Trivia / Tucker: The Man and His Dream

• Acclaimed Flop: It was a Box Office Bomb, but was still acclaimed.
• Box Office Bomb: Budgeted $24 million, and only grossed $19.7 million.
• California Doubling: San Francisco’s City Hall fills in as the exterior of the courtroom where the climactic trial takes place. The courtyard with black and gold gates is Memorial Court on Franklin Street.
• Development Hell: Francis Ford Coppola's father owned a Tucker, which inspired him to make a film about it as early as 1973, only being made in 1986 when George Lucas, whose father also owned a Tucker, became involved. See What Could Have Been below.
• Font Anachronism: Type is used quite well and true here. One hiccup is the Machine and Tool sign, featuring Helvetica, which wouldn't have been used in such a manner in the 1940s. That, and Helvetica itself was created in 1957.
• In Memoriam: The film is dedicated to Francis Ford Coppola's eldest son Gino, who was killed in a boating accident before filming began.
• Mid-Development Genre Shift: Francis Ford Coppola envisioned it in 1973 as a musical starring Marlon Brando before American Zeotrope collapsed.
• Reality Subtext: It is hard not to see the film, a story about a plucky upstart who wants to revolutionize an American industry by doing things differently, but ending up failing as the system he attempts to fight just proves too strong in the end, as not also being Coppola's commentary on his own ambitious film venture with his Zeotrope company and its eventual failure.
• The Red Stapler: The film produced a spike in prices of Tucker Sedans, as well as a renewed appreciation for Tucker and his automobiles.
• What Could Have Been: Coppola met with Burt Reynolds about playing Preston Tucker, stating how much he resembled the young Tucker in real life. Unfortunately delays due to story development and logistics as well as commitments to other projects, the film was not made until 1988, by which time Reynolds was too old to play the part. Jack Nicholson was also offered the role.

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