Trailer
Plot summary
Empire Records is an independent record store in Delaware. Its manager, Joe, has tasked Lucas with closing the store for the first time. Counting the day's receipts in Joe's office, Lucas learns that Empire is to be sold to Music Town, a national chain. He takes the cash to a casino in Atlantic City and plays craps, doubling the money on his first roll. The next morning A.J. and Mark hear what happened. Joe has saved enough to become part-owner, but is now $9,000 short.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Empire Records (1995)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Tunney said she shaved her head for the film because Allan told her studio executives thought she was "too cute to be depressed", and it was a precarious scene because she cut her real hair and could only do it once.
- Tobey Maguire asked director Allan Moyle to release him from the film over unspecified "emotional difficulties" during production; Moyle agreed, all of Maguire's scenes were removed from the final film, and Maguire then sought help for a drinking problem.
- Two days after Regency Enterprises executive Michael Nathanson approved Empire Records, he was approached with the script for Clueless and turned it down, as he already had a teen movie; Clueless became a hit while Empire Records bombed.
- Writer Carol Heikkinen said April 8 in one of the drafts is the same day they found Kurt Cobain's body; they shot that the same year he was found, so it represents the death of a rock star, and nobody in the movie ever says the date.
- Music supervisor Mitchell Leib said they ended up selling 2 million records, which he called unbelievable for a movie that did $147,000 at the box office.
- New Regency got into a bidding war with Warner Bros. over Carol Heikkinen's script; she was offered $325,000 up front and $200,000 if the film was made, plus 1% of soundtrack royalties and 5% of merchandise sales.
- Coyote Shivers, who played aspiring-musician-turned-store-clerk Berko, got into the project by virtue of being Liv Tyler's stepfather, as he was married to Tyler's mother Bebe Buell at the time.
