Sorcerer (1977) on Netflix

Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Sorcerer (1977)

Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.

• Steve McQueen was the director's first choice for Jackie Scanlon and the role was written specifically for him after Friedkin met him in person, but although McQueen called it the best script he had ever read, he did not want to leave the country or his wife Ali MacGraw at the time.
• The 12-minute bridge crossing alone took several months to complete and cost approximately three million dollars, and the director has claimed that during the sequence the truck teetering against the ropes actually tipped over into the river several times, causing numerous retakes.
• After the disagreement with McQueen, Friedkin approached Robert Mitchum, who declined by asking him, "Why would I want to go to Ecuador for two or three months to fall out of a truck? I can do that outside my house."
• Sorcerer opened in the United States on June 24, 1977 and ended up a box office flop, grossing $5.9 million domestically and $9 million worldwide, when Roger Ebert estimated it would have needed a gross of around $45-50m just to break even.
• The mock explosion in the Jerusalem scenes was so powerful that it broke a window of the city mayor's house 6 m away, and the stuntman controlling the detonation, Nick Dimitri, positioned himself too close to the explosives and was injured.
• Friedkin himself lost fifty pounds during the production and was stricken with malaria, which was diagnosed only after the film's premiere.
• The budget grew to $22 million following a grueling production, filmed primarily in the Dominican Republic, with conflicts between Friedkin and his crew; the film became a box office bomb that did not recoup its large budget.
• Marcello Mastroianni was offered the role of Nilo and initially accepted, but ultimately declined because of problems related to his daughter's custody after his separation from Catherine Deneuve.