20 facts you might not know about 'The Wolf of Wall Street'

Believe it or not, “The Wolf of Wall Street” is based on a true story. Specifically, it’s based on a memoir of the same name by Jordan Belfort, the main character of the film as well. After getting out of prison for assorted instances of fraud and other malfeasance, Belfort wrote his book.

In this instance, crime paid, as there was a bidding war for “The Wolf of Wall Street” after Belfort’s book was published. In the end, Leonardo DiCaprio joined forces with Warner Bros. in 2007 to win the bidding war with a $1 million payout. At this point, Scorsese would get involved, but it was a tumultuous ride.

Scorsese was doing some work on the screenplay, and DiCaprio wanted him to direct the movie. However, Warner Bros. wouldn’t give them the green light. Fed up, Scorsese left the project to work on another film, “Shutter Island.” That one would also star DiCaprio, funnily enough. Ridley Scott was then in talks to direct, but eventually, Warner Bros. abandoned the project altogether, leaving the rights open again.

With Warner Bros. off the project, the independent production company Red Granite Pictures bought the rights and offered carte blanche from a content perspective. They were a brand new company at the time, as they got the rights in 2012, the same year Red Granite released their first film, “Friends with Kids.” However, Red Granite has been mired in controversy since the heyday of “The Wolf of Wall Street.” It was alleged that company co-founder Riza Aziz had illegally siphoned money from the 1Malaysia Development Berhad. The United States Department of Justice brought a civil lawsuit against Red Granite, who paid $60 million to settle. They have not produced a movie since.

The film is perhaps not as graphic as Belfort’s memoir, but to hear Belfort tell it things could have been even crazier. He claims that his publisher Random House asked him to tone his book down before they would publish it. Of course, this is also a guy who says he was on 22 different drugs at one point and who, you know, went to prison for fraud. Take what he says with a grain of salt.

When writing his memoir, Belfort used real names. For the film, though, some of the names were changed. This allowed Scorsese some artistic license, plus unsurprisingly some people did not want their names affiliated with the story. Particularly, Jonah Hill’s character Donnie Azoff is not specifically a real person, though he is reportedly based on Danny Porush, who threatened to sue if his name was used. Weirdly, Hill also played a fake version of a real person in “Moneyball.”

By the time he was filming “The Wolf of Wall Street,” Hill was already a star. He was not paid like one for the movie, though. In spite of being ostensibly the second lead, Hill got only $60,000 for the movie. This was the minimum he could be paid per SAG-AFTRA. DiCaprio, meanwhile, got $10 million.

“The Wolf of Wall Street” is a hard R movie if there ever was one. And yet, it almost featured one of the seemingly sweetest actors out there. Julie Andrews was offered the role of Aunt Emma, but she was recovering from an ankle injury. Instead, Joanna Lumley took the role.

Robbie is a big star now, but back in 2013, this was not the case. Prior to 2013, she was best known for her role in the Australian soap opera “Neighbours.” A couple of months before “The Wolf of Wall Street” came out she technically made her American film debut in “About Time,” but her turn as Naomi was definitely her breakout performance to many.

Belfort and his friends consume a lot of drūgs, especially cocāine. They were Wall Street guys, after all. In place, the production used Vitamin D powder for snorting scenes. Not that it was without health risks. Hill got bronchitis from all the Vitamin D snorting. At least he didn’t have to worry about rickets.

“The Wolf of Wall Street” has sex and drugs, naturally, but it also has a ton of swearing. In fact, it set a new Guinness World Record for the most swearing in a movie. They used the f-word 569 times alone, which averages out to 2.81 times per minute. The record now belongs to the Canadian film “Swearnet: The Movie.”

As a truly raunchy film about amoral people, the success of “The Wolf of Wall Street” was not a given. However, it kind of needed to be, given that it cost $100 million to make. Fortunately, the combo of Scorsese and DiCaprio worked again. The film made $392 million worldwide. In fact, it’s Scorsese’s highest-grossing movie ever.

When the Academy Awards rolled around, “The Wolf of Wall Street” was not overlooked. It got five nominations, including some of the big ones. Scorsese was up for Best Director, DiCaprio was nominated for Best Actor, Hill got a look for Best Supporting Actor, and the movie was also up for Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay. However, it went home with zero wins.

McConaughey is barely in the film, but he makes quite an impact. In fact, the scene where he pounds his chest and hums featured prominently in the promotion of the film. This wasn’t in the script. In fact, it was an actual thing McConaughey did to warm himself up when acting. DiCaprio and Scorsese decided to work it into the movie.

Scorsese is an extremely successful director, but he’s not the only one associated with the movie. There are a few noteworthy directors with acting roles in “The Wolf of Wall Street.” Marvel bigwig Jon Favreau has a role, and Rob Reiner played Jordan’s dad. Meanwhile, Spike Jonze has an uncredited role early in the movie as well.

Steve Madden is one of the few notable names not changed for the movie, and he’s played by Jake Hoffman. If you recognize that last name, you are on the right track. Hoffman is indeed the son of Dustin Hoffman. He also has a role in another Scorsese film, “The Irishman.”

During the section of the movie where Belfort is out of his mind on Quaaludes, Scorsese and DiCaprio did some improvising. One of the things they improvised was Jordan opening his car door with his foot. However, DiCaprio hurt his back during that, so they could only film that stunt once.

Terence Winter is the credited screenwriter on the movie. That makes sense, and he and Scorsese have a working history, as Winter created “Boardwalk Empire.” Prior to getting into writing, though, Winter worked as a lawyer in New York for a couple of years. In fact, he even worked as a legal assistant at Merrill Lynch in their trading department. That likely helped him in the writing of “Wolf of Wall Street.”

Hill was dedicated to his craft and wanted to actually eat a real goldfish in the movie. However, animal cruelty laws on films prohibited him from doing that. Instead, Hill was only allowed to keep the goldfish in his mouth for three seconds under the watchful eyes of animal handlers.

At the end of the movie, Belfort is out of prison and working as a motivational speaker. This was true for the real Belfort as well. Speaking of the actual man, he appears in that final scene as the man who introduces his cinematic doppelganger. This is, obviously, controversial. It’s one thing to buy a guy’s life story and make a movie about him that largely condemns his lifestyle choices. It’s another to actually have him in the film as well.