20 facts you might not know about 'Big Fish'

It’s not a known bit of intellectual property, but Big Fish is indeed based on a novel. Daniel Wallace wrote Big Fish: A Novel of Mythic Proportions, which came out in 1998.

The screenwriter John August got his hands on a manuscript for Wallace’s novel six months before it was released. Having just lost his father, August was in a place to be hit hard by the book. He asked Columbia to acquire the rights before the film came out so he could adapt it into a movie, and the studio agreed to do so.

After August completed his script, the movie had none other than Steven Spielberg attached to the movie. He was going to get his studio, DreamWorks, to co-finance and co-distribute with Columbia. After finishing Minority Report, Big Fish was going to be Spielberg’s next project.

When Spielberg was gearing up to direct Big Fish, he got as far as to think of the actor he wanted to play the older version of Edward Bloom. That would be none other than Jack Nicholson. This process got far enough along that August did a couple drafts with Nicholson in mind for the Edward role.

After finishing Minority Report, Spielberg did not move on to Big Fish. He was producing Catch Me If You Can, and that movie was having trouble finding a director. Eventually, Spielberg decided to direct it himself, which meant dropping out of Big Fish. After this happened, the producers considered replacing him with Stephen Daldry.

August kept working on the screenplay and created what he called a “best of” draft where he took elements from previous drafts to create what he felt was the strongest Big Fish screenplay yet. This was the script they sent to Tim Burton to see if he was interested in directing. Burton was intrigued enough to sign on, calling it the first unique story he had been presented with since Beetlejuice.

When Burton signed on, producer Richard D. Zanuck signed on as well. The two had just worked on Planet of the Apes together, and they had a working relationship going back many years. Zanuck also wanted to be a part of Big Fish because he too connected with the story of a man with a troubled relationship with his father. Richard’s dad is the legendary producer and executive Darryl Zanuck, who, when he was the head of 20th Century Fox, fired his own son from the studio.

Burton had a working relationship with Nicholson, so even when Spielberg dropped out, Burton still considered Nicholson for the movie. In fact, he was going to double the actor’s workload, having him play both the older and younger versions of Edward Bloom with the help of CGI and prosthetics. Eventually, Nicholson moved on, as did Burton. Burton nixed the idea of the same actor in both roles as well, going with Ewan McGregor as young Edward and Albert Finney as older Edward.

Marion Cotillard is known in America now, and was working in France for many years prior to Big Fish. However, this film was her debut in an American movie. Apparently, she slept with the script under her pillow for a month, hoping to get the part to work with Burton.

As was the de facto thing at the time, Burton cast his then-girlfriend Carter in Big Fish. She actually did do multiple roles, including playing The Witch. That role required hours of makeup and prosthetics, and Carter was pregnant at the time. The combination of morning sickness and makeup and prosthetic fumes made for a tough filming experience.

Are you familiar with the “Dueling Banjos” scene from Deliverance? Even if you haven’t seen that movie, you may have at least seen that scene, or are familiar with it. Burton decided to find Billy Redden, the banjo player from that film, who had left acting and was running a restaurant down in Georgia. The director had Redden appear in the film to play a couple notes of “Dueling Banjos” as a movie Easter egg.

Burton gave Wallace a brief role in the movie based on his book. The novelist plays Sandra’s economic teacher in the film.

No, we aren’t talking about David Denman, who would go on to play Roy on The Office. Playing the child Ruthie is none other than Miley Cyrus. This is actually her first film.

Burton wanted a Southern Gothic vibe for Big Fish, and that included shooting down in the American South. The entire movie was filmed in Alabama. In fact, the town of Spectre was built on Jackson Lake Island as well. At one point, flooding delayed production for a few weeks, but Burton still got the movie in on schedule.

Naturally, Danny Elfman did the score for the movie. This was a Burton film, after all. On top of that, Burton wanted a song for the closing credits from Pearl Jam. The band was so moved by the movie that Eddie Vedder went right into writing “Man of the Hour.” They recorded the demo the next day, and four days later, they had recorded and completed the song.

One of Edward’s gigs in life is as a traveling salesman who sells hands with metal tools as fingers. This comes from the book. However, the production made sure not to include any scissors among the tools, as to not remind people of Burton’s Edward Scissorhands, with the fear that it might be distracting.

Norther Winslow’s poem was not written by Steve Buscemi, or anybody in the props department. That handwriting belongs to Burton, who wrote the poem out himself.

Coming off his disastrous Planet of the Apes remake, Burton needed a win. He mostly got one. Critically, the movie has a 75 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes. In theaters, it made $66.8 million domestically and $122.9 million worldwide off of a budget of $70 million.

The Golden Globes gave Big Fish four nominations, including for Best Picture – Musical or Comedy. The BAFTAs gave the movie a whopping seven nominations, including for Best Film. The Academy Awards? They only nominated Big Fish once, for Elfman’s score. It did not win.

The siren song of turning a movie into a musical seems irresistible, given how often it happens. At least the fantastical nature of Big Fish lends itself to Broadway. With two-time Tony winner Norbert Leo Butz playing Edward Bloom, the show hit Broadway in 2013. It was reasonably well-received, but it did not get any Tony nominations.