Trivia / Nightmare Alley (2021)

• Actor-Inspired Element: The whole movie. Ron Perlman introduced Guillermo del Toro to the novel, and it was his idea for them to make a movie of it together.
• Actor-Shared Background: Bradley Cooper has struggled with alcoholism as Stan does in the last act.
  • David Strathairn was also part of a travelling circus before he began acting, although as a clown rather than a fortune teller.
• Acclaimed Flop: The movie was well received by critics and subsequently nominated for several Academy Awards, but failed to make back its budget upon theatrical release, due to being released the same day as the highly-anticipated Spider-Man: No Way Home and a surge of COVID-19 cases limiting its older target demographic from seeing the film.
• All-Star Cast: Bradley Cooper, Cate Blanchett, Willem Dafoe, Richard Jenkins, Rooney Mara, David Strathairn, Ron Perlman, Tim Blake Nelson, Mary Steenburgen, Jim Beaver, Clifton Collins Jr., and Holt McCallany.
• Blooper: The white rabbit that Stan carries into his apartment is at least twice the size of the one he picked up in the hallway moments before.
• Creator's Oddball: This is the first film by director Guillermo del Toro without any supernatural, fantasy, or science fiction elements. It is also much darker and more cynical than any of his previous films.
• Early-Bird Release: The film made its streaming debut on HBO Max and Hulu before its arrival on general VOD platforms like iTunes.
• Fake American: Australians Cate Blanchett and Toni Collette play Americans.
• Production Posse: The film marks Ron Perlman's sixth film with Guillermo del Toro, and Richard Jenkins, Jim Beaver, and Clifton Collins Jr. all appear in their respective second del Toro film. Cate Blanchett and Tim Blake Nelson would go on to team up with del Toro again in his version of Pinocchio, a few years later, and Nelson also starred in an episode of Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities.
• Troubled Production: The film was nearly halfway through production when Guillermo del Toro shut down filming in March 2020 due the COVID-19 Pandemic, over a week before many other in-production films were forced to do the same. Production eventually resumed in September 2020, using an 80-page safety precaution guideline written by del Toro himself, and officially wrapped that December.
  • Bradley Cooper reportedly took advantage of the downtime to lose some weight so that he would look more convincingly young during the flashback scenes.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Leonardo DiCaprio was in talks to star as Stan Carlisle, but dropped out to focus on Killers of the Flower Moon. Interestingly, he'd allegedly passed on Licorice Pizza to star in Nightmare Alley; both roles ended up going to the same actor, Bradley Cooper.
  • Michael Shannon was replaced by David Strathairn as Pete Krumbein due to scheduling conflicts (had he stayed, it would've been another example of Those Two Actors, as he and Toni Collette both appeared in Knives Out, which also shared a composer with this movie, Nathan Johnson).
  • Alexandre Desplat was originally hired as composer, but was forced to exit due to scheduling conflicts (due to the restrictions brought about by the COVID-19 Pandemic, del Toro and Desplat were unable to meet in France to work on the score). Nathan Johnson was confirmed as his replacement in October 2021.

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