FILM 2297: SWORDFISH (2001)

TRIVIA: John Travolta and Hugh Jackman both love to sing show tunes. On set, they often sang songs from Oklahoma! and other musicals together.

The dramatic explosion at the start of the film was captured using 135 synchronized still cameras.

John Cusack and Val Kilmer were considered for the part of Stanley. Ultimately, Dominic Sena opted for Hugh Jackman, because he didn't bring too much baggage from other films with him.

Thomas Jefferson did NOT shoot a man on the White house lawn for treason, this movie is the source of that rumor.

Vinnie Jones was going to do a stunt, but John Travolta stopped him, and a stuntman did it instead. The wire broke, and the stuntman fell sixty to seventy feet onto a concrete floor, breaking his spine.

When Stanley and Agent Roberts are reviewing their past dealings, Roberts accuses Stanley of hacking into the U.S. government's Carnivore system, and Stanley claims he did it, because the government was illegally spying on U.S. citizens' e-mails. This plot line was likely considered a far-fetched notion to viewers of a movie that was released three months before the September 11, 2001 attacks, and more than a year before real-life government spying, of the kind described in the movie, was exposed.

Trailers, television commercials, and print advertisements for the film all contained "passwords" which allowed viewers to play a contest game on the film's official website. A password also appears in the closing credits.

The title is a reference to computer passwords in movies from Hackers (1995) to The Net(1995). It comes from Horse Feathers (1932), where Groucho Marx uses it to get into a speakeasy.