Trivia / Early Man

• Actor Allusion:
  • Once again, Tom Hiddleston plays an opulent, puffed-up villainous overlord with a penchant for theatrics and conquest.
  • In the Japanese dub, it's not the first time we hear Yūki Kaji (Dug) voicing a character playing soccer.
• All-Star Cast: Curiously enough and for a movie like this, the Japanese dub has a quite stellar voice cast of many regular Anime voice actors, such as Yūki Kaji (Dug), Miyuki Sawashiro (Goona), Hōchū Ōtsuka (Lord Nooth), Keiko Toda (Queen Oofeefa), Kōichi Yamadera (Brian and Bryan), Jun'ichi Suwabe (Jurgend), Kenyuu Horiuchi (The Message Bird and The Doll Maker), plus many others.
• Box Office Bomb: The film has only grossed about $54 million worldwide on a $50 million budget.
• Channel Hop: Minor example regarding US distribution; Lionsgate handled distribution for this film, like they did for Shaun the Sheep Movie, but this one was specifically released under their Summit Entertainment label.
• DVD Commentary: By director Nick Park and editor Sim Evan Jones. Only included on the UK DVD and Blu-Ray release.
• Enforced Method Acting: During the recording of the scene where Lord Nooth is being massaged by Hognob, Thomas Hiddleston was being massaged himself in order to make it more authentic.^note A similar thing happened back in the 90s when Jonathan Taylor Thomas was recording young Simba in The Lion King (1994) where his back was patted during the recording of the scene where Simba slides down a skeleton when escaping the hyenas.
• Screwed by the Network: The film got this treatment in the United Kingdom and the United States due to it opening up against highly-anticipated releases. In the UK, it opened against Coco, and in the United States, it opened against Black Panther, which had the biggest winter opening weekend for a film of all time.
• What Could Have Been: Had they not broken off their five-picture deal early, this would have been the fourth collaboration between Aardman and Dreamworks Animation after Flushed Away and would have been about the discovery of fire. Instead, both parties broke off and did their own cave man movies, with DreamWorks doing The Croods and Aardman doing this film.
• Write What You Know: Many of the gags, such as Dug picking up the soccer ball and throwing it when it lands at his feet, were based on Nick Park's own shortcomings when playing soccer as a child.

---