Trivia / The Hitcher

• Awesome, Dear Boy: Jennifer Jason Leigh agreed to do the film because she wanted to work with Rutger Hauer again (they co-starred in Flesh+Blood (1985)) and loved the character of Nash because "there was a real person there".
• Box Office Bomb: The first movie. Budget: $6,000,000. Box office: $5,844,868.
• Channel Hop: 20th Century Fox ultimately rejected the project over the budget and saw it as a "straight-out horror movie". David Madden also admitted that he would have "argued to soften the movie. There were some people at the studio who thought it was pretty gross". Ed Feldman and Charles Meeker optioned the movie, paying Eric Red twenty-five thousand dollars. Major studios like Universal Pictures and Warner Bros. passed on it, as did smaller ones like Orion Pictures and New World Pictures. Many executives liked the script, but balked at the girl being ripped apart scene. At least two studios were willing to consider making it, but only if Robert Harmon was replaced. However, the producers had faith in their director and stuck by Harmon.
• Completely Different Title:
  • Brazil: Death Asks for a Ride
  • Denmark: On Stop with a Killer
  • Greece: The Hitchhiker of Horror
  • Hungary: The Phantom of the Highway
  • Peru: The Passenger of Death
  • Portugal: Highway Terror
  • Spain: Highway to Hell
• Corpsing: While the dog licks the blood off the dead trooper, the actor appears to have a bemused look on his face as if the actor is struggling not to laugh.
• Disowned Adaptation: Eric Red both requested a writing credit on the remake (because it was so similar to his original), and disavowed it (because he thought it was much worse).
  "Give the credit where it's due. But I disown the picture."
• Enforced Method Acting: C. Thomas Howell admitted that he was actually afraid of Rutger Hauer on and off the set because of the actor's general intensity.
• Executive Meddling: Executives tried to have the death of Nash softened and toned down. One executive even tried getting the scene excised and another suggested softening it by following it with a funeral scene. The director and producer stood their ground and the scene was kept in but not shot graphically.
• Fake American: The American John Ryder is played by Dutch actor, Rutger Hauer, in the original movie, and by British actor, Sean Bean, in the remake.
• The Foreign Subtitle:
  • Germany: The Hitcher: The Highway Killer
  • Italy: The Hitcher: The Long Road of Fear
  • Mexico: The Hitcher, the Road Assassin
• Irony as She Is Cast: Character actor Gene Davis plays a fully-clothed blue denim clad police officer who gets killed by a Serial Killer. Three years earlier, Davis inversely plays a fully-unclothed Serial Killer who gets killed by a police officer played by Charles Bronson in another crime thriller 10 to Midnight.
• No Stunt Double: Rutger Hauer did a lot of the stunt driving throughout the movie which amazed the crew and even the real stunt drivers.
• Throw It In!: C. Thomas Howell's fear when Rutger Hauer was holding the knife near his eye was genuine. Hauer improvised the line and the position of the knife.
• Typecasting: The minor roles of police officers Jack Donner and Lyle Hancock are just are each one of many other policeman roles in film and television for veteran character actors Billy Green Bush and Henry Darrow. While Darrow is once again playing a Vigilante Man following his role as the iconic one Zorro in the 1981 animated series The New Adventures of Zorro (through voice acting) and in the short-lived series Zorro and Son in 1983.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The original script ran the film equivalent of three hours, had more of a Film Noir vibe and was filled with Gorn. Moments that ended up not being filmed include: Ryder slaughtering an entire family, an eyeball appearing in a hamburger (this was replaced in a finger in a plate of French fries), a graphic sex scene between 'Gal' Galveston (the girl before Nash) and Jim, and a character being decapitated. The film underwent several rewrites which removed the gorier moments.
  • Ryder was written with Keith Richards in mind. The director's personal choice for Ryder was Terence Stamp while Sam Elliott had the best audition and almost got the part (a salary dispute led him not to be cast). David Bowie, Sting and Sam Shepard were also considered.
  • For the role of Jim Halsey, the producers mentioned Tom Cruise, Emilio Estevez, Matthew Modine and Charlie Sheen.
  • At one point, Eric Red wanted John Ryder to have an electronic voicebox.

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