Where to watch The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)

Trivia & production notes

• Frank Oz was the first director attached to Benjamin Button in the mid-1980s with Martin Short set to star, but Oz abandoned the project because he couldn't determine how to adapt the story for film.
• Steven Spielberg optioned The Curious Case of Benjamin Button in 1991 with Tom Cruise attached, but left to direct Jurassic Park and Schindler's List instead.
• Multiple acclaimed screenwriters took passes at adapting the story, including Robin Swicord, Charlie Kaufman, and Jim Taylor, before Eric Roth's draft was selected.
• Peter Jackson claimed in 2014 that he was offered the film five or six years before David Fincher came on board, but turned it down.
• Louisiana's film incentive program provided $27 million toward the film's $167 million budget, covering a significant portion of production costs.
• Director David Fincher used a proprietary camera system called Contour to capture facial deformation data from live-action performances, enabling the aging and de-aging effects for Brad Pitt's character.
• The New Orleans train station featured in the film was constructed as a 3D digital model rather than a physical set, with aging effects added to show its appearance across different time periods.
• Brad Pitt had previously worked with nearly all of his co-stars on the film, including Cate Blanchett in Babel, Julia Ormond in Legends of the Fall, and Tilda Swinton in Burn After Reading.
• Composer Alexandre Desplat recorded the film's score with an 87-piece ensemble of the Hollywood Studio Symphony at the Sony Scoring Stage.
• Filming began in New Orleans in November 2006, with principal photography originally planned for 150 days before moving to Los Angeles in March 2007 and wrapping in September 2007.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (film), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Rewritten for StreamShack; errors are ours — tell us about them.