Iconic Movies Inspired From Surprising Things:
Did you know that J.K. Rowling named Harry Potter after one of her neighbors? Even fictional stories can be linked to something in real life. Even the most creative directors extract some parts of their imaginations from their surroundings. Today, we aren’t talking about conventional Hollywood movies that are adapted from books or true events. Sometimes all we need is a trigger from the most unexpected things. It can be personal life experience or a myth or a legend that becomes our muse. As in the case of J.K. Rowling, her neighbors were not wizards but their surname Potter intrigued Rowling so much that she used it as her book title. Today, ‘POTTER’ has become a phenomenon. There are more such crazy and random things that resulted in a legendary story. Find out the 10 iconic Hollywood movies that were inspired by surprising things.
1. Baby Driver
The video of ‘Blue Song’ by Mint Royale was directed by Edgar Wright who also helmed Baby Driver. The song video featured as a getaway driver who was helping his friends in a heist by waiting for them in a car. This concept intrigued him and he explored it further.
2. Robocop
Screenwriter Ed Neumeier’s life had completely changed after Robocop. But he visualized its idea on the sets of Blade Runner when he was new in the industry and his task was to stick wet newspapers on the wall. It was three in the night when he saw a blue car on the set and imagined it to be a robot. His imagination soon elevated to a Robocop and that’s when he thought about a cop who became a robot.
3. The Shape of Water
Don’t like a story you read in your childhood? Just change according to your will once you grow up. Guillermo del Toro’s Oscar winner ‘The Shape of Water’ was inspired from his childhood story Creature From the Black Lagoon whose ending didn’t satisfy him. So, the 6-year old Toro decided to rewrite the story and give it the ending it deserved.
4. Face/Off
One of the writers of Face/Off had a friend who suffered an accident causing the doctors to literally take his face off. They had to perform surgery on his facial tissues. The cowriter infused this incident in the story where two nemeses become each other after plastic surgery.
5. Predator
The theme of Predator was born from jokes made on Rocky. Rocky IV had led to a popular joke where fans insisted Rocky fight aliens next. Screenwriters Jim and John Thomas found the idea pretty interesting and immediately started to work on the classic hit Predator.
6. Avatar: The Last Airbender
The exceptional series that scores 100% on Rotten Tomatoes was inspired by a documentary about the Antarctic. Michael Dante was binging on the experiences of an explorer Ernest Shackleton, accompanied by a group of people in Antarctica who endured many hardships. He took some elements from this documentary and started building on this idea with Bryan Joseph who suggested the character of the young boy Aang.
7. A Nightmare On Elm Street
One of the most classic horror movies was apparently inspired from real-life incidents. Director Wes Craven had come across some inexplicable news about men in South Asia dying in their sleep with a scream after days of nightmares.
8. Ghostbusters
It was actor Dan Aykroyd who came up with the idea of Ghostbusters after reading some articles about parapsychology. Parapsychology is the study of psychic experiences, telekinesis, telepathy, etc. He used this phenomenon to visualize a story of scientists fighting ghosts.
9. Lost In Translation
Lost in Translation is an extraordinary movie directed by Sophie Coppola. She used many observations from her surroundings in the movie. In fact, one of the characters, Charlie was based on her real-life friend. She was inspired to put him in the movie after watching him sing at a karaoke bar.
10. Groundhog Day
Screenwriter Danny Rubin found himself lost in thoughts after reading Anne Rice’s The Vampire Lestat. He couldn’t stop but wonder how someone would lead a life if they never died. It was added by the project Time Machine where a man had to repeat the same day again and again. This led to the birth of the plot for Groundhog Day.
