Trivia / From Hell

Graphic Novel

• Bonus Material: Part of the experience of reading From Hell is going through the two appendices, one being an in-depth explanation of themes and scenes, the other being the Dance of The Gull Catchers, a brief history of Ripperology.
• Inspiration for the Work: The book was partly inspired by the title of Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, in that it explores the notion that to solve a crime holistically, one would need to solve the entire society in which it occurred.

Film

• California Doubling: Prague doubled for Victorian London.
• Disowned Adaptation: Alan Moore completely washed his hands of the film, knowing that it was different from his book, which it was. This wouldn't be the last time he did this.
• Doubling for London: Prague, using backlot sets rather than city streets.
• Extremely Lengthy Creation: The film was announced in 1998 and took a full three years from development, pre-production to post-production and finally its October 2001 release date to be theatrically released.
• Fake Brit:
  • Johnny Depp, using the same accent that he would later use as Sweeney Todd.
  • Also, Heather Graham, with a less convincing accent. Her character is actually supposed to be Irish, but speaks with an English accent.
• Missing Trailer Scene: The line "Jack the Ripper's not finished", was included in several previews, is not in the film itself.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The Hughes Brothers originally wanted Daniel Day-Lewis to play Inspector Abbeline. When that fell through, they interviewed Sean Connery, Anthony Hopkins, Jude Law and Brad Pitt before settling on Johnny Depp.
  • Mel Gibson was originally considered to direct.
  • Nigel Hawthorne was originally cast as William Gull, but dropped out due to illness.

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