The Avengers - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts

[nicholas]

The original release date was June 26, 1998. After poor test screenings, this movie was pushed back to August 14, 1998, and the June spot was filled in by A Perfect Murder (1998).

[clayton]

Peter Bart's book "The Gross" covered this movie's unfolding disaster in great detail. Amongst other facts: Warner Brothers greenlit this movie largely on the strength of a star-packed cast and their appreciation of Jeremiah Chechik's work on Diabolique (1996), and were horrified when seeing what the first cut was like. The first screening took place in front of a "largely Spanish-speaking, working class" audience in Phoenix, Arizona, who hated the movie. The studio then forced Chechik to cut many of his favorite scenes, and conduct re-shoots, and the final cut went from one hour and fifty-five minutes to one hour and twenty-nine minutes, and was completely incoherent. The studio even refused to hold further test screenings, or to have an official premiere before the August 1998 release.

[morris]

When Steed and Peel are chasing after two teddy bears in the Winter Wonderland headquarters, Peel decides to follow one bear up in the building, and Steed decides to follow one down. Peel says, "I'll take the high road." and Steed says, "I'll take the low road." This is a reference to the 1841 folk song "Loch Lomond".

[claude]

This movie's critical and commercial failure, along with the equally unsuccessful and equally maligned The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003), was partly responsible for Sir Sean Connery's decision to retire from the movie business.

[carla]

Utilized identical visual concept for its opening credits sequence as the film Sphere, released the same year (1998).

[lynn]

The Ministry archivist Colonel Invisible Jones was voiced by Patrick Macnee, who played the original John Steed.

[dustin]

Producer Jerry Weintraub had hopes for sequels to this movie, having spent around a decade trying to get the project green-lit.

[russell]

Aspects of this movie, including some dialogue, hail directly from the 1961 parent series. These include the MC Escher elements of Hallucinogen Hall ("The House That Jack Built"), the weather-obsessed diabolical mastermind ("A Surfeit of H20"), the tea-while-travelling sequence, and the "light" swordfight repartee ("The Town of No Return"), plus Mother's double-decker bus headquarters ("False Witness"); while the Ministry's training village was lifted from The New Avengers (1976) episode "Target!" The phrase "Mrs. Peel, you're needed!" was a feature of the fifth television season, and the trailer featured the wording "Extraordinary crimes against the people and the state must be avenged by agents extraordinary", a misquote of the U.S. narration (the passage was "have to be avenged" in the actual introduction).

[liam]

As well as Mrs. Peel, screenwriter Don MacPherson intentionally drew on elements of Cathy Gale, her predecessor on the original series, for this updating.

[alyssa]

Roger Lloyd Pack filmed scenes as a professor working on the Prospero Program during an opening sequence which was deleted from the final print. He can still be glimpsed in the trailer.

[sara]

Finnish censorship visa # 100851 delivered on 12-8-1998.