Trivia / Kangaroo Jack

• Creator Backlash:
  • Michael Shannon wished he'd never been in this movie as he finds the rapping kangaroo "very disconcerting".
  • A bit of an interesting example with Jerry O'Connell. In a 2017 interview with Vice about the movie, Jerry initially seemed rather ambivalent about the film, being shocked by how low its Rotten Tomatos score was and reminiscing somewhat fondly on the shooting of the film. However, in that same interview, O'Connell quickly becomes horrified hearing some of the film's jokes about his character's perceived lack of masculinity due to being a hairdresser and the joke about Anthony Anderson's character claiming that the people of Asia call him "Sun Luc Dong" which he claims translates to a "big black man pretending to be 12" but is really just gibberish. After hearing that, Jerry says that he is ashamed to admit that he didn't realize how problematic those lines were when the movie was filmed and that he plans to show the film to his kids to use as an educational experience to show them what the world used to be like. He also admits later on that even back then, he was never comfortable with his character having to grope Estella Warren's character without her consent.
  • Anthony Anderson looked very visibly embarrassed when his part in this movie was brought up in one episode of the To Tell the Truth reboot hosted by him.
• Creator Killer: Although David McNally's directorial debut Coyote Ugly wasn’t too well received either, this film completely killed his career in the theatrical realm, and he’s only written for a few TV shows since.
• DVD Commentary: By David McNally, Anthony Anderson, Estella Warren, Jerry Bruckheimer and Jerry O'Connell.
• Edited for Syndication:
  • The scene where Charlie grabs Jessie's breasts, believing her to be an hallucination, is cut from most cable airings. Instead, he just kind of leers at her chest for a few seconds, making her knock him out with a frying pan immediately after seem like a bit of an overreaction.
  • On cable airings on this movie, after the hallucination scene, Jessie's hilariously perfect, straight, deadpan delivery of telling Charlie the medicine she gave him will, "Unfortunately also make your testicles fall off" is dubbed with a much less effective and enthusiastic, "Unfortunately, it'll also make your private parts fall off!"
• Fake American: Canadian model Estella Warren as an American woman who moved to Australia for a semester abroad and decided to not return to the States.
• Follow the Leader: The filmmakers’ decision to rework their run-of-the-mill mobster comedy into a family-friendly animal comedy film was apparently inspired by Snow Dogs, which managed to turn quite a profit for Disney on its small budget thanks to a rather aggressive marketing campaign.
• Mid-Development Genre Shift: The film was originally an adult-oriented mafia comedy in the style of Midnight Run entitled Down and Under. However, the producers apparently hated how this version turned out and test audiences reacted poorly to everything except the kangaroo, so fearing a potential Box Office Bomb, the filmmakers extensively retooled the film in both marketing and post-production into an allegedly family-friendly kangaroo comedy.
• Money, Dear Boy: Christopher Walken admits this was the sole reason he played Sal Maggio, even before the film was retooled into its infamous final form.
• The Other Darrin: Perhaps unsurprisingly, no actor involved reprised their role for the the animated sequel:
  • Jeff Bennet replaces Adam Garcia as Kangaroo Jack.
  • Josh Keaton replaces Jerry O'Connell as Charlie.
  • Ahmed Best replaces Anthony Anderson as Louis.
  • and Kath Soucie replaces Estella Warren as Jessie.
• The Shelf of Movie Languishment: Was shot in March to August 2001 (with its initial cut wrapped up by that fall) but was not released until January 2003.
• Star-Derailing Role:
  • Estella Warren hasn't had a supporting role in a blockbuster since the release of this film, and only had a few more acting roles overall before troubles in her personal life saw her take a break from acting (albeit she eventually made a comeback in the mid-2010s).
  • Anthony Anderson's career saw itself slowed down for a good while after this film's release, although his appearance in the relatively successful Scary Movie 3 later that year prevented this film from causing even worse damage to his career. He has since bounced back, with critically acclaimed roles in the Netflix drama film Beats (2019) and his lead role on the family sitcom black-ish on ABC (2014-present).
• Throw It In!: According to the DVD Commentary, Jerry Bruckheimer heard Jerry O'Connell and Anthony Anderson beatboxing on set and asked O'Connell if he could do that "spit-rap thing" in the movie. Extra funny because people assume it isn't really O'Connell doing it in the movie since both the actor and character are pretty white.
• What Could Have Been: Aside from the obvious—the film's inception as Down and Under mentioned above—quite a few different actors were offered roles or considered for them;
  • Scott Bakula, Nicolas Cage, George Clooney, Billy Crystal, Leonardo DiCaprio, John Goodman, Hugh Jackman, Ray Romano, Sylvester Stallone and Ben Stiller were all considered for the role of Charlie Carbone.
  • Rowan Atkinson, Danny DeVito, Michael J. Fox, Ricky Gervais, Eddie Murphy, Mickey Rourke, Will Smith and Fred Willard were all considered for the role of Louis Booker.
  • Lorraine Bracco, Sandra Bullock, Ellen DeGeneres, Lisa Kudrow, Leslie Mann, Julianne Moore, Christina Ricci, Rene Russo and Meg Ryan were all considered for the role of Jessie.
  • Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern were considered for the role of Frankie Lombardo.
  • Tommy Lee Jones, Frank Langella, John Malkovich, Nick Nolte, Tim Robbins, Kevin Spacey and James Woods were all considered for the role of Sal Maggio.
  • Jackie Legs was originally portrayed by an animatronic puppet, but a CGI model was used in the final version instead.
• Working Title: Down and Under.

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