Trivia / Q: The Winged Serpent

• California Doubling: Almost every scene was shot on location in New York and at the Chrysler Building, with the exception of the scenes with the nest; The attic was too small to do any filming in, so they had to film the scenes at a different abandoned building, formerly a police station. According to director Larry Cohen, they left the nest materials behind, which caused a flurry later on when explorers came across it and thought it was a real one.
• The Cast Showoff: In the original script, the character of Jimmy wasn't a piano player. However, when director Larry Cohen found out that the character's actor, Michael Moriarty, was an accomplished jazz pianist on the side, he rewrote the character to change him into a struggling musician. For the opening scene at the bar, Michael wrote a complicated composition that he didn't rehearse so that he could play it badly.
  • The window cleaning character who gets killed in the opening scene was played by William Pilch, who was an actual window cleaner for the Empire State Building at the time.
  • The officers at the top of the building during the finale are played by steeplejacks who worked at the Chrysler building and were familiar with the upper layouts.
• Money, Dear Boy: Reportedly the reason David Carradine agreed to sign on. He barely even knew what the movie was about before the first day of filming.
• Throw It In!: According to Michael Moriarty, the shot of the dog growling while laying down in the bar scene was an actual response from the dog to Moriarty's annoying music.
• What Could Have Been: At least one sequel was planned, but the movie bombing at the box office ended any possibility of that coming to fruition.
  • Bruce Willis was originally considered for the role of Shepard, but Larry Cohen was worried that he wasn't bankable enough of a name at the time to bring in viewers. James Coburn and Yapphet Kotto were also originally signed on, but dropped out at points.
  • Eddie Murphy was considered for the role of Jimmy.