfortunately, by resigning from the DGA, Rodriguez was also forced to relinquish his director's seat on John Carter (2012) (at the time "A Princess of Mars" after the book on which it was based) for Paramount Pictures. Rodriguez had already signed on and been announced as director of that movie when the DGA situation took place, and had been planning to begin shooting soon after wrapping this movie.
Directors Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller planned each shot in the movie by using the panels from the original book as a storyboard.
At one point, Hartigan resists Nancy's advances saying, "I'm old enough to be your grandfather." While Hartigan (age sixty-eight) is old enough to be the grandfather of Nancy (age nineteen), in real life, Bruce Willis and Jessica Alba are only twenty-six years apart in age.
Although several of the actors already looked similar to their characters, some of them underwent make-up and prosthetics to more strongly resemble their Frank Miller-drawn likenesses, including Bruce Willis, Mickey Rourke, Benicio Del Toro, and Nick Stahl.
Based on the graphic novels "The Hard Goodbye", "The Big Fat Kill", and "That Yellow Bastard", by Frank Miller. The opening footage with Josh Hartnett and Marley Shelton was from the Sin City short story "The Customer is Always Right" from the "Babe Wore Red" collection. However, the epilogue featuring Hartnett and Alexis Bledel was an original scene written specifically for this movie.
Rosario Dawson, Mickey Rourke, Bruce Willis, Jessica Alba, Jaime King, and Powers Boothe are the only cast members who returned for Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (2014).
Originally, this movie was going to include the story featured in the "Sin City" maxi-series "Hell And Back", with Johnny Depp in the lead role as Wallace. This was scrapped before production began, but will most likely be filmed for a sequel, as Robert Rodriguez plans to film all of Frank Miller's stories at some point. However, the box-office failure of Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (2014) put those plans on indefinite hold.
Counting only blows to the head or face, Marv (Mickey Rourke) is struck twenty-one times throughout the course of this movie.
As each sequence of this movie was shot separately, new cast members were added and incorporated in the stories throughout production. In many cases, separate footage was composited in post-production to look as if it were all shot the same day. For example: Marv (Mickey Rourke) takes Wendy (Jaime King) to Nancy's (Jessica Alba's) house. Alba had not been cast yet when Rourke and King shot the scene; her footage was added in later. The same is true of the scenes between Marv, Cardinal Roark (Rutger Hauer), and Kevin (Elijah Wood), as Hauer and Wood were cast after Rourke had shot his scenes.
Nancy (Jessica Alba) and Wendy (Jaime King) drive cars with the license plates "LEV 311". Frank Miller often puts this in his various stories for the "favorite girl" character in that story. The number is a nod to his wife and frequent collaborator Lynn Varley, whose birthday is March 11.
Christopher Walken, Willem Dafoe, Steve Buscemi, and Michael Douglas were originally offered roles. Douglas was offered the role of Hartigan, Buscemi was offered the part of Roark, Jr. when he became the Yellow Bastard, and Dafoe and Walken were offered the role of Senator Roark.
The cool detective to whom Nancy Callahan refers when she says she would sign her letters as "Cordelia" is Cordelia Gray from the novels of P.D. James. Clive Owen (Dwight) starred in the P.D. James-written movie Children of Men (2006).
One of the hookers in Old Town is dressed like Wonder Woman. She is seen from the back, wearing a set of star-spangled hot pants and with a golden lasso at her side. She also appeared in the original comic, in a nearly identical shot (when Marv is asking about Goldie, just before Wendy takes him down).
With the exception of "The Customer is Always Right", at some point during each segment, the narrator says the name of the story as part of the dialogue.
In the graphic novel, Yellow Bastard's (Nick Stahl's) car is an Atlantic '57C Bugatti. However, it was changed to a 1936 Cadillac limousine for this movie because it would've cost over $230,000 to use the Bugatti for four shooting days. Also, the Yellow Bastard's license plate is "TYB 069".The first half are the initials for the story "That Yellow Bastard".
In the Sin City comic book, Marv is a seven foot giant, while Cardinal Roark is a dwarf. In this movie, Marv (Mickey Rourke) is two inches shorter, at 5'11" than Cardinal Roark (Rutger Hauer) at 6'1".
The opening credits were made with some of Robert Rodriguez's choices for the characters before any were cast.
This was one of several movies around the world to be shot on a completely "digital backlot" (with all of the acting shot in front of a greenscreen and the backgrounds added during post-production). While the other movies (Immortal (2004), Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004), and Casshern (2004) - two of which were shot on film) were shot first. This movie's use of high definition digital cameras (like Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004)) in addition to the "backlot" method makes this movie one of the world's first "fully-digital" live-action movies.
Although the action happens in the fictional Basin City, a replica of New York City's Chrysler Building can be seen in the background when Marv is running by the rooftops.
Altough Bruce Willis is left-handed, he played his character as right-handed, so the shots from the movie look even closer to the comic books, where Hartigan is right-handed.
The text of the newspaper shown during "The Hard Goodbye" has a written transcript of the opening scene and "The Hard Goodbye". The author of the article is F. Miller, who is Frank Miller. The date on the paper appears to be either 1993 or 1999, indicating that's when the story takes place.
When Jackie Boy (Benicio Del Toro) and his "troops" enter Shellie's (Brittany Murphy's) apartment, one of them is wearing a t-shirt with a peace sign embedded with a star and flag (the symbol also appears as one of Becky's (Alexis Bledel's) earrings). This is the symbol of "P.A.X.", the paramilitary peace force from Frank Miller's Martha Washington series of graphic novels, beginning with "Give Me Liberty".
Footage had been so coveted by fans before its release that when a 27-second behind-the-scenes clip appeared on Entertainment Tonight (1981) (on May 19, 2004), it was quickly (though not officially by the show) placed on the Internet and downloaded over one million times. The raw footage featured only quick shots of Bruce Willis and a scantily-clad Jessica Alba performing in front of greenscreen.
The cover of the Sin City book "Booze, Broads, and Bullets", can be seen periodically throughout this movie. Its most notable appearance is on the cover of the matchbook that Hartigan picks up to locate Nancy; it is also seen in the background of the strip club in the next scene as Hartigan first enters (to the right as a poster).
One of the guns used by Hartigan is a Beretta M93R, a gun modified and then used in the RoboCop film franchise. Frank Miller co-wrote the screenplays for RoboCop 2 (1990) and RoboCop 3 (1993).
Adrien Brody auditioned for the role of Jackie Boy.
Michael Madsen was briefly considered for the role of Marv before Mickey Rourke was cast. He was eventually cast as Bob.
Uma Thurman, Sarah Jessica Parker, Ashley Judd, Carrie-Anne Moss and Naomi Watts were considered to play Lucille before Carla Gugino was cast.
During an interview, Jessica Alba spoke candidly about having always been adamant about her stance against getting naked on-screen. When she arrived on the set of this movie, Alba wasn't too happy to find out she'd be playing a stripper. She is notorious for her "no nudity" clause in her contracts. And her reasoning is pretty point-blank: "I don't want my grandparents to see my boobs. That's it. It would be weird at Christmas. And, I mean, really, if you look at the movies I have done, getting naked would never 'elevate' the picture." And as for her role as Nancy, she managed to get by performing as a stripper without ever taking her clothes off. It did irritate a lot of her fans who thought they'd finally get to see her naked on-screen.
Director Robert Rodriguez added the music Jessica Alba danced to later; during shooting, she was listening to different music.
Anthony Michael Hall was considered for the role of Dwight.
Jessica Simpson auditioned for the role of Nancy Callahan.
Kate Bosworth was the first choice for the role of Gail.
The cast includes one Oscar winner: Benicio Del Toro; and three Oscar nominees: Michael Clarke Duncan, Clive Owen, and Mickey Rourke.
When Hartigan (Bruce Willis) storms Yellow Bastard's farm towards the end of this movie, he is shot in the arm by one of the police officers guarding the farm. When the officers get to his body, they say to pulverize him and not take any chances, but Hartigan rolls over and kills them both first, commenting "good advice". This is similar to a scene from Die Hard (1988), which starred Willis, in which John McClane is trapped under a table by a henchman shooting towards him and the henchman telling him not to allow anyone to live the next time he encounters a henchman, to which Willis kills the henchman while lying under the table and commenting "thanks for the advice."
Marley Shelton appeared in Pleasantville (1998), which, much like this movie, employed the visual technique of showing everything in black-and-white with only the occasional person, object, or scene shown in color.
In one scene, Gail (Rosario Dawson) refers to Dwight (Clive Owen) as "Lancelot", a knight of the round table of King Arthur. Owen played the lead role in King Arthur (2004).
Bruce Willis and Michael Clarke Duncan appeared in Armageddon (1998), Breakfast of Champions (1999), and The Whole Nine Yards (2000). Willis and Elijah Wood appeared in North (1994). Willis and Josh Hartnett appeared in Lucky Number Sleven (2006).
The setting of the film is the fictional Basin City, a fictional city in the Western United States. In the comics, it has a hot and arid climate.
Matt Dillon was considered for the role of Hartigan.
Even though their characters never met, this is the first movie that featured Brittany Murphy and Elijah Wood together. The second was Happy Feet (2006), in which they portrayed a couple.
Benicio Del Toro and Josh Hartnett have both portrayed werewolves. Del Toro in The Wolfman (2010), and Hartnett in Penny Dreadful (2014).
Devon Aoki (Miho) and Jessica Alba (Nancy) appeared with Paul Walker in different movies: 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003) and Into the Blue (2005), respectively.
The song that was featured in Carla Gugino's earlier movie, Snake Eyes (1998) was "Sin City" by Meredith Brooks.
Mickey Rourke and Alexis Bledel share a birthday (September 16).
Rosario Dawson and Nick Stahl were previously directed by Larry Clark in Kids (1995) and Bully (2001), respectively.
Due to scheduling conflicts, Rutger Hauer and Mickey Rourke did not play in their shared scene in-person. Rourke filmed his part of the scene eight months before Hauer filmed his own part, performing his lines to Rourke's recorded voice.
According to Rutger Hauer, the entire set in his scene was a green screen with the only physical items within being the bed, the bedside table, and the book Hauer was reading at the time.
Cameo
Frank Miller: The co-director and creator of the original comic series has a cameo as a priest.
Spoilers
It was Benicio Del Toro's idea to have Jackie Boy pry the gun out of his cut-off hand using his teeth.
The shot where Hartigan shoots himself in the head at the end is very unlike the way Frank Miller originally made it. It is, however, almost an exact copy of a suicide scene at the end of A Dame to Kill For, part two of the Sin City graphic novels.
The scene that Quentin Tarantino directed is the drive to the pits scene in which Dwight (Clive Owen) talks with a very dead Jackie Boy (Benicio Del Toro). When Tarantino insisted on a real car being built for the shooting, Robert Rodriguez told him that it would be easier without one. After shooting a few takes with the real car, Tarantino realized his friend was right. Tarantino also came up with the idea of Jackie Boy's slit throat affecting his speech and Dwight speaking his internal monologue rather than dubbing it in later.
Body count: 41 (Extended Edition included). This does not include deaths which occurred off-screen, but resulted in on-screen corpses.
Rutger Hauer's head is crushed at the end of the Marv story, much like he crushed his creator's head with his hands at the end of Blade Runner (1982). Incidentally, in Blade Runner (1982), he called his victim, Dr. Tyrell, "father" before crushing his head. In this movie, he is a "father" (a Priest).
