Clay Pigeons - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts

[discussimdb]

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

[mathew]

The film never saw a theatrical release in the United Kingdom, instead it went straight to video for UK release.

[liam]

The film was released in Germany under the title "Lebende Ziele", which translates to "Living Purposes". It can also be translated as "Living Targets". Purposes is not often translated as "Ziele". That use of "Ziel" would be more a goal, not a purpose, and that makes not much sense for this movie. Then again, German translations often miss any kind of double meanings in original movie names.

[nicholas]

Though never spoken in the film the name of the town where it's set is Mercer, Montana according to the script. The local population of the fictional town is 1,536 - though it drops over the course of the film.

[chris]

Deputy Barney (Vince Vieluf) ends up being locked in his own jail cell just like happened so often to his namesake Deputy Barney Fife from The Andy Griffith Show (1960).

[miriam]

Joaquin Phoenix was at first apprehensive about taking the role of Clay because he feared that the scripts combination of humor and violence wouldn't translate well to the screen. However, Phoenix changed his mind after meeting an enthusiastic Director David Dobkin and took the role.

[charlie]

F.B.I. Agent Dale Shelby (Janeane Garofalo) and her partner, Agent Reynard (Phil Morris), have names that may be loosely derived from The X-Files (1993) characters Dana Scully and Fox Mulder. "Reynard" is French for "fox."

[maureen]

David Dobkin handled both main and second unit filming.

[bessie]

This was the feature debut for Director David Dobkin and Screenwriter Matthew L. Healy.

[kenneth]

While the film was set in Montana, the production was forced to be shot in Utah and Lancaster, California for budgetary matters.

[jesus]

Ryan Christopher Mouritsen (Pizza Delivery Kid) and Assistant Director Michael S. Hennessey were both from Salt Lake City, Utah. As there were several thriving entertainment professionals in Salt Lake City, Utah, this film helped many of them to find work in the film. In Ryan's case, his dad even drove along to be at the movie set to see his son starting his full-time career of being involved in television and motion pictures. Ryan permanently moved to Hollywood after being in this film. He had also graduated from the four-year program of the "Professional Actors Conservatory of Salt Lake City" and moving west was part of his dream. This film only had a brief appearance for Ryan, but it helped to forge his professional ambitions that he continued until he passed away in February 2009 due to an aviation crash in Torrance, California.

[janice]

Janeane Garofalo said in an interview that her biggest reason for taking the role of Agent Dale Shelby was her feeling that the film needed a strong leading female character to "take the edge off" the occasional violence against women on-screen.

[nora]

This is the first film to use the 1998 Scott Free bird logo.

[victoria]

The opening song is Time Bomb, by Old97's.

[charlie]

The film was titled "Il Sapore del sangue" for its release in Italy. The title translates to "The Taste of Blood", referring to the scene where Lester licks his finger after cutting it on a kitchen knife.

[carla]

The second film from 1998 to co-star Joaquin Phoenix and Vince Vaughn. They also co-starred in Return to Paradise (1998).

[ruby]

Agent Dale Shelby (Janeane Garofalo) spends the night in a hotel room with three films taken from the crime scene she visited that day. The films are Alien (1979), True Romance (1993) and Swingers (1996). "Alien" was directed by this film's Producer Ridley Scott, "True Romance" was directed by Tony Scott, also a Producer on this film and Ridley Scott's brother, and "Swingers" starred this film's lead actor, Vince Vaughn.