Trivia / Chronicle

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• Ability over Appearance: Michael B. Jordan simply gave the best audition for the role of Steve. As revealed below, Steve's race was never specified and the usage of Black Dude Dies First was unintentional.
• Breakthrough Hit: For Josh Trank.
• California Doubling: Cape Town for Seattle.
• Colbert Bump: A minor case — the term "apex predator" received a considerable spike in searches after this movie came out.
• Dawson Casting: All of the leads are in their 20s playing high schoolers (although Dane DeHaan could legitimately pass for a 17- or 18-year old).
• Deleted Scene: Among the deleted and shortened scenes are the boys testing and enjoying their newfound powers, more development on Steve's home life (and expanding his relationship with Andrew), and a SWAT team attacking Andrew for a longer period of time than shown in the final cut.
• Fake American:
  • Alex Russel (Matt) has a pretty strong Aussie accent behind the scenes.
  • Several supporting and bit actors were redubbed to eliminate their South African accents.
• Hostility on the Set: Following abuse allegations made against the film's writer Max Landis, Josh Trank stated that he banned Landis from the set due to his belligerent attitude and hadn't spoken to him since.
• Irony as She Is Cast: Monica, the girl that Andrew almost slept with but completely botched his chance with, is played by Dane DeHaan's then-girlfriend and eventual wife Anna Wood.
• Missing Trailer Scene: A couple of scenes that appear in the trailers did not show up in the theatrical version, though they are restored in the extended cut.
• Sleeper Hit: The film had a modest budget for its type and didn't have a whole lot of advertising, and was even dumped into theaters in January on Super Bowl weekend, but the positive reception and word-of-mouth not only helped make it a big hit, but also gave some of the relatively then-unknown cast and crew their big break.
• Star-Making Role: For both Dane DeHaan and Michael B. Jordan.
• Troubled Production:
  • With the controversy over the production of Josh Trank's Fantastic Four (2015) came reports that similar problems had plagued the production of this film, to the point where Trank had eventually been locked out of the editing booth. That being said, the problems were much smaller in scale and the film was completed on-time and on-budget, unlike Fant4stic. Trank was also happy with the final cut of Chronicle while he publicly disowned the final cut of Fant4stic.
  • On another note, after allegations of misogyny and sexual abuse were made against writer Max Landis, Trank revealed he had banned Landis from the set during filming.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Miles Teller auditioned for the role of Andrew.
  • Originally, there was a scene where Andrew would use his powers to pull his dad's limbs off, like he does to the spider. Exactly why this was cut is unknown, but most likely it was because that would change the rating from PG-13 to R.
  • In an early draft, all three boys were going to get Drunk on the Dark Side and end with them rampaging. However, this was changed because Word of God thought the movie would have been too dark and depressing. Instead, just Andrew goes insane while Steve died and Matt had to be the hero.
  • In the ending of the original script, Andrew's still alive after Matt stabs him with the spear, so Matt shoots him in the head, and the government captures Matt and keeps him in a cell while he's injured and screaming for them to help him. Matt still lives, but yikes.
• Word of God:
  • According to the director, Steve's death was an unintentional example of Black Dude Dies First. The script didn't specify the race of any of the characters — but that Michael B. Jordan simply blew everyone else away when auditioning for the part, and Trank and Landis eventually decided on casting the best actor rather than a trope-avoidant one.
  • Stephen King's works Carrie and Firestarter were major inspirations for the film.

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