Trailer
Plot summary
Stanley Ipkiss works in a bank in Edge City, and nearly everyone around him makes fun of him except Charlie Schumaker, who works with him. Dorian Tyrell, a gangster, wants to take over from his boss, Niko, the owner of the Coco Bongo nightclub. Tyrell sends his girlfriend, the singer Tina Carlyle, into the bank to map its layout for a robbery. Stanley is drawn to Tina. After being refused entry to the Coco Bongo, he drives home in a loaner car that breaks down, and by a harbor bridge he finds a wooden mask.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Mask (1994)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Measured by global gross against budget, The Mask became the most profitable comic book movie of all time, and it remained so until 2019, when Joker surpassed it.
- Chuck Russell's first choice to play Tina had been Anna Nicole Smith, but she backed out at the last minute to appear in Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult instead.
- Casting Jim Carrey and Cameron Diaz led to disputes with New Line Cinema executives, who feared the film would be unsuccessful without well-established actors, until the studio relented after Chuck Russell reassured them the pair were the right choices.
- Producer Bob Engelman recalled that Jim Carrey was sick as a dog and throwing up one night and said he could not do it, but “we dragged him out of the trailer and he was a trooper”, things Carrey would never have done once he became a superstar.
- The film marked the acting debut of Cameron Diaz, who had been a model with no prior acting experience, while Jim Carrey, then on In Living Color and just finished filming Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, was virtually unknown.
- After the success of the original a sequel was planned, and Nintendo Power offered readers a sweepstakes chance to win a cameo role in it; when Jim Carrey bailed on the project, the magazine had to give the winner the cash value of the cameo instead.
- When Dorian Tyrell wears the Mask he is portrayed by pro wrestler Jeep Swenson rather than by Peter Greene, becoming a bulky and malevolent being that speaks in a demonically deep voice.
