Trivia / Streets of Fire

• Box Office Bomb: Budget, $14.5 million. Box office, $8,089,290. It's become a bit of a cult film since then, particularly in Japan.
• Breakaway Pop Hit:
  • "I Can Dream About You", "Nowhere Fast", "Tonight Is What It Means To Be Young."
  • "Never be You" would later become a #1 hit for country singer Roseanne Cash in 1985, who recorded a version for the movie that was turned down.
  • "Sorcerer" would later become a #21 hit for Stevie Nicks, who wrote the song for the movie, on the adult contemporary charts in 2001.
• Cast the Expert: Apart from Diane Lane, the other members of the Attackers are played by the male members of the Boston new wave band Face to Face, who also perform the instruments on the soundtrack. Face to Face's actual lead singer Laurie Sargent doesn't appear in the film, but she provides Lane's singing voice on several songs.
• Completely Different Title:
  • Hungary: If the Bomber Comes
  • Taiwan: Ruthless Assassin
  • Turkey: Gorgeous Duo
• Creator Backlash: Rick Moranis hated his performance as Billy Fish because he was banned from ad-libbing by director Walter Hill.
• Creator Killer: Co-writer Larry Gross was very upset by the film bombing at the box office, and the film led to his cinematic career getting hooked off the stage until 1990.
• Cut Song: Bruce Springsteen's "Streets of Fire" was used in the original ending sequence, but negotiations for the rights dragged out for too long and the ending was reshot with a replacement.
• Dueling Works: Universal execs had rather high hopes for this film... until they've realised it will be facing against Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. Predictably, Streets... have been swept out without much fanfare, while Star Trek just during the first week earned back its budget.
• Hostility on the Set: Michael Pare hated Rick Moranis. Hilariously, the shrimpy Moranis would mock the hunky Pare mercilessly on set, and Pare didn't have the quick wit to defend himself.
• Missing Trailer Scene: The trailer had Ellen saying "You gonna stay for the show? It's really good," and a different take of Raven saying "I want Tom Cody!'; the latter is notable as it appeared to be in his hideout that, in the film, was burnt down.
• Playing Against Type: Rick Moranis as Billy Fish, Ellen's surly manager. He isn't a tough guy, but he's got way more spunk than Moranis' other roles.
• Production Posse: Deborah Van Valkenburgh and Lynne Thigpen both had roles in Walter Hill's previous film The Warriors.
• Referenced by...:
  • According to the creators, the film was a direct influence to the first Final Fight game. The most obvious are main characters who share a name (Cody), Raven's clothes being pretty similar to generic mook Bret's, and the kidnappping plot.
  • Word of God has confirmed that the phantom band the Disasters in City of Devils are a shout-out to both the Bombers and the Blasters in this movie. (Hell, there's even a member named Raven.)
  • The first episode of Bubblegum Crisis is heavily inspired by Streets of Fire. Priss and the Replicants song "Kon'ya wa Hurricane" is heavily based on Ellen Aim and the Attackers' "Nowhere Fast", sharing the first 7 or 8 bars. The song title itself is similar to the Japanese version of "Tonight Is What It Means To Be Young", "Kon'ya wa Angel".
  • Zillion: Burning Night is heavily based on the film.
• Star-Derailing Role: The film almost completely killed Diane Lane's career, especially since it was directly followed by The Cotton Club - for both of which she's been collectively nominated for a Razzie. She spent the next decade recovering from it, and another few years on regaining momentum.
• Stillborn Franchise: Walter Hill wanted to make a trilogy of films about Tom Cody, but the film flopped and those plans went unfulfilled.
• Troubled Production:
  • Production went significantly overbudget and overschedule (a tent built to allow day-for-night shooting cost $1.2 million to build, and it took 4 weeks to shoot the sledgehammer fight between Cody and Raven), the negotiations for music rights held up production several times, most notably with Bruce Springsteen's "Streets of Fire", which was used in the original ending sequence. Springsteen and the producers were not able to come to an agreement in time for the film's release, which required the ending to be reshot at the cost of a million dollars. Walter Hill was not used to filming musical numbers, and had serious trouble shooting them within the time and budget given.
  • There was also issues with Michael Paré, the film's lead, being inexperienced with large productions and overwhelmed by the demands put on him. Paré and Rick Moranis didn't get along during filming, as he didn't take well to Moranis heckling him. Co-writer Larry Gross later regarded Paré's performance as one of the weakest parts of the film and a large reason why it failed, and Walter Hill would never work with him again.
• Underage Casting: Ellen Aim was written as a 28-year-old woman and Diane Lane read for the part when she was 18.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The second draft of the screenplay has two different songs, more dialogue and backstory supplied by Reva Cody, and a different sledgehammer fight.
  • According to the book Disneywar, the producer of the movie, Lawrence Gordon, pitched Hill's screenplay to Paramount, who distributed 48 Hrs.. When the idea was rejected, it and Gordon, Silver, and Hill's next movie Brewster's Millions (1985) went to Universal. An added side effect of this move, however, came when Paramount executive Jeffrey Katzenberg discussed the movies with Gordon. Katzenberg turned this knowledge over to his boss Michael Eisner, who promptly ended all speaking terms with Gordon for the next 2 years.
  • Tom Cruise was the first pick for Tom Cody, but he took a role in another film before the producers could come to a deal with him. Eric Roberts and Patrick Swayze were also seen. Likewise with Daryl Hannah, who was the first pick for Ellen Aim, but took a role in a different film instead.
  • The part of McCoy was originally written to be a Hispanic male named Mendez with Edward James Olmos being considered to play the part.
  • The original climactic fight scene had Tom Cody pull out a knife and kill Raven with it, which Hill included to show that Cody was prepared to win by any means necessary, but it was cut so the movie could get a lower rating.
• Writing by the Seat of Your Pants: A double case; Originally, the ending sequence had Diane Lane singing Bruce Springsteen's "Streets of Fire" - this was actually filmed. However, just before production finished, Universal admitted they wouldn't get the rights to the song by the release date. Hill then asked Steinman to write a replacement; he wrote "Tonight Is What It Means to be Young" in two days. Hill wrote and shot the new ending in the few days remaining.

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