Cobra - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts

[discussimdb]

Fan of Cobra or just want to share your movie knowledge? This topic is dedicated to all trivia and questions related to Cobra

[sophie]

In the diner scene where Cobretti brings over the fake hamburger to Ingrid, there is an oval frame on the wall that says "King Cobra" - a brand of beer.

[sandra]

Much of Nightslasher's attack on Ingrid in the hospital scene was cut for pacing and content. The deaths of the janitor and nurse were originally shown onscreen, and Nightslasher was also meant to kill the police officer guarding Ingrid. Two later scenes - Cobretti and Gonzales taking Ingrid out of the hospital, and Cobretti talking with Monte - originally included mentions of the officer's death. These were cut to avoid continuity errors, but as a result the editing in both scenes is choppy.

[janice]

Santiago Segura has claimed that this movie was the inspiration for his well-known character Jose Luis Torrente, main star of Torrente, el brazo tonto de la ley (1998) and sequels, that he conceived as a parody of the 80s action movies. In fact, the title is a spoof of Stallone's movie, since then in Spain Cobra was titled as "Cobra, el brazo fuerte de la ley" (Cobra, the strong arm of the law).

[russell]

The submachine gun used by Marion Cobretti in the final showdown with biker gang is a Jati-Matic. The Jati-Matic first appeared in the early 1980s, but was never adopted by any country for use. It re-appeared in Finland in the mid-1990s as the GG-95 Personal Defense Weapon made by the Golden Gun Company. The gun is chambered in 9x19 parabellum, has a cyclic rate of 600 rounds per minute, and has various accessories that were offered, such as a silencer, various capacity magazines, and a laser pointing device.

[chris]

For her death scene, Lee Garglington actually rehearsed with a stunt person for 45 Minutes prior to shooting the scene with Sylvester Stallone. When Stallone and his entourage showed up, she asked him if they could rehearse the scene a couple of times since she was a "big girl" at the time in which Stallone was "do your best". Garglington would jump on Stallone twice knocking him down both times and looking a bit embarrassed with no reaction from the cast or crew. She does it a third time with Stallone staggering as she's on top of him. He breaks out into laughter along with the crew and decides to rehearse the scene with her.

[lonnie]

In the original script, Nightslasher was called Abaddon.

[violet]

Director Nicolas Winding Refn is a huge fan of Cobra. In Refn's cult movie Drive (2011), the main character has a toothpick in his mouth in some scenes. This is Refn's homage to the opening scene of Cobra where Cobretti has a matchstick in his mouth.

[elmer]

Originally, the motorcycle chase scene in the ending was to be filmed in Seattle during the night on a ferry between the islands. Even though everything was prepared to start filming the scene at night, Sylvester Stallone ordered for the ending to be changed and to happen during the day because of the mosquito problem at that time which would have made night-time filming very difficult to endure.

[chad]

Some of the cuts made to avoid an X-rating include: the first murder victim having her hands severed; an extended autopsy scene, including lingering shots of naked and mutilated bodies; a longer death for Ingrid's photographer Dan, including a shot of him slipping on his own blood while trying to escape; more deaths of the townspeople during the climax, including a person getting hit in the face with an ax.

[lynn]

When Sylvester Stallone was not on set, George P. Cosmatos acted like a tyrannical person to the cast and crew which rubbed many people the wrong way including Brian Thompson, who Cosmatos said to him "If you had listened to me, you would've had a better performance" which he didn't take too kindly to. Thompson referred to him as a "pale chain smoker".

[jeffrey]

Director George P. Costmatos would get upset to the point of explosion on set when he was not getting a particular performance. Marco Rodriguez was one such victim when he was only doing what Cosmatos asked of him through his broken English. Rodriguez would counter that he was "only doing what he asked of him."

[sandra]

The 'Chase' music by Sylvester Levay would go on to be used in several trailers (mainly from Cannon), notably in the trailer for Bloodsport (1988).

[kenneth]

The movie is filled with over-the-top 1980s product placement. 1. Pepsi machine and Coors display and can in first shoot-out. 2. Giant Pepsi sign beside Stallone's apartment. 3. Toys R Us commercial which Cobra watches on television. 4. Pepsi sign lit up at night outside Cobra's apartment - background for fight scene. 5. Coors California sign in store window. 6. Coca-Cola machine outside store with character drinking can of Coke. 7. Bar scene with Miller High-Life sign in background.

[michele]

To get the glint reflection of the Night Stalkers' specialized killing knife, the production had to build a 3 foot knife so they could actually get the reflection effect that they wanted. Brian Thompson was quite surprised by it and said the knife was actually made of plastic and some reflective material to get the shot.

[kyle]

The official soundtrack release includes a track called "Skyline" which is not heard anywhere in the movie. This is because scenes in which this track was used were cut out from the movie during re-editing. Originally there was a scene in which Cobretti is sitting in his home, looking at a sunset (there is a similar scene in the beginning of theatrical version in which he is cleaning up his gun and then looks at streets outside of his house) and soon, right after Nightslasher and his gang members killed the second victim and cops show up at the scene, Cobretti gets the call from his police chief or somebody else to go and meet with them and it is in this scene where the "Skyline" track is heard. "Skyline" was also originally used in some other scenes including the ending but from some reason it was removed and replaced with the song "Voice Of America's Sons" by John Cafferty.

[lonnie]

The movie was based on a novel "Fair Game" by Paula Gosling. In 1995, William Baldwin and Cindy Crawford made Fair Game, which was based on the same novel by Gosling. Just like Cobra, Fair Game was re-edited by Warner Bros. in post production, but in Fair Game's case it was due to the test audience disliking the original cut.

[dustin]

The final shooting script for the film was 103 pages sans rewrites and additional dialog and material added.

[marc]

Released in Germany under the title "Die City-Cobra" to take advantage of the release of Raw Deal (starring Arnold Schwarzenegger) the same year, which was released under the title "Der City Hai".

[ethel]

In the original rough cut the car chase scene between Cobra and Nightslasher was longer and ended differently. While in the theatrical version Nightslasher shoots at Cobra's car and causes him to crash into the boat, in the original version Nightslasher and his driver crash into the boat first, and Cobra fails to stop his car and crashes into them. The shot of Nightslasher's car and him sighing in relief was re-purposed from an earlier part of the chase and the shot of Cobra seeing the boat before he crashes into it was actually taken from Nightslasher's car crash. However if you watch the theatrical version of this scene closely you can still see Nightslasher's crashed car right when Cobra's car crashes into the boat.