Wonder Boys

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Wonder Boys Trivia

All key scenes feature either one of the many actual bridges of Pittsburgh or a depiction (painting, photo, billboard, etc) of a bridge in the background. In the DVD extras, director Curtis Hanson says this is meant to represent the fact that so many of the film's characters are at a point in their lives at which they have to make pivotal decisions about which way to go from then on.
Many of the film's scenes were filmed at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.
The term 'Wonder Boys', a derivative of the German 'wunderkind', refers to someone who has greatly succeeded in their profession or art at an early age. In the movie, Grady applies the term "Wonder Boy" to James specifically. During the DVD extras, director Curtis Hanson also applies it to Grady, though not in an entirely flattering way, since in Grady's case, the term refers to his early literary promise on which he has failed to deliver. In Michael Chabon's novel "Wonder Boys" (upon which this movie is based), the term also doubles as the title of Grady's giant unfinished manuscript, and "Wonder" is the last name of the brothers who are the main characters in that book.
Filmed in sequence.
James Ellroy, author of the novel L.A. Confidential ('Hanson, Curtis''s previous film), is an extra at the party in the home of the head of the English Department.
The list of famous suicides is taken name-for-name from a list in Kenneth Anger's "Hollywood Babylon II", including the notorious Alan Ladd reference.
At the party, James talks about the actor George Sanders's suicide. Later, George Sanders is on the television in a scene for The Picture of Dorian Gray.
In between shots at the house in Beaver, PA, Michael Douglas could be seen hitting golf balls into the Ohio River.
When Grady returns to his house to find Terry (Robert Downey Jr.) throwing a party, the song playing as he enters the house is "Waiting for the Miracle," by 'Leonard Cohen'. This same song plays over the opening credits of Natural Born Killers, also starring Downey.
Books on James Leer's desk include Albert Camus's "The Plague", Truman Capote's "Answered Prayers", and Kenneth Anger's infamous "Hollywood Babylon".
The exterior of the sports shop is actually a local bowling alley; the same bowling alley that appears in the beginning of the film Kingpin.
In the theatrical version James Leer included Alan Ladd's death in his list of celebrity suicides. After complaints from Ladd's family, Paramount removed the offending line in all future releases of the film, including home video. Because of this, VHS and DVD releases carry a disclaimer, shown before the feature, warning that the film has been edited for content.
Bearing in mind the film's interest in Marilyn Monroe, the character of Miss Antonia Sloviak - a tuba-playing transvestite - may be a nod to Monroe's film Some Like It Hot, in which two men disguise themselves as women and pose as members of an all-female band. (One of the men was played by Tony Curtis, which may have been the inspiration for Antonia's real name Tony.)
James mentions his parents live in the town of Carvel. Carvel is the name of the fictional town where Andy Hardy and his family lived in the series of Andy Hardy films from the 1930s and 1940s. While James is watching TV at Emily's house, he stops for a minute on Babes in Arms, which (though not an Andy Hardy film) stars Mickey Rooney, who played Andy Hardy in 16 movies, and Judy Garland, who appeared with Rooney in many of them.
The film was originally released in February of 2000 to almost universal praise (especially for the performance of Michael Douglas) but with very little fanfare. Paramount, the film's distributor, decided to re-release the film that November with a different marketing campaign that highlighted its strong supporting cast, and hopes that it would garner some Oscar nominations, despite Paramount Vice Chairman Rob Friedman's acknowledgment that no studio had ever successfully re-released a picture that initially flopped.
James Leer's description of heaven as a greenhouse is a reference to the houses in Zardoz, which features a Utopian society who wore white and lived in crystal houses.
Tobey Maguire and Robert Downey Jr play lovers in this film; both of them would later play lead Marvel superheros in Spider-Man and Iron Man, respectively.
When James names some of the movie suicides, he mentions Carole Landis taking pills, only he forgot when. Carole Landis took her own life on 5 July 1948 in the Pacific Palisades in California.
The first sentence of the manuscript that Grady Tripp pulls from James Lear's knapsack in the auditorium is actually the opening of the novel "The Mysteries of Pittsburgh" by Michael Chabon.
The combination to the locked closet with the Monroe jacket is 5641. 56 games is the record number of consecutive games that 'Joe Dimaggio' recorded a hit and 41 is the year in which he accomplished it.
SPOILER: Although in the film, Grady allows Oola to keep the jacket, in the Michael Chabon novel upon which this movie is based, Grady returns it to Walter, and then when Grady and Sara get married, she wears the jacket (just as Marilyn Monroe did for her marriage to Joe DiMaggio).