While cleaning out an old email account to cancel it out, I found this email that was sent to me from a friend and thought I'd share. When it came out, the movie was kind of a quiet fad and seemed like it went away fast...
The name "Napoleon Dynamite" is a pseudonym used by
Elvis Costello for his 1986 album, "Blood and
Chocolate". Executive producer Jeremy Coon has stated
that the similarity is a coincidence and that the
producers were unaware of Costello's usage of the name
until the film was in production.
Every dish shown during the opening credits is eaten
by a character later in the movie. The dishes
presented in the opening credits were the work of the
three people who present them.
Due to the film's surprise success at festivals and at
the major city box offices, Fox Searchlight is going
to re-release the film with nationwide distribution
and add a 5 minute epilogue at the end of the film.
This epilogue, which was filmed after the initial
theatrical run, apparently features a surprise
"wedding scene". And cost about half of what the
entire feature cost to make.
Jon Gries (Uncle Rico) was asked to do many scenes in
which he was eating steak. Gries, who is a vegetarian,
would chew the steak and later spit it out. In fact,
there is one scene, in which you can see Gries
spitting the chewed meat into his hand.
In the second cafeteria scene, when Napolean and Pedro
discuss prospective dance dates, Napolean is wearing a
Ricks College t-shirt. Ricks College was a junior
college in Idaho that maintained close association
with Brigham Young University up until 2000, when
Ricks was formally named an official satellite of BYU,
henceforth BYU-Idaho. Jared and Jerusha Hess, the
film's co-writers, both attended BYU.
Features one of the longest credited cast lists in
movie history; all 181 student extras' names are
listed in the closing credits.
The movie was edited in producer Jeremy Coon's
apartment using a $6,000 Macintosh with Final Cut Pro.
Behind-the-scenes at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival,
Fox Searchlight engaged in a bidding war with Warner
Independent Pictures over the distribution rights to
this movie, until Fox Searchlight put in a last-minute
bid of over $3 million, and won. They would later join
forces with Paramount Pictures and MTV Films to
distribute the film, a mere 17 days before its
release.
Uncle Rico is actually an avid vegetarian and doesn't
drink milk (although his character eats steak and
drinks milk throughout the film). You can actually see
Uncle Rico spit out the piece of steak he is chewing
on in the scene immediately after he whips the steak
at Napoleon's head. Watch closely as he sits down and
you can see him spit out the steak and put it back on
his plate.
Jon Heder was paid $1,000 to play Napoleon Dynamite.
The movie grossed over $40,000,000 in the United
States.
Jon Heder drew all of the "drawings" in the movie
except the unicorn.
The "liger" is a real animal, created when a male lion
mates with a female tiger.
For Napolean's dance routine, director Jared Hess had
Jon Heder improvise and dance to three different
songs. Hess then took the "best" moves from each song
and put them in one routine, using one song.
The scene where Uncle Rico hits Napoleon in the face
took four takes.
Shot in 22 days.
Jon Heder's big dance scene was the last scene
scheduled and they ran out of film while shooting it.
The sequence was edited together from less than 10
minutes of him dancing.
The scene of the farmer shooting the cow in front of
the school bus full of children is a true anecdote
from the director's childhood.
Jon Heder helped to make the boondoggle keychains
between scenes.
Jon Heder credits Tina Majorino (Deb) with helping to
choreograph the dance scene. He also states that some
of the dance moves were "borrowed" from Michael
Jackson, Backstreet Boys, John Travolta, Soul Train,
as well as some of his own moves.
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