Con Air was released in June, 1997 and still remains one of the wildest action rides you can ever take. The story of an honorably discharged Army Ranger who ends up trapped on a prisoner transport plane, right when the passengers seize control. It has everything! Explosions, wacky characters and Nic Cage. To celebrate this classic 90’s movie we have collated some amazing facts that will have you stunned.
It was released in June 1997, the same month as Nicolas Cage’s other action hit Face/Off (1997), which came out a few weeks later. The films were shot consecutively, from the summer of 1996 to spring 1997, with the two productions nearly overlapping at one point.The U.S. Marshals, who run the actual Con Air program, wanted nothing to do with this movie.John Malkovich was unhappy during production because the script was being rewritten virtually every day and he had no idea how his character was going to turn out.The Las Vegas scenes were filmed at the legendary Sands Hotel immediately prior to its demolition in late 1996. When the production team heard about the city’s intentions to raze the historic landmark, they immediately scheduled a multiple camera setup to take advantage of the rare event, which is what you actually see in the movie.John Cusack considers “Con Air” a bad movie and hated the time he spent working on it (so much so that he barely remembers it). Cusack only did it, one, because of the money, and two, to use as leverage in order to make his own indie passion projects.The success of Con Air had subsequently changed John Malkovich’s profile in Hollywood. While he was once typecast as the highly intelligent seducer, he was now first considered for the part of the highly intelligent criminal. Soon, though, those parts became unappealing to him, and Malkovich gravitated toward European productions.To create and prepare for the role of Garland Greene, director Simon West and Steve Buscemi studied the lives and crimes of well-known real-life serial killers and murderers, wherein they managed to incorporate many of their characteristics into the character, most notably Ed Gein’s acts of butchering corpses and keeping decapitated heads and body parts as well as wearing clothing made out of human skin, Ted Bundy’s homicidal tendencies and driving through states to avoid law enforcement, Charles Manson’s murderous instincts and cult personality, Jeffrey Dahmer’s calm demeanor and insanity, and John Wayne Gacy’s crimes of child murder.
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