Popeye (1980) on Netflix

Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Popeye (1980)

Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.

• The Popeye musical had its basis in the bidding war for the film rights to the Broadway musical Annie. When Robert Evans learned Paramount had lost that bidding to Columbia, he held an executive meeting and asked about comic strip characters the studio held rights to; one attendee said, "Popeye".
• According to Barry Diller, cocaine was heavily used on the Malta set, saying, "You couldn't escape it." He also said that "film cans were actually being used to ship cocaine back and forth to this set."
• Evans wanted Dustin Hoffman to play Popeye opposite Lily Tomlin as Olive Oyl, with John Schlesinger directing, but Hoffman dropped out over creative differences with Feiffer. Gilda Radner was also considered for Olive Oyl until her manager discouraged her, worried about the script and about months on an isolated set with Evans and Altman.
• The Sweethaven set built for the film is still standing and has become a popular tourist attraction known as Popeye Village. Parish wrote that Robin Williams referred to the set as "Stalag Altman".
• Popeye's original muscle arms, formed of silicone rubber, were difficult for Williams to manipulate and remove after filming, so two Italian artisans were brought to Malta to remake them, and Altman had to juggle his shooting schedule around the delay.
• Altman had the cast sing some musical numbers during filming, breaking with the movie-musical practice of recording songs in a studio first and lip-synching. This reduced the sound quality, and Williams rerecorded much of his dialogue because of his character's mumbling style, partly a byproduct of talking with a pipe in his mouth.
• Filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson is a noted fan of the film, listing it as a favorite, and used Duvall's song "He Needs Me" in his own film Punch-Drunk Love and on its soundtrack.