Trivia / Vanilla Sky

• Budget-Busting Element: It spent $1 million of its $68 million budget renting out all of Times Square to film a short-but-symbolic scene where David dreams about the bustling city being completely empty.
• Creator-Preferred Adaptation: Not exactly, but this is probably one of the most amicable examples of a Hollywood remake of a foreign film in living memory. Alejandro Amenábar was delighted when he discovered that Cruise and Crowe wanted to remake Abre Los Ojos, and has stated that he considers the remake a worthy successor to the source film, comparing the two films to two brothers who have similar attitudes but different tastes. Crowe, for his part, directed the film in large part because he liked the original so much, and stated that he wants people to see both versions of the film.
• Playing Against Type: Kurt Russell as David's psychiatrist. He has mentioned taking the role deliberately for this reason.
• Production Posse: Cameron Crowe saw the movie as an opportunity to immediately bring back the crew from Almost Famous, including wife Nancy Wilson as the composer, the same editors and cinematographer, actors Jason Lee and Noah Taylor, and cameos by Mark Kozelek and John Fedevich (the bassist and drummer of Stillwater).
• Role Reprise: Penelope Cruz has the exact same role she had in Abre Los Ojos (thus making it more this than Remake Cameo).
• Romance on the Set: Tom Cruise and Penélope Cruz started dating after working together in this movie. Although it is said that one of the main reasons why Cruise wanted to make the remake in the first place (apart from because he really liked the original Spanish movie) it's because he got infatuated with Cruz after watching Open Your Eyes.
• Throw It In!:
  • The line "I'll tell you in another life, when we are both cats" was something Penelope Cruz said to Cameron Crowe in a moment of frustration. He loved it so much he made it a key part of the movie.
  • A sticker on David's car has the date "2/30/01" on it. Of course, February never has thirty days. According to Cameron Crowe this was a genuine mistake by the prop department and nobody noticed it until after the film's release, but he also said he likes how it works with the film's overall dreamlike quality.
  • The Cameo of Steven Spielberg was not planned. Spielberg had come to the set to speak with Tom Cruise about their then upcoming project Minority Report, and was standing off camera while the shooting was taking place. Crowe noticed how Spielberg was watching the scene and quietly told Spielberg to "get in there", and his dialogue was improvised. As a result, Spielberg paid Crowe back by featuring him in Minority Report as the man in the metro who notices Anderton (and Cruise' co-star Cameron Diaz from Vanilla Sky also appears in the scene in front of Cameron).

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