Apocalypse Now
Apocalypse Now trivia picture

Trivia: The man shooting the movie during the attack on the beach who says "Don't look at the camera" is actually director Francis Ford Coppola. (00:25:38)

Trivia: Harvey Keitel was originally cast as Captain Willard. Two weeks into filming, director Francis Ford Coppola felt Keitel wasn't taking the role seriously enough, so he fired him and reshot scenes with Martin Sheen as his replacement.

Trivia: This film took so long to make critics jokingly dubbed it "Apocalypse Later", or "Apocalypse Never."

Trivia: Martin Sheen suffered a heart attack while filming in 1976. Sheen's brother, Joe Estevez, doubled in, as well as providing Willard's voice-over narrations.

Trivia: Principal photography took 274 days. This is the same amount of time it took Peter Jackson to complete filming for all three "Lord of the Rings" films.

Trivia: Marlon Brando (Colonel Walter E. Kurtz) showed up to the set 50 pounds overweight and admitted that he had not even read the script yet. Brando demanded that he be shot only in shadow and that his scenes be almost entirely improvised. He said he did this because he didn't want to work as hard. Francis Ford Coppola has not worked with Brando (who has a notorious reputation for being a difficult actor to work with) since then.

Trivia: The scene where Colonel Kilgore offers his canteen to the wounded Vietcong is based on a real incident. The army officer really did say, "Any man brave enough to fight with his guts strapped to him can drink from my canteen any day". (From Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse).

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Trivia: Martin Sheen actually was intoxicated when he filmed the scene where Willard is drunk in his hotel room. He punched the mirror, which was real glass, and actually did cut his hand, as shown in the film. (00:07:10)

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Trivia: Robert Duvall received a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for his role as Colonel "Bill" Kilgore, even though he only had 11 minutes of screen time.

Trivia: Although Marlon Brando received top billing, he doesn't appear until two and a half hours into the film and has only 15 minutes of screen time.

Trivia: Francis Ford Coppola threatened suicide several times during the making of the film.

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Trivia: Francis Ford Coppola shot nearly 200 hours of footage.

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Trivia: Francis Ford Coppola lost 100 pounds while filming.

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Trivia: Marlon Brando was giving director Francis Ford Coppola so much trouble towards the end of filming, that he actually left the filming of the final scene, where Sheen and Brando improvised the final moments without direction.

Cincydog

Apocalypse Now mistake picture

Revealing mistake: In the major helicopter scene when Ride of the Valkyries is played, the actual tape isn't going over the playing heads. (00:37:29)

More mistakes in Apocalypse Now

Willard: Hey soldier, do you know who's in command here?
Soldier: Ain't you?

More quotes from Apocalypse Now

Question: Would anyone happen to know what song is playing in the background on the radio beside the intelligence officer sitting at the bar when Martin Sheen enters the Generals trailer and is being interviewed by Harrison Ford for the first time?

Answer: It's not any specific song; it's just the kind of generic piano music you'd hear at dinner at a high-class restaurant of the era. Think of scenes in movies, films, etc. set or made in the '50s and '60s, where the characters go to a nice dinner and there's someone at the piano playing unobtrusive music to accompany the food/conversation.

More questions & answers from Apocalypse Now

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