Where to watch Saving Private Ryan (1998)

Trivia & production notes

• Michael Bay was initially hired to direct but abandoned the project because he could not determine how to approach the material.
• Steven Spielberg agreed to direct after Tom Hanks showed him the script, fulfilling a long-standing desire for the two to collaborate.
• Spielberg and Hanks took minimal upfront salaries in exchange for 17.5% of the gross profits each, or 35 cents of every dollar earned, to keep the budget down.
• In April 1997, Paramount's chairman Sumner Redstone had Spielberg flip a coin to determine distribution rights, with Spielberg winning and securing DreamWorks the favored North American distribution.
• Spielberg cast Tom Hanks because he was the only actor Spielberg believed would not instinctively use his teeth to pull out a pin from a hand grenade.
• Vin Diesel was cast after Spielberg viewed his self-directed short films, despite Diesel working as a telemarketer at the time due to struggling to find acting work.
• Adam Goldberg's role did not exist in the original script and was created specifically for him after his casting.
• Spielberg deliberately kept Matt Damon out of the six-day boot camp training so the other actors would resent him and his character.
• Spielberg and cinematographer Janusz Kamiński considered filming in black and white to match Schindler's List but rejected the idea as pretentious.
• Kamiński drew visual inspiration from WWII documentaries and Nazi propaganda films by Leni Riefenstahl, aiming to make the film look like footage shot by combat cameramen.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Saving Private Ryan, available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Rewritten for StreamShack; errors are ours — tell us about them.