Trivia / Black Book

• Creator Killer: While this film was critically well received, won a good deal of awards, and was successful in The Netherlands, it didn't prevent the careers of Paul Verhoeven, producer Jeroen Beker, and writer Gerard Soeteman from taking serious damage due to its bombing. Verhoeven didn't get another proper theatrical film for ten years (Elle), and Beker and Soeteman don't have any credits at all after this film.
• The Cast Showoff: Carice Van Houten did all her own singing.
• Creative Differences: Due to the production being partially financed with British money, the original editor on the movie was British, but Paul Verhoeven fired him over creative differences. Job ter Burg and another editor were then asked to edit a sequence of the movie as a test. Ter Burg expected that Verhoeven would end up using one of his Hollywood editors, but was surprised to hear that he got the job several days later. He has been Verhoeven's steady editor ever since.
• International Co Production: A Dutch film with British financing.
• Romance on the Set: Carice Van Houten and Sebastian Koch, whose characters become romantically involved, were also in a real-life relationship for several years after the movie. Amusingly, Koch played Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg in a Made-for-TV Movie in 2004, while Carice ended up playing Stauffenberg's wife opposite Tom Cruise as Stauffenberg in Valkyrie.
• Star-Making Role: For Carice Van Houten (in the Netherlands at least, it took Game of Thrones for her to reach worldwide fame).
• Troubled Production: The movie was almost canceled in 2004 when many of the foreign companies that had promised to fund the movie had not yet paid up. Production was abruptly green-lit again in the autumn of 2005, when the 16-million-Euro budget was finally secured. This allowed the production team only a couple of months for principal photography. Because of the delay there was a lawsuit regarding Carice Van Houten, who had agreed to act in a play. When van Houten was forced to return to the set, the theater company sued over the costly delay to their own production. The outcome of the lawsuit was that the production company had to pay €60,000 for her unavailability. Paul Verhoeven's health problems also caused a delay.
• What Could Have Been: Rutger Hauer turned down the role of Gerben Kuipers.

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