Trivia / The Long Kiss Goodnight

• Actor-Inspired Element: Craig Bierko suggested using the Santana song "She's Not There" in the movie.
• Completely Different Title: The nothing if not apt German title Tödliche Weihnachten ("Deadly Christmas") might have helped it to become a German Christmas TV staple à la Die Hard.
• Creator-Chosen Casting: Shane Black sold the script with the intention of Renny Harlin directing and Geena Davis starring.
• Creator's Favorite Episode: On an interview on The Tonight Show, Samuel L. Jackson listed Mitch Henessey as his favorite character he's ever played.
• Creator Killer: Well it was mostly the final nail in the coffin from Cutthroat Island, but this film bombing didn't help Renny Harlin's career or that of the studio that produced it. This has however become a Cult Classic, leading to some theorising that its reputation was damaged by Cutthroat Island's failure.
• Dawson Casting: According to a Freeze-Frame Bonus, Geena Davis is six years older than her character. Charlie was born in 1962, and Davis in 1956.
• Fake American: The Scottish Brian Cox and the English Patrick Malahide as CIA agents Nathan Waldman and Leland Perkins, respectively.
• Focus Group Ending: In an early cut of the film, Mitch Henessey dies, but during a test screening, an audience member shouted: "You can't kill Sam Jackson!" Renny Harlin accordingly changed the final cut so that Jackson's character survives.
• Playing with Character Type: Geena Davis starts the film playing a character within her usual type. But then her memories are awakened and she discovers she's actually an assassin.
• Production Posse: In addition to the husband and wife team of Renny Harlin and Geena Davis, Patrick Malahide and Rex Linn were in Cutthroat Island too.
• Star-Derailing Role: It was mainly Cutthroat Island that did the damage, but this film underperforming didn't help Geena Davis's career.
• Stillborn Franchise: A sequel has been in talks for years, but to date nothing new has come of it. The Working Title was The Kiss After Lightning.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Shane Black claims his initial script was much darker, and more graphic. Amongst the many differences, it included some alternate action sequences, and more violence, like the scene where Mitch and Charly are captured and get tortured. Both characters also had bigger backstories in the original script, Mitch, at one point, tells Charly how he was gang raped in prison, and how his wife refuses to let him see his son, because of what happened to him, and Charly also had more of a dark backstory in the script, than in the film.
  • The big turn would have been Mitch dying in the final battle, with a Dying Declaration of Love to Charly. As part of a deal to keep this all quiet, Charly would have had federal agents tell Mitch's ex-wife that another man (Timothy) had committed the crime he went to jail for, earning Mitch a posthumous pardon and a big settlement for his family.
  • Originally the name "Sam Caine" was simply a name her brain threw up as an anagram for "amnesiac". In the finished film it's her former alias.
  • The 100-year-old Windermere House in Muskoka was a planned filming location, but it burned to the ground before the scenes had been finished.
  • Studio executives considered rewriting the film to have a male lead, with Steven Seagal or Sylvester Stallone in mind.
  • The ice skating scene was scripted to have Samantha perform a double axel flip and shoot from under her upside down head. After testing it out on location and with green screen, they dropped it from the film.
  • Craig Ferguson auditioned for the role of Timothy.

---