Trivia for
Planet Terror (2007)

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• Rose McGowan originally suggested her friend Rey-Phillip Santos for the role of El Wray. Instead it went to Freddy Rodríguez.
  
  
• The original title for Planet Terror was "Project Terror".
  
  
• Robert Rodriguez specifically wrote the part of Dakota for Marley Shelton after working with her on Sin City (2005).
  
  

• Robert Rodriguez wrote the first 30 pages of the script for Planet Terror (2007) back in 1998.
  
  
• John Carpenter, who composes the scores to his own films, was originally chosen to compose the score to Planet Terror. Robert Rodriguez ended up taking over the job as composer instead, though excerpts from Carpenter's Escape from New York (1981) score would appear throughout the film.
  
  
• While on set, Robert Rodriguez would play the soundtracks for Escape from New York (1981) and The Thing (1982) to set the mood for the movie.
  
  
• Rose McGowan is germaphobic, and had to have the stripper pole sanitized before doing her go-go dance routine.
  
  
• Felix Sabates, who plays Dr. Felix, is in fact a real doctor and is actually director Robert Rodriguez's personal physician.
  
  
• Skip Reissig, who plays strip-club owner Skip, isn't an actor but is actually director Robert Rodriguez real-estate agent. Rodriguez thought he'd be perfect for the part of the brusque, no-nonsense, tough-talking strip-club owner because, as Rodriguez says, "that's the way he really is".
  
  
• Joel Coen and Ethan Coen refused to give Josh Brolin an audition for the role of Llewelyn in their movie No Country for Old Men (2007), so he asked director Robert Rodriguez to help him shoot an audition tape while Brolin was filming his Grindhouse (2007) segment (Planet Terror (2007)) for Rodriguez. Rodriguez shot and Quentin Tarantino directed the tape, which was shot in a $950,000 digital camera. Marley Shelton, who was playing Brolin's character's wife in Grindhouse, agreed to read the lines for Llewelyn's wife Carla Jean (eventually played by 'Kelly Macdonald (I)' ).
  
  
• Deputy Tolo is a terrible shot. He keeps misfiring through the movie. In Spanish and Portuguese Tolo means fool.
  
  
• The appearance of Bruce Willis in a minor role is a subtle nod to an old marketing trick often employed by Grindhouse makers. They would contract a big movie star to appear in their movie for a few frontal shots only, while the rest of the scenes were done with a double filmed from the back. A picture of the big star would then be placed prominently on the movie's poster in order to boost sales.
  
  

• SPOILER: Robert Rodriguez found the scene where Dr. Dakota Block leaves son Tony in the car with gun to be so chilling to film he didn't want to use anyone else's children to play Tony so he used his own son, Rebel Rodriguez, so he wouldn't feel as bad "killing a child".
  
  
• SPOILER: When asked about the ending, Robert Rodriguez said "I consider it an anti- Army of Darkness (1992) like ending. In ‘Army of Darkness’, Ash is returned to normal suburbia and battles the Undead. In my film, Planet Terror (2007), the characters are taken out of suburbia and now battle the undead in a more barren landscape."
  
  
• SPOILER: Partly to avoid traumatizing Rebel Rodriguez with knowledge of his disturbing death scene, Robert Rodriguez shot several scenes with Tony surviving all the way to the end of the movie. Some of this is seen on the DVD, but apparently the only complete edit with this footage is a private copy of the Rodriguez family's.
  
  
• SPOILER: In the scene at the beginning of the movie in the go-go club, Cherry is zipping up the boot of her right leg when she says "I need a dramatic change in my life". Her right leg is also the same leg which is later amputated.
  
  

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