When L.A. Confidential first came out in 1997, it won over audiences around the globe. It was a modest box office hit that received major critical acclaim. In fact, the movie was nominated for a whopping nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture.
In the decades since the film’s release, fans have watched it again and again in the hopes of recapturing the magic of seeing it for the first time. Does that sound a bit like you? We’ve got you covered: you’ll see L.A. Confidential with brand new eyes once you discover these crazy trivia facts that even the biggest fans don’t know!
L.A. Confidential nearly got a TV show
The fact that L.A. Confidential came out in the ‘90s means the film almost got the ultimate ‘90s treatment. You know what that means: a TV show based on the movie!
In 1999, there was a pilot for an L.A. Confidential show that starred Eric Roberts, David Conrad, Pruitt Taylor Vince, and Melissa George. Despite the stellar cast, the pilot was never picked up, meaning no TV show to continue the magic of the film. If you want to see what might have been, however, there are Blu-Ray copies of the film that include a copy of the pilot.
The original author loved the film adaptation
As great as L.A. Confidential is, it is not the most original story. We only say that because it was an adaptation of the novel written by James Ellroy. Often, authors are very critical of film adaptations of their work. However, this certainly wasn’t the case with Ellroy!
While he knew that certain cuts and changes to his own story were inevitable, Ellroy was impressed with how faithfully the movie treated his characters and, more importantly, his themes. Impressively, the author even liked the ending that deviated from his own story…despite his initial doubts, he’d later call the original ending “inspired.”
Some of the plot was based on true events
By now, you’ve probably grown a bit cynical when it comes to Hollywood claims that the events of a movie were based on true events. Honestly, we’re right there with you! That’s why we were so surprised to discover that for as crazy as the story of L.A. Confidential really is, it has more than a few gems of truth in it.
For example, in 1953 Las Angeles, a Christmas Eve police riot actually did happen. For that matter, there really was a celebrity tabloid magazine with the cutesy name Hush-Hush. And just as we see in the film, early Hollywood icon Lana Turner really did have a kind of forbidden romance with the mobster Johnny Stompanato.
Obviously, the film has quite a few fantastic and fictional elements. Next time you watch, though, watch out for all the true events threaded throughout the movie!
The budget was surprisingly low
When a movie looks as good as L.A. Confidential does and has so many great stars you’d expect it to cost a small fortune to film. At least, that’s the assumption we were making, and we were blown away by how low the budget actually was.
Overall, the movie was made on an exceedingly modest budget of $35 million. How did director Curtis Hanson keep costs so low while creating a finished product that looks so good? The short answer is that his location scouts were miracle workers, and they found enough locations with a vintage aesthetic that they only had to build one set from scratch: the iconic Victory Motel.
The director won critics over by going behind the studio’s back
Many were surprised when L.A. Confidential received so many Oscar nominations, but director Curtis Hanson wasn’t one of them. He already had a solid idea of how well the critics would receive this film. Of course, he wouldn’t have had any idea at all if not for the fact that he snuck behind the backs of Warner Bros. Executives!
Originally, the studio forbade Hanson from submitting his film to the prestigious Cannes Film Festival. Their logic was that French critics abroad would not look kindly to such a big-studio production. Hanson ignored the studio altogether and submitted the movie to Cannes, where critics instantly fell in love with it.
The film had a very surprising Oscar winner
As we noted above, L.A. Confidential was nominated for nine different Oscars. It wasn’t surprising, then, that Kim Basinger brought home the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. However, what did surprise Hollywood experts then and now was that she managed to win the award with so little screen time.
If you go back and watch the film, notice the runtime. L.A. Confidential lasts for two hours and 18 minutes, and Kim Basinger is only in it for 15 minutes. Normally, that’s not enough time to win so many critics over, but the strength of Basinger’s performance really speaks for itself.