Ed Wood (film)/Trivia

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Acclaimed Flop: Won two Oscars and was critically loved, but made little over $5 million (on a $18 million budget).
  • Executive Meddling: Tim Burton had to endure a lot of studio pressure to get the film made. Arguably justified by the film's eventual financial failure.
  • Hey, It's That Guy!/Hey, It's That Voice! Twofer: Orson Welles is played by Private Pyle and voiced by Brain.
    • Drusilla is in Hollywood with her real accent but Spike is nowhere to be seen.
  • Playing Against Type: An oddly specific example in Maurice LaMarche, who dubbed over the physical performance of Vincent D'Onofrio as Orson Welles. Throughout his career, LaMarche has lampooned Welles dozens, if not hundreds, of times, but in Ed Wood he plays him entirely straight for the first (and perhaps only) time.
  • Real Life Relative: Averted. Martin Landau stars and his daughter Juliet plays Loretta King but the two never share a scene or have any connection.
  • What Could Have Been: An earlier version of the screenplay featured Wood's ultimately doomed marriage to Norma McCarty, which was depicted as ending the minute she found out he was a cross-dresser. (In reality, McCarty didn't exactly approve of his cross-dressing, but was willing to put up with it for the sake of their relationship. What really killed their marriage was Wood's alcoholism and abusive behavior towards her son from her previous marriage.)

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