Trivia / Out of Sight

From the 1998 film:

• All-Star Cast: George Clooney, Jennifer Lopez, Don Cheadle, Ving Rhames, Albert Brooks, Steve Zahn, Luis Guzman and Dennis Farina. As mentioned below, Michael Keaton and Samuel L. Jackson have cameos with Keaton reprising as Ray Nicolette from Jackie Brown. The then unknown actors Catherine Keener and Viola Davis make small appearances.
• Awesome, Dear Boy: George Clooney was attracted to the film, because as a boy, his heroes in crime films were always the bank robbers. He liked "the Cagneys and the Bogarts and Steve McQueen (actor). The guys who were kind of bad who you rooted for, and when I read this, I thought this guy is robbing a bank, but you really want him to get away with it".
• Cast the Runner-Up: Catherine Keener was originally slated for the role of Karen Sisco. She was instead cast as Adele.
• Completely Different Title:
  • In Brazil, the film was released as Irresistible Passion.
  • In Spain, it was released with the title A Very Dangerous Romance.
• Doing It for the Art: Samuel L. Jackson and Michael Keaton did their cameos free of charge.
• Inspiration for the Work: Elmore Leonard got the idea from a picture in the Detroit News of a beautiful young female federal marshal standing in front of a Miami courthouse with a shotgun resting on her hip.
• Method Acting: Jennifer Lopez trained with an actual FBI agent for two months before shooting, learning the professional way of shooting sniper rifles.
• Throw It In!: During their DVD Commentary, Steven Soderbergh and Screenwriter Scott Frank reveal that the cast members ad-libbed several memorable lines in the script. Don Cheadle wrote the line, "in a situation like this, there's a high potentiality for the common motherfucker to bitch out."
• What Could Have Been:
  • Sandra Bullock almost got the part of Karen Sisco, but Steven Soderbergh was against it. He said:
    I spent some time with Clooney and Bullock, and they actually did have a great chemistry. But it was for the wrong movie. I'm sure they could do a movie together. But not an Elmore Leonard movie.
  • Ironically, Clooney and Bullock would do a movie together, and it would be even more successful than this one, as well as being Ocean siblings.
  • Elmore Leonard envisioned Sean Connery or Jack Nicholson as Jack Foley when he sold the film rights to his novel.
  • Danny DeVito and Garry Shandling were considered for Richard Ripley.

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From the 1973 short story:

• Publisher-Chosen Title: When it was published by Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, they changed it to "The Six Suspects". Since Dr Asimov didn't like the name, he changed it back to his Working Title, "Out of Sight".
• Working Title: When Dr Asimov had sent the story to Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, it was named "Out of Sight". They changed the name for publication, but when he collected it in Tales of the Black Widowers, he changed it back.

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