10 Things You Didn’t Know About Hercules (2014)
Are you ready for another blast to the ancient past (maybe) with the 2014 hit (meh) Hercules. Starring the couldn’t be less Greek actor Dwayne Johnson and featuring other non-Greeks like John Hurt, Rufus Sewell, and Ian McShane, Hercules released in late July with the expectation that it would be raking in the money ALL SUMMER LONG. Unfortunately, though something of a passion project for The Rock, it wasn’t able to move the movie going audiences enough to warrant a sequel. BUT, it sure as hell warrants a 10 Things You Didn’t Know About Hercules!
1.) Bulking up: Dwayne Johnson took on a grueling 8 month workout schedule to bulk up for the role. As an actor who came from the world of Professional Wrestling and a man who stays in excellent shape, he claims it was the most difficult preparation of his film career.
2.) Based on: The film is based on the graphic novel “Hercules: The Thracian Wars”.
3.) Not at 100%: Before they ever started filming, Johnson suffered two torn tendons on his pelvis and then went through triple hernia surgery. He elected not to have surgery for the tendons so the movie wouldn’t be pushed back a year.
4.) Savage: A member of the extras crew during the battle with the savage green dudes fell asleep during filming. He woke up in the middle of the night and wandered into the nearest town where he was promptly arrested for looking like an absolute madman. The film crew had to bail him out of jail the next morning.
5.) Nutsack hair: Dwayne wore a prosthetic beard for the shoot. He made the mistake of asking where the hair came from and the man applying it said it was from a yak. He then told him it was from its testicles. TMI, bro.
6.) Breakin 2 Electric boogaloo: During the sequence where Hercules is trying to break free from the chains, Johnson had the crew chain him up with real steel chains as he wanted to struggle for real. He gave it all he had until the point where he blacked out while filming multiple times.
7.) Meant to be: Hercules was the first project that Dwayne Johnson asked about when he broke into Hollywood after The Mummy Returns. It was a bit too similar to this character in that and The Scorpion King so it was sidelined for a while and came back to the forefront 15 years later with Johnson being a massive star.
8.) FX: They used as many practical effects as they could. Some of the sets were massive in size and they brought in hundreds of extras for the battles and used trained horses from Belgium. The key word from Director Brett Ratner was to make the film feel as EPIC as possible.
9.) Gross: The worldwide gross for the film was just shy of $250 million. It had a budget of approximately $100 million with 12 of that going to the star Dwayne Johnson.
10.) What’s in a name: The spelling of his name for the film, HERCULES, is actually the Roman spelling of the character. Since they are telling it as the Greek myth they should have used HERACLES instead. By using Hercules (Roman) and then claiming he is the son of Zeus (Greek), they contradict themselves. Hercules was the son of Jupiter, not Zeus.
