Trivia / Condorman

• Box Office Bomb: Budget, $14 million. Box office, $2.5 million (rentals).
• Creator Killer: This film's middling reception, along with The Last Flight of Noah's Ark getting a similar reception, sent director Charles Jarrott back to Canada for 5 years, and he only made one more theatrically released film, The Boy In Blue, which tanked, before sticking with television, plus he never got involved with Disney again. This was also one of the films that helped lead to the 1984 management shift that saw Disney CEO Ron Miller and studio chairman Tom Wilhite lose their jobs to Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg, respectively.
• Enforced Method Acting: In one scene, Barbara Carrera is terrorized by Oliver Reed. A perfectionist, Oliver felt that Barbara's acting was wooden and not fully projecting the true fear her character would be feeling at that moment. Frustrated with her, he actually opened the door of the helicopter they were in and threatened to throw her out. The fear on her face is real. Getting the shot needed, Oliver shoves her back and then relaxes with a slight smile. In anger, Barbara actually elbows him painfully, which you can see in Oliver's face. But not wishing to sour the scene, he takes the punch, though his displeasure is plain on his face. (This little fight is in the film during the escape attempt from the ski lodge.)
• Fake Nationality: Michael Crawford as an American; Barbara Carrera and Oliver Reed as Russians.
• Fatal Method Acting: Averted. During one take, when Condorman falls into the River Seine, Michael Crawford nearly drowned after the strength of the current was miscalculated. He was dragged five to ten feet under the water before two lifeguards pulled him out just in time. Crawford was willing to do the stunt again but director Charles Jarrott refused to allow it, and put a trained stuntman in his place.
• Star-Derailing Role: Michael Crawford stayed afloat with the title role in Barnum, but he wouldn't be in a movie until a voice role in Once Upon a Forest.
• Stillborn Franchise: Disney was so confident that the film would be a success, that a sequel was planned. When the movie flopped at the box office, the sequel was scrapped.
• The Other Darrin: For his brief appearance in Toy Story Toons: Small Fry, Condorman (or a kids meal toy in his likeness, at any rate) was voiced by Bob Bergen.
• What Could Have Been: After Disney's acquisition of Marvel Comics in 2009, Spider-Man editor Stephen Wacker began lobbying for Condorman to be integrated into the Marvel Universe, but it seems this idea didn't take.

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