Line #7 Trivia/TheApple


1	* ActorSharedBackground: Bibi is Canadian, just like her actress Creator/CatherineMaryStewart.
2	* BoxOfficeBomb: While not having an explicitly stated box office gross, it is widely acknowledged that the $10 million production flopped.
3	* CaliforniaDoubling: The film is shot in Berlin, obviously so, but pretends really, really hard to be set in various places on the American east and west coast. Those familiar with the city might recognize the concert venue in the opening scenes as the Internationales Congress Centrum, a futuristic-looking conference centre located in the borough of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf.
4	* TheCastShowoff: Creator/VladekSheybal as Mr. Boogaloo gets a quick moment where he speaks in English, French, Italian and German to a multinational group of reporters, demonstrating both his devilish command of languages and total control of BIM's public image. (This wasn't even all of the tongues Sheybal was fluent in, since he was also a native Polish speaker.)
5	* CreatorBacklash:
6	** A minor case. While Coby and Iris Recht, who wrote all the film's music and songs along with the original storyline, didn't ''completely'' hate the end result, it was pretty far removed from what they originally intended. The duo only had a very limited grasp of English, and so didn't realize just what bizarre directions Golan was taking the film in until they saw an assembly cut.
7	** Golan himself was nearly DrivenToSuicide by the scathing reaction the film received at the premiere -- where the audience was given free soundtrack albums, and reportedly ''threw them at the screen'' at the end of the film.
8	** Grace Kennedy's official website doesn't mention it.[[note]]She's a wedding planner as of November 2020[[/note]] It ''does'' mention she appeared on ''Series/MagnumPI''[[note]](the season 6 premiere "Deja Vu" which saw Magnum and Higgins go to England with CaliforniaDoubling averted)[[/note]] and that she had her own series on Creator/TheBBC in UsefulNotes/TheEighties.)
9	* CreatorKiller: Cannon Records didn't release any other albums besides this soundtrack album.
10	* CutSong: The film was originally to open with a song, "[[https://youtu.be/EoPRseDaevs Creation]]", sung by Topps and set in the Garden of Eden where Alphie was created. The sequence helps the film's ending make a lot more sense, as in the finished film, Topps only shows up in the final scene and creates a literal DeusExMachina. While the song was filmed, it was cut due to the disastrous nature of the shoot which included multiple injuries and a set so small none of the choreography worked.
11	* MarketBasedTitle: Released in Britain as ''Star Rock''.
12	* NonSingingVoice: Catherine Mary Stewart auditioned to be one of the dancers, but Coby Recht immediately saw her in the line up and insisted to Golan that she was perfect for Bibi. Unfortunately, Recht discovered Stewart was unable to actually sing, and he lied to get her hired anyway. Eventually, Golan learned the truth and while Stewart worked with a vocal coach who thought she was capable of taking the part, the producers ended up deciding to fly out professional singer Mary Hylan to sing all of Bibi's songs, which Stewart would later lip sync to during filming.
13	* StarDerailingRole:
14	** A minor example with Creator/CatherineMaryStewart -- she was supposed to be established as a future major star with this film, but because of its failure she never really achieved the level of stardom that the filmmakers had expected. While she eventually managed to get her career back on track with supporting roles in films like ''Film/TheLastStarfighter'' and ''Film/WeekendAtBernies'', her success was short-lived, although she is still well-regarded as a character actress in film and television.
15	** Creator/VladekSheybal, meanwhile, had previously amassed esteem as a character actor (notably with a role in the Franchise/JamesBond film ''Film/FromRussiaWithLove''), but never had a role in a major film again – besides a minor part in ''Film/RedDawn1984'' – before his death in 1992.
16	* TroubledProduction: On top of already being a production by Menahem Golan, who was notorious for treating directors, actors and crew badly if he was displeased, the shoot was acknowledged by most as [[https://www.slashfilm.com/542502/the-apple-oral-history/ being an absolute nightmare]], again due to Golan's influences and judgment.
17	** Most of the film's tonal problems and weaker elements -- the "action", the corny humor, the ending -- were the result of Golan tinkering with the script. The literal DeusExMachina of Mr. Topps ascending back to Heaven in a limo with his followers provoked Coby Recht and Iris Yohvat to cede all creative control on the project and go home.
18	--->'''Coby:''' Menahem knew that I hated it. I couldn't agree with it, you know, [in] a million years.\
19	'''Iris:''' The ending, that was horrible for me. I mean, God walking up in the air in the sky with this Rolls Royce and all those things? What kind of an ending is that? What kind of a solution is that? I mean, I couldn't understand it. That was too much for me; that really broke me.\
20	'''Coby:''' Finally I said to Menahem, "Listen, I'm going back to Israel. I'll get you whatever you want, but this is too much, you know?"
21	** The film suffered severe budgeting issues, being initially projected at $4 million but reputedly shooting to 10 by the time production wrapped. Due to Golan's tendency towards creative accounting (a Cannon staple, where movies were reported as costing much more or less than the reality), even the ''reported'' cost might not have been accurate.
22	** Despite being perfect for what Recht had envisioned for Bibi, Catherine Mary Stewart couldn't sing (or at least not as well as the rest of the cast), so Coby lied and claimed to Menahem, sight unseen, that she was fantastic. (Golan found out eventually, and flew Mary Hylan from Los Angeles to dub her.) Stewart later nearly missed shooting one morning after misreading a call sheet, causing Golan to scream at her in the makeup room for her irresponsible behavior.
23	** The "Paradise Day" sequence set in prehistoric Earth (introducing Mr. Topps, and centered around the creation of Alpha and Bibi) featured over a dozen scaled dinosaurs, and which Golan claimed cost a million on its own. Filming it was fraught with difficulty: one of the tigers got loose on the set, and the dinosaurs kept falling over. Eventually, after Golan agreed that it didn't work, it was scrapped; no footage or set photos have ever surfaced.
24	** Dov Hoening, a legendary editor and frequent Golan collaborator, was known for his stubbornness, which -- given that Golan was just as stubborn, if not moreso -- had already let to many arguments and fights between the two; on ''The Apple'', this escalated to actual ''physical'' fights. One day, Hoening was suddenly gone, and the explanation Golan gave Recht was that Dov had said a shot was out of focus (and would have to be done again), so Golan simply fired him instead. Coby and Iris were especially saddened by this, as Dov seemed to be the only one on set who'd understood what they'd originally set out to do. Alain Jakubowicz, Hoening's replacement, was optimistic about the opportunity, but mentioned that Menahem would always be on his case about removing anything, even though there was a million feet of film from over six cameras (which amounted to over ''3 hours'' of footage).
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Context Trivia / TheApple