Trivia / Gnomeo & Juliet

• All-Star Cast: James McAvoy, Emily Blunt, Jason Statham, Patrick Stewart, Maggie Smith, Michael Caine, Hulk Hogan, Dolly Parton, Jim Cummings (1952), Ozzy Osbourne…
• Breakaway Pop Hit: This film's cover of "Crocodile Rock" was a major success on Radio Disney's top 30 back when the film premiered, actually surpassing the popularity of several Justin Bieber songs on there.
• Channel Hop: The sequel was released by Paramount and MGM, as opposed to Touchstone.
• Creator's Oddball: More accurately, a distributor's oddball. Disney's Touchstone Pictures label is known for distributing films aimed at an older audience, but Gnomeo and Juliet is the first movie distributed under them that is rated G since the 1998 US release of Kiki's Delivery Service.
• The Danza: Dolly Gnome, being a direct caricature of her actress.
• Development Hell: Following the success of his work on The Lion King (1994), Disney executives greenlit Gnomeo and Juliet in the late '90s to essentially serve as a vehicle for Elton John's music catalogue, though the movie suffered a notoriously troubled in-house development with the directors and animators not having much of an idea of how to make the film work. When Pixar's John Lasseter was placed in charge of Disney's animation studio in 2006, he was given a briefing on the films that the studio had in development. When they got to Gnomeo, Lasseter bluntly asked "Wait, why exactly are we making this?", to which no one in the room could give him an answer, so the film was cancelled. In 2007, the film rights were transferred to Starz Animation, who made the movie that we have today.
• No Export for You: In Japan, this was never released. Despite this, the sequel Sherlock Gnomes was released Direct to Video in Japan, leading the appearance of the characters from Gnomeo and Juliet to be the first time they showed up in Japan. What’s even more confusing is that the reference to the former movie in the opening scene was kept in the Japanese dub despite the film in question not being dubbed.
• Playing Against Type: Ozzy Osbourne as possibly the cutest little faun you'll ever see.
• Sequel Gap: Sherlock Gnomes, announced just a year after the first film's release, wasn’t released until seven years after the first Gnomeo, an extraordinarily long gap for a non-nostalgia/legacy-based sequel to a children's film.
• Stunt Casting:
  • Hulk Hogan plays the guy in the Terrafirminator commercial.
  • Dolly Parton as Dolly Gnome, the female gnome who announces the lawnmower races.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Ewan McGregor and Kate Winslet were attached to star as Gnomeo and Juliet when the movie was initially announced.
  • Adam Sandler was considered to voice Gnomeo.
  • Neve Campbell and Anna Faris were considered to voice Juliet.
  • Tina Fey, Angelina Jolie and Nicki Minaj were considered to voice Nanette.
  • Jeff Bridges and Robert Downey Jr. were considered to voice Featherstone.
  • Gary Oldman and James Woods were considered to voice Lord Redbrick.
  • Billy Crystal and Christopher Mintz-Plasse were considered to voice Benny.
  • Eddie Redmayne was considered to voice Tybalt.

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