Trivia / The Pagemaster

• Acting for Two: The Pagemaster and Mr. Dewey are both played by Christopher Lloyd.
• All-Star Cast: The film is rather notable for having quite a few notable faces from Star Trek. Patrick Stewart, Whoopi Goldberg, Leonard Nimoy, Robert Picardo, Ed Begley Jr. (later to play Henry Starling in two episodes of Star Trek: Voyager), Frank Welker^note who overdubbed Spock's screams in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock and Christopher Lloyd^note Commander Kruge, the Big Bad, also in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. Oh and Macaulay Culkin but he was never in Star Trek.
• Box Office Bomb: Budget, $21,000,000. Box office, $13,700,000. Home video sales were another thing.
• Channel Hop: The film was produced entirely by Turner Pictures, but Turner sold the North American rights and half of the film's copyright to 20th Century Fox in order to avoid budget shortfalls (Turner retained TV and international rights).
• Creator Backlash: Joe Johnston, who directed of the live action scenes, complained those were re-edited behind his back and refuses to acknowledge the movie as part of his filmography.
• Deleted Scene: A number of scenes, with Frankenstein's monster kidnapping Richard, an extended fight with the dragon, and live-action sequence where Richard obtains the sword from the library mural (symbolism he triumphed over fear), that all featured in the trailers and promotional material got cut from the theatrical release and remain unrestored.
• Kids' Meal Toy: Pizza Hut had a set of four tabletop games; Land of Fantasy, Isle of Adventure, House of Horror, and World of the Pagemaster.
• Real-Life Relative: In the European Spanish dub, Adventure and Richard are voiced by real-life father and son Miguel Ángel and David Jenner.
• Referenced by...:
  • Console Wars: In one episode, Pat and Dan see whether the SNES or the Sega Genesis had the better Licensed Game based on the film.
  • The Nostalgia Critic has reviewed the film.
• Star-Derailing Role: This was one of several for Macaulay Culkin, which ended his acting career as a child star. Released in 1994 between Getting Even with Dad and Richie Rich that same year, the three flops combined led Culkin to retire from acting until reaching adulthood.
• Vindicated by Cable: Despite being a box-office bomb, the movie saw strong sales when it was eventually released onto home video, leading to its eventual Cult Classic status. (Though this may have simply been because Fox put a special preview for Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie on the tape before the film began.)
• What Could Have Been:
  • The film' poster has an image of the Frankenstein's monster right under Mr. Hyde. Originally, the creature was to appear after the struggle with Hyde, leading to a chase up the roof, ending with the monster falling off. This scene remains in the various movie storybooks.
  • From old storyboards, the enigmatic dragon was supposed to shape-shift after them again, upon leaving the realm of adventure. It forcibly takes over a mere frog's body to transform into a rampaging monster. However, Fantasy now at full power in her native realm, easily defeats it by turning the beast to stone. Adventure loses his sword in process. Unfortunately this causes a Plot Hole when he recovers his sword from the real dragon's mouth, who has decided to get serious this time.
  • Richard holding a mythical sword in a live-action sequence as a symbol he's triumphed over his fears (the dragon) for good. As Mr. Dewey then wakes him, its implied that scene was a Dream Within a Dream.

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