Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999) on Netflix

Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999)

Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.

• Michael Jackson expressed interest in playing Jar Jar Binks, but he wanted to perform the role in prosthetic makeup, while Lucas wanted the character made with CGI.
• Mos Espa, the Tatooine settlement, was built outside Tozeur in Tunisia, and on the night after the third day of shooting there an unexpected sandstorm destroyed many of the sets and props. The production was quickly rescheduled for repairs and still left Tunisia on the planned date.
• After a bootlegged preview leaked online, the trailer was put on the film's official website, where the servers overloaded and it drew over 1 million downloads in its first 24 hours, a record for a trailer at the time. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring passed it in April 2000.
• The employment consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas estimated that 2.2 million full-time employees missed work to attend the film, costing $293 million in lost productivity.
• Darth Maul was initially designed as a cross between a ghost and a serial killer, but the design terrified Lucas, who closed the book and asked McCaig for his "second worst nightmare"; McCaig later based Maul's design on Bozo the Clown.
• Joseph Fiennes auditioned for the role of Obi-Wan Kenobi and nearly landed the part, until Lucas's daughter rejected him after meeting him during the second level of auditioning.
• Benicio del Toro was initially cast in the role of Darth Maul, but he later left the project when the character's lines were cut.
• To research the podrace vehicles, the visual effects crew scavenged four Boeing 747 engines from a jet aircraft junkyard outside Phoenix, Arizona, and life-sized replicas of the engines were built and sent to Tunisia as on-set reference.