Trivia / The Hot Rock

• Box Office Bomb: Budget - $4.895 million. Box Office - $3.5 million. Peter Yates would later say, "Nobody went to see it."
• Completely Different Title: Absurdly, the film's title was changed on its initial British release to How To Steal A Diamond in Four Uneasy Lessons, on the grounds that people might think it was a rock-music concert film like Woodstock. This was much disparaged at the time by journalists and members of the public, and the film has reverted to its slicker original American title for all its British TV showings and for its video and DVD releases in the UK.
• Creative Differences: Adam Holender was originally scheduled as the film's cinematographer, but creative differences with Peter Yates saw him replaced by camera operator Edward R. Brown just before the start of filming.
• Divorced Instalment: Writer Donald E. Westlake stated in an interview that "The Hot Rock" started out to be one of his darker Richard Stark/Parker novels, but that "it kept turning funny."

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