20 facts you might not know about 'The Hunt for Red October'

The Hunt for Red October is an adaptation of a Tom Clancy novel by the same name. It is the first of many entertainment entities focused on the character of Jack Ryan. However, the CIA analyst character was actually making his debut in the 1984 novel as well, as that was the first published novel for Clancy, who went on to have quite a prolific career.

Producer Marc Neufield got the movie rights to Clancy’s novel and began to pitch it around Hollywood. However, although the book had proved successful, he had trouble gaining traction. In short, studios were finding the story too complicated. It took a year and a half until an executive at Paramount read the novel and thus understood the film.

After selling the script to Paramount, Neufield then began working on the Navy. He hoped to get them on board with the film. A few folks in the Navy were intrigued, thinking the movie could do for submarines what Top Gun did for fighter jets. After suggesting a few changes to put the U.S. Navy in a more positive light, the production got access to a few real naval submarines to use for set and prop design. Some cast members got to go on a real submarine as well.

Initially, the producers wanted Kevin Costner to play Ryan. Costner had other plans. He turned them down to make Dances with Wolves, which would win Best Picture and make an indelible mark for Costner in his career. That decision worked out for him.

Alec Baldwin would play Ryan, but he was not next in line after Costner. Instead, they went to Harrison Ford. Ford turned them down, but he would eventually have a change of heart. The actor took over as Ryan for future films starring the character.

At first, the Soviet sub commander Marko Ramius was played by Austrian actor Klaus Maria Brandauer. However, a couple of weeks into production, another commitment came up, and Brandauer dropped out of the movie. Suddenly, a new actor was needed for one of the film’s starring roles.

Connery would end up stepping into the role of Ramius, but a miscommunication initially stood in the way. The actor turned the movie down because he didn’t understand why the Soviet Union was being treated like an emerging naval power in the movie. It turned out he was missing the script's first page, which set the story in 1984.

The Hunt for Red October is credited to Larry Ferguson and Donald E. Stewart. They weren’t the only writers on the film, though. John Milius, who had worked on war films like Apocalypse Now and Red Dawn, was brought in to write some speeches for Connery and some scenes for the Russian characters.

John McTiernan was on quite the run in the late ‘80s and the 1990s. He had broken through with Predator in 1987, then in 1988, he directed perhaps the seminal action film of the ‘80s in Die Hard.

Russian characters play a key role in The Hunt for Red October, a Cold War story of the U.S. and Soviet Union. So would the Russian characters speak in Russian? Would they speak in English with Russian accents? They decided to go with an unusual middle ground. At first, the Russian characters speak Russian with English subtitles. Then, Peter Firth’s character says the word “Armageddon,” which is the same in both languages. At that point, he switches to speaking English, and the Russian characters, by and large, speak English from there on out.

A few actors in this military thriller could have turned to their personal pasts for the film. Connery had been in the Royal Navy, Scott Glenn was in the Marine Corps, and James Earl Jones served in the U.S. Army. Baldwin hadn’t served in the military, but he was trained on how to drive a submarine for the film.

The movie was mostly shot on sound stages on the Paramount lot since you can’t shoot a real movie on a submarine. That doesn’t mean actual subs weren’t involved. The USS Houston and its crew spent a month working on the film. They surfaced more than 40 times during shooting, either in rehearsals or for the camera.

What do you do when you can’t shoot on a submarine? They built moving sets roughly 45 feet above the floor on hydraulic gimbals that could be used to replicate the movements of a sub. These sets could tilt up to 45 degrees. 

When Connery showed up to shoot, he was wearing a hairpiece that had a ponytail element. Connery was a fan and wanted to wear it for the movie, but he was pretty much the only one. McTiernan hated it, and Connery started to get mocked on set. He agreed to nix the ponytail and go with the hairpiece you see in the movie. McTiernan jokingly called it a “$20,000 hairpiece,” not because of the actual cost of the piece but because the change led to reshoots.

How do you keep track of the action when the bulk of a movie is set on not one but three submarines? They decided to go a classic route: color coding. The Red October is naturally tinted red. The V.K. Konovalov gets green highlights, while the USS Dallas is blue.

The Hunt for Red October is a Cold War film — one of the first films released after the end of the Cold War. Just before the movie hit theaters, the Communist Party was ousted from Soviet Parliament, one of the last events of the Cold War. This led to a crawl being added to the beginning of the film that explained the action was set in 1984, making this one of the first throwback Cold War movies.

Apparently, people weren’t against the idea of a Cold War movie when The Hunt for Red October was released. It topped the domestic box office for three weeks upon its release. Off of a budget of $30 million, it made $122 million domestically and $200.5 million worldwide.

The technical aspects of the movie were well appreciated by folks, including the Academy. The Hunt for Red October was nominated for Best Film Editing, Best Sound, and Best Sound Effects Editing. It won for the latter.

There have been five movies centered on Clancy’s Jack Ryan character. The Hunt for Red October is the only one that starred Baldwin. Ford took over for Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger. Ben Affleck would star in The Sum of All Fears. Later, Chris Pine would get a shot in Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit. Funnily enough, Costner pops up in that movie.

The Hunt for Red October is, by and large, a standalone movie, though it ties into the Jack Ryan Universe. Jones's character of Vice Admiral James Greer appears in both of the Ford films, and the actor also reprises the role. He is the only actor from this film to appear in any other Ryan movie.