Trivia / Mimic

• Box Office Bomb: Budget, $30 million. Box office, $25 million. Guillermo del Toro's first English-language film was this adaptation of a Donald A. Wollheim story. It was not a happy experience as he dealt with constant Executive Meddling from the Weinsteins which demanded excessive reshoots and divergences from the original script. Del Toro disowned the film and swore off working with the Weinsteins ever again. It did however, sell very well on home video to spawn two straight-to-video sequels.
• Creator Backlash: Guillermo del Toro has disowned this movie, placing the blame on constant Executive Meddling (see below). He eventually made peace with a Directors Cut, released in 2011.
• The Danza: Josh Brolin as Josh.
• Diagnosis of God: Chuy is depicted as developmentally disabled, but his condition is only specified to be autism in an interview with del Toro.
• Executive Meddling: Word of God says del Toro agreed to do this film on three conditions: no guns, no big explosions, no happy ending. Guess what the final film has. This was even further hindered by Bob Weinstein visiting the set, demanding insane reshoots, and not respecting the original script. Because of this awful shooting experience del Toro refused to ever work with the Weinstein Company again.
• Follow-Up Failure: This was Guillermo del Toro's follow up to his debut Cronos and one he ended up disowning due to how badly the Weinsteins meddled with it.
• Hostility on the Set: According to Guillermo del Toro, Mira Sorvino and Jeremy Northam could not stand each other on set. This is on top of the aforementiond insanity of Bob Weinstein storming the set, making absurd demands, and trying to fire del Toro. Luckily some of the staff, such as Sorvino herself, stood up for him and were able to get Weinstein off del Toro's back.
• Stillborn Franchise: The original plan for this movie was going to be part of a trilogy of sci-fi short films. The other two planned segments also got their own separate releases years later, as the full-length movie Imposter and the short Alien Love Triangle.
• Uncredited Role: John Sayles was an uncredited script doctor for the screenplay.
• What Could Have Been: The original ending was to feature a *perfect* mimic, that would approach Mira Sorvino in the sewers, place a finger against her lips, and utter a single word: "Leave."
  • Another one that was shot was as Susan and the kids reach the street, they see hundreds of people who turn out to be mimics who started approaching them. This didn't do well with test audiences however.
  • Guillermo del Toro offered Max von Sydow the role of Manny Gavoila. He turned it down, telling Del Toro that he shouldn't waste his time on fantasy films and instead make more prestiege films (this was after he'd done Judge Dredd).

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