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TRIVIA - How Ishtar left it's mark
• In 1985, while the Ishtar script was still in development, Elaine May was using the working title 'Blind Camel'.
• Ishtar was the number one box office attraction in many countries during it's first week in theatres, only to be usurped by Eddie Murphy's "Beverly Hills Cop II" sequel. In fact, here's a short, approximate world-wide box office break down:
Africa $6 million
Asia $18 million
Europe $21 million
Latin American $12 million
North America $14 million
• In one of Gary Larson's much-loved 'The Far Side' comic panels, captioned "Hell's Video Store", the entire store is stocked with nothing but copies of the movie Ishtar. Larson later apologized in one of his printed anthologies, stating "When I drew the above cartoon, I had not actually seen Ishtar.... Years later, I saw it on an airplane, & was stunned at what was happening to me: I was actually being entertained. Sure, maybe it's not the greatest film ever made, but my cartoon was way off the mark. There are so many cartoons for which I should probably write an apology, but this is the only one which compels me to do so."
• As an homage to both the movie & defunct home video format, an amateur softball team based out of Chicago, Illinois, named itself "Ishtar On Beta". The team began in 1992 & were still together 15 years later, though most of it's players may now be too young to get the joke.
• Some filmmakers suspect that the automatic language rule makes no contribution to the country's moral health & are challenging it in their scripts. When Dustin Hoffman & Warren Beatty finally best the bad guys in Ishtar, Hoffman shouts at them, "F*** you." Beatty was also supposed to shout, but rumor has it that for his whole career Beatty has wanted to say "f***" two times in a movie without getting an 'R' rating. So, to the bad guys in Ishtar he said "F*** you twice" & got away with it.
• Connections to the movie 'The Graduate' beyond Mr. Hoffman's obvious participation, include: The Grad was directed and co-produced by Elaine May's comic bud Mike Nichols, and additional scoring by Dave Grusin.
• ON TV:
- In "The New Adventures of Casper: The Friendly Ghost", Ishtar is shown in the Hell's theater continuously as a torture method. - In "Growing Pains", Jason & Carol had plans to spend a romantic evening together, but Carol got stuck covering some big even in her job as a television news reporter. Unfortunately, that event got rained out, & the whole family was left watching Ishtar, being run in its place. - In "The Animaniacs", a video copy of Ishtar is used as a weapon, an exploding 'bomb'. - In the "Red Dwarf" episode Timeslides, Lister suggests travelling back in time in order to prevent Dustin Hoffman from making the film. - In "Everybody Hates Chris", a scene shows people running out a cinema in despair. The cinema was playing a fictitious continuation for Ishtar, called Ishtar 2.
• At several points in Ishtar, Hoffman's character references Simon & Garfunkel as a benchmark for musical success. Simon & Garfunkel contributed six songs to the soundtrack of "The Graduate" (1967), "The Sound Of Silence", "Mrs. Robinson", "April Come She Will", "The Big Bright Green Pleasure Machine", "Mrs. Robinson" & "Scarborough Fair/Canticle", in which Hoffman made his breakthrough performance. AND, Paul Simon contributed EXCLUSIVE music to Warren Beatty's movie "Shampoo" (1975), particularly a version of "Silent Eyes", as well as Simon & Garfunkel's "Feeling Groovy".
• The brown helicopter used to attack Hoffman & Beatty at the end of the film is a Bell 222 (called a "Bell Gunship" by Grodin's character Jim Harrison), with cannons & rockets mounted on its landing gear side "wings." This same series of helicopter was used in the tv show Airwolf. The other helicopter (white) was a German MBB BO 105.
• The home video of Ishtar in the UK had 2 slightly different releases. Due to their ratings systems, 8 seconds was cut from the movie in the original 1987 VHS release, but were re-instated in the 2004 'UNCUT' DVD.
• Hoffman's screen father, David Marguilies, is only six months older than his screen son - both Hoffman & Marguilies were born in 1937.
• The first camel considered for the blind camel's role would not make it into the final film. By the time it's owner had been contacted for hire, the camel had been eaten.
• Footage for a music video for 'Little Darlin' was shot in New York City, directed by Gary Weis (Saturday Night Live; producer of The Rutles' 'All You Need Is Cash') & produced by Kathryn Ireland (Paul Simon, The Bangles, Foreigner, George Harrison).
• Elaine May & Charles Grodin were both born on April 21.
• OTHER 'ISHTARS' INCLUDE an Iraqi broadcasting company, lead singer of the band Alabina, a hard rock band from New Zealand, a Belgian folk group, and a big area of high land on the planet Venus!
• FOR THE NUMBER CRUNCHERS:The Top 20 Biggest U.S.-Made Worldwide-Box-Office Bombs
Courtesy of www.the-numbers.com (see the full & most current list here), as of July 29, 2008:
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