Trivia / Red (2010)

• Actor Allusion:
  • Marvin comments to Victoria that he remembers the Secret Service being tougher. John Malkovich, who played Marvin, also played the would-be presidential assassin Mitch Leary in the movie In the Line of Fire.
  • Frank declares a lock to be Unbreakable.
  • Mary-Louise Parker's character briefly gets high.
  • Victoria is played by Helen Mirren, and was the name of a Queen of England.
    • In Red 2 she pretends to be crazy, claiming she is the Queen of England.
  • Bruce Willis' character makes a false report of "officer down" on a police radio to turn things to his advantage during a car chase, like he did in Die Hard with a Vengeance.
  • Anthony Hopkins is introduced listening to classical music, and is later in the movie locked in a cage. From which he escapes calmly, but violently.
    • He also confronts Brian Cox, making it a case of Lecter vs Lecktor.
• Actor-Shared Background: Gabriel Singer mentions being Jewish which James Remar is in real life.
• All-Star Cast: One of the best and most impressive of that year, only surpassed by that of The Expendables and Inception.
• Approval of God: Warren Ellis is okay with any and all of the extensive liberties with the source material because it led to Helen Mirren firing a machine gun.
• Awesome, Dear Boy: Helen Mirren loved working on Red so much, thanks to the action-heavy role she had in the film, that she has said "I'm there!" to any planned sequel. There was a sequel, and Helen was delighted to be in it.
  • Warren Ellis agrees, saying that despite having minimal input on the very loosely-adapted film, getting to write something that led to Helen Mirren wielding an M60 is a career highlight.
• Casting Gag: Vice President Stanton's actor Julian McMahon is no stranger to politics, being the son of former Australian Prime Minister William McMahon.
• Fake Russian:
  • Brian Cox (a Scot) as Ivan in both movies.
  • Even less convincing with Catherine Zeta-Jones (Welsh) as Katya. True Russians never waste good alcohol.
• Genius Bonus: "Eagle's Nest," the name of Victoria's house in Maryland, is named after a retreat for top Nazi officials in Berchtesgaden, Germany. It was famously featured in the final episode of Band of Brothers.
• In Name Only: Although Warren Ellis admits they couldn't have directly adapted the comic into anything more than an hour.

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