Trivia / Stormbreaker

• Box Office Bomb: Budget, $40 million. Box office, $23,937,870. The film realistically needed to be at least a modest hit in both the UK and the US in order to be profitable, but only grossed a mediocre-at-best $13 million in the former country, suffering from competition with both Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest and Superman Returns.^note (Even bearing in mind cinema audiences in the UK are a fraction of the those in the US, just to give some perspective, Cars opened the following week, ultimately made about $29 million in the UK, and that wasn't considered a smash hit by any means) And its Stateside release turned into an unmitigated disaster, with The Weinstein Company dumping it in a limited early October release and grossing a paltry $677,646.
• California Doubling: Much of the Cornwall and Brecon Beacons scenes were shot on the Isle of Man. The scenes in London however were all shot on location.
• Conclusion in Another Medium: The graphic novel adaptation of the film continued to adapt later books in the series even though no more films were made, and have reached the sixth book as of 2020. Most importantly, they answer the question of how Sabina would have been used in the later films, as her Adaptational Early Appearance would have caused what would have seemed to be an insurmountable Continuity Snarl in Eagle Strike.
• Creator Backlash: Horowitz, who wrote the script, admitted that the novels don't translate well to the big screen, and thus plans for a series of film adaptations were dropped altogether.
  • He later stated he felt it was too restricted by the BBFC's PG Rating, as seen by how he didn't like the Lighter and Softer take on his series.
• The Danza: Alex Pettyfer plays Alex Rider.
• Disowned Adaptation: Anthony Horowitz didn't like the Lighter and Softer take on his series, stating that he wanted the film to be "scary". He seems to be more favorable to the Amazon Prime rebooted series. Ironically, it was a Self-Adaptation, albeit one affected by Executive Meddling.
• Fake Brit: Sabina is played by Irish actress Sarah Bolger. Weirdly enough, for the American trailers, her voice was dubbed over with an American accent that's clearly not hers (she's played many Fake Americans too).
• Fake Nationality: The British Damian Lewis plays the Russian Yassen Gregorovich.
• Follow the Leader: A potential franchise very obviously following the lead of the Harry Potter films.
• Never Work with Children or Animals: A car chase scene from the book had to be changed, because Alex Pettyfer was only fifteen and therefore not legally allowed to drive. It was changed to a horse chase sequence.
• Self-Adaptation: Anthony Horowitz wrote the screenplay himself.
• Star-Making Role: Despite the poor performance of the film, it did net Alex Pettyfer a lot more attention.
• Stillborn Franchise: This film was intended to be the first of a series, but due to poor box office returns, it never happened.
• Vacation, Dear Boy: Mickey Rourke took the role of Darius to be able to hang out in the UK.

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