Trivia / The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

• Creator's Oddball: David Fincher was previously known for dark and gritty R-rated thrillers such as Fight Club, Panic Room, and Se7en. This Magic Realism love story is his first PG-13 rated film.
• Executive Meddling: Paramount and Warner Bros. had the film set in New Orleans - as opposed to the short story's Baltimore setting - in order to take advantage of Louisiana's filming discounts.
• Fake American: Benjamin's father is played by the British Jason Flemyng. Amusingly his daughter Caroline is also played by a Brit, Julia Ormond. Australian Cate Blanchett also plays the Louisiana native Daisy.
• Real-Life Relative: Brad Pitt's daughter Shiloh Jolie-Pitt plays Benjamin's daughter Caroline as a toddler.
• Real Life Writes the Plot: The reason Brad Pitt doesn't portray the teenaged Benjamin is quite simply because the special effects budget had been depleted.
• Saved from Development Hell: At various points during production, Steven Spielberg, Ron Howard, and Spike Jonze were going to direct, and Tom Cruise, John Travolta, or even Jack Nicholson was going to star. It had been bouncing around as potential film for decades. Like David Fincher said, nobody wanted to make a $150 million film with the idea of death at its center. It took a while for someone to A) turn the bizarre, lifetime-spanning plot into a workable film narrative, and B) find a way to age a main character but keep it clearly the same character.
• Throw It In!: Director Tarsem Singh was hired to shoot the shots of Benjamin in Cambodia and India, after David Fincher heard that he and Brad Pitt would both be in Southeast Asia at the same time.
• What Could Have Been: Rachel Weisz was the first choice for Daisy but she had to turn it down due to a scheduling conflict.

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