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Trivia / The Book of Life

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  • Acting for Two:
    • Carlos Alazraqui voices General Posada, Dali and Chuy.
    • Eric Bauza voices Father Domingo and the cave guardian.
    • Trey Bumpass voices Luka Ramirez and a San Angel orphan.
  • Actor-Shared Background:
    • Jorge Sánchez dreamt of being an opera singer despite being a bullfighter. His actor, Placido Domingo, is a world-renowned opera singer.
    • In the Japanese dub, Subaru Kimura, just like Manolo, is also a musician like him, through the only difference is that Kimura is a rap singer rather than a mariachi.
    • On a sadder note, both Manolo and his voice actor Diego Luna lost their mothers at a young age.
  • Children Voicing Children: The Detention Kids, alongside the kid versions of Manolo, Maria, and Joaquin, are all voiced by child actors.
  • Creator Couple: Sandra Equihua, the voice of Scardelita, is the wife of Jorge R. Gutierrez, the director and voice of Carmelo.
  • Descended Creator:
    • Director and co-writer Jorge R. Gutierrez provides the voice for Carmelo Sánchez.
    • Besides being one of the film's producers, Guillermo del Toro has a minor role as the captain's wife in the Land of the Remembered.
  • Dueling Movies: With The Boxtrolls. Battle of the animated horror movies 2014!
  • Fake Nationality: While the film features a predominately Latino cast, Channing Tatum, Grey DeLisle, Carlos Alazraqui, Troy Evans, Eric Bauza, and Anjelah Johnson play Mexicans.
  • Fan Community Nicknames: "Bookworms."
  • Multiple Languages, Same Voice Actor: In the Latin American Spanish dub, Diego Luna, Ana de la Reguera and Kate del Castillo respectively voice Manolo, Carmen and La Muerte.
  • No Dub for You: Only the trailer was actually dubbed into Polish. The actual film itself instead only has a Voiceover Translation into that language, despite being an animated family film.
  • Non-Singing Voice:
    • Young Manolo was voiced by Emil-Bastien Bouffard and his singing voice was provided by Joe Matthews.
    • In the Latin American Spanish dub, Jorge is voiced by Carlos del Campo. When Jorge sings "Cielito Lindo", his voice is provided by Ulises Maynardo Zavala, who is also a baritone singer and voice actor in his own right.
  • The Other Darrin: In the Latin American Spanish dub, Humberto Vélez replaces Danny Trejo's usual dubbing actor, Miguel Ángel Ghigliazza, as the voice of Luis Sánchez. Ghigliazza himself voiced Xibalba in the dub.
  • Playing Against Type: Ice Cube, who is generally known for his surly Jerk with a Heart of Gold roles, voices the Candle Maker, an outgoing Nice Guy.
  • Production Posse:
    • Xibalba is voiced by Ron Perlman, who has worked with Executive Producer Guillermo del Toro on Cronos and both Hellboy movies, among others.
    • Grey Delisle, Carlos Alazraqui, and Eric Bauza have minor and supporting roles in this film, all of whom had lead roles in Jorge Guiterrez's previous work El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera (Frida, Puma Loco, and White Pantera respectively).
      • Héctor Elizondo and Danny Trejo, who voice Manolo's father Carlos and his deceased grandfather Luis respectively, have also worked with Jorge before on El Tigre, as Manny's great-grandfather, Justice Jaguar, and El Mal Verde respectively.
  • So My Kids Can Watch: This was the first movie Diego Luna had been in that he felt like he could show to his kids, who were 6 and 4 at the time.
  • Throw It In!: Joaquin's Say My Name habit was ad-libbed by Channing Tatum.
  • Two Voices, One Character: La Muerte is voiced by Kate del Castillo, while her older disguise is voiced by the late Tonita Castro and her Mary Beth disguise is voiced by Christina Applegate.
  • What Could Have Been:
    • The film was originally going to be named "El Matador" and then "Día de los Muertos".
    • According to the official artbook of the movie, the Adelita twins originally started out as part of Chakal's banditos.
    • According to the artbook of the movie, there was an alternate scene in which Manolo meets his ancestors and his mother; in it, he arrives at his ancestors' home in The Land of the Remembered, while they're all in the middle of a meal. When they see Manolo walk through the front door, all the family members have shocked looks on their faces.
    • The Land of the Forgotten was originally a Fisher Kingdom that slowly turned the heroes into forgotten spirits as they journeyed through it. This was cut to keep the story simple.
    • The spirits in the Land of the Forgotten were originally going to be these wild, monstrous, skeletal creatures that had forgotten their humanity. This was changed for two reasons; One, because some thought it would be too scary for younger viewers, and Two, to keep the story simple.
    • Joaquin was originally going to die in the bandit raid, crushed by his dad's statue, which would have been the moment he gave Manolo the Medal of Everlasting Life.
    • One interview revealed that Manolo was supposed to stay dead and was not able to have any resolution with Maria had it not been changed for being too dark.
    • Xibalba was originally supposed to take the form of a woman to blend in among the living humans, but that idea was scrapped.
    • There was a version of the movie in which Manolo actually allowed the bull to kill him as opposed to killing it himself. This was scrapped due to being too sad/non-family friendly.
    • Chuy was originally going to be a goat, but because Ferdinand was being produced at the same time , he was changed into a pig.
    • A motorcycle sequence that was used in an episode of El Tigre would've also been used in the movie, but it was scrapped.
    • At one point, the movie was going to be made at DreamWorks Animation.
    • Instead of a museum tour guide, the narrator would have been an old lady telling the story at a cemetery. In the end, the woman would have been revealed to be Maria, and she would have died and reunited with Manolo in the Land of the Remembered.
    • For Maria's wedding dress in the finale, Jorge wanted it to have white papel placedo flags, but there wasn't enough in the budget to make it look believable, so the dress was made simpler (though there is still some of the idea in there).
  • Word of God: Now has its own page.

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