Trivia / Color of Night

• Box Office Bomb: Its box office total was $19,726,050, over a $40M budget.
• Executive Meddling: Director Richard Rush and producer Andrew Vajna constantly butted heads in the editing room over who should have control over the final cut. Even after a series of successful test screenings of Rush's cut, Vajna still saw fit to fire Rush. Rush and Vajna then had a very public battle over the firing, which caused Rush to suffer a heart attack that left him bedridden for four months and Vajna went on to release a heavily-edited version that flopped at the box office. Eventually, the two made up and Rush was allowed to release his cut on video.
• Playing Against Type:
  • Lance Henriksen, known for playing sadistic villains, plays Buck, a jerk-ish Stoic Woobie with a depressingly-tragic backstory that sadly isn't resolved by the end of the film.
  • Sondra (Lesley Ann Warren) is neither a fragile Woobie like Nadia Donner, or a ditzy Dumb Blonde like Norma Cassady. Her kinder, more sexually coy side with Bonnie also sets her apart from confidently-snarky Miss Scarlet.
• Troubled Production: Part of the reason the film bombed was a troubled production dominated by a tug-of-war between producer Andrew Vajna and writer/director Richard Rush.
  • Vajna and Rush had previously crossed paths during the making of Air America. Vajna, then head of Carolco Pictures, had offered Rush the chance to direct the former film from his script, but ultimately replaced him with Roger Spottiswoode and re-worked the script without his consent. Vajna told Rush that he could tailor the script for Color of Night however he wished, and that Bruce Willis was already attached to star. However, not only was the script again re-worked without Rush's consent, but Willis was one of the main culprits, as during the shoot he would frequently take his castmates aside and direct their performances himself to benefit his character. In spite of this, Rush and Willis' relationship remained cordial both before and during filming.
  • Rush wanted to cast an unknown as the female lead, but Cinergi Pictures, the company Vajna had founded after leaving Carolco, insisted on English actress Jane March after her performance as the title character in Claude Berri's The Lover. Willis' best friend Carmine Zozzora, an associate producer on Color of Night, married March just two months after meeting her during production of the film and proceeded to become very demanding regarding her scenes with Willis. March, for her part, was happy enough working on the film, but was uncomfortable with the amount of nudity required.
  • The biggest problems set in once principal photography wrapped and the film hit the editing suite. Rush and Vajna had wildly divergent opinions on how the film should be assembled, and Vajna insisted that Rush's contract did not give him final cut. Rush refused to back down, so both men put together versions of the film and scheduled test screenings on the same day at different times in San Francisco to see whose version audiences preferred. Vajna's version was 18 minutes shorter but achieved this by cutting several key story scenes (and adding extra nude scenes), leaving audiences struggling to follow the plot and deeming Rush's version superior.
  • Not willing to concede defeat, even after Rush told him to his face that the film would fail if Vajna's cut were released instead of his own, Vajna fired Rush and prepared to send his version of the film to cinemas, sparking intervention by the Directors Guild of America. Possibly coincidentally, Rush suffered a heart attack after being fired, requiring triple bypass surgery. After he recovered, he and Vajna agreed that Vajna's cut would be sent to cinemas, but Rush's cut would be released on home video. Sure enough, the film was critically panned and barely made back half its $40 million budget, but was Vindicated by Video, becoming one of the most rented videos of 1995.^note  Rush submitted his cut to the MPAA after the theatrical cut was released, and succeeded in obtaining the R rating he sought, compared to the pushing-NC-17 rating given to Vajna's cut. He also sent his cut to three prominent New York film critics who had given the theatrical cut negative reviews; they were much more positive about his version.
• Vindicated by Video: The film had a much better reception on video than in theaters due to the sex scenes and darker tone that was absent from the theatrical cut; so much that despite bombing in theaters, in ended up being one of the highest rented films of 1995.

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