"Beautiful Creatures" was released on Valentine's Day of 2013, and the supernatural love story made a great splash among couples out for an evening of romance. The movie combines supernatural fantasy aspects with traditional romance, providing a dramatic story with many twists and turns that audiences are likely to love. Many things occurred during and before filming that didn't quite make it on the screen or that turned out differently in the final version.
Cast and Characters
"Beautiful Creatures" was the second film to see both Thomas Mann and Viola Davis in starring roles. The 2010 feature "It's Kind of a Funny Story" was the first.
Alden Ehrenreich replaced Jack O'Connell just before the movie started filming. Sources state this change was unforeseen and was due to a scheduling conflict that prevented O'Connell from remaining on set during the proposed filming time.
Two different characters from the novel were combined to create Anna: the housekeeper who is her namesake and a librarian named Marian. The housekeeper in the novel is a seer who can speak with dead family members, whom she refers to as the Greats. Marian is the friend of Ethan's late grandmother and is a friend of the family. Both are fairly major and important roles in the novel.
Filming and Music
Filming took place mainly in Louisiana between April and June of 2012. The crew was occasionally interrupted due to weather, and filming was halted entirely during a tornado warning.
One part of the film has the song "Needle and Thread" playing in the background. Actress Alice Englert wrote the song while waiting for production to begin, and the director thought it would be an excellent fit for the snow sequence. The rest of the movie has an original score composed by thenewno2. This group has seen a moderate amount of success since its formation in London in 2006, and it now includes Dhani Harrison, Paul Hicks, and Jonathan Sadoff. The guitar that is used in one of the love scenes is the same guitar that was famously used by Dhani Harrison's father, George Harrison, during his production of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps." The majority of the score was recorded in the famous Abbey Road Studios.
Flubs on the Set
Alden Ehrenreich had difficulty performing the Charles Bukowski poem that his character recites in one part of the film, which led to him flubbing the lines as he recited it for his character's love interest. The director thought this was a great opportunity to play with more of a "Romeo and Juliet" theme and left the flubbed lines as part of the final cut. Ehrenreich reportedly learned the poem correctly and only recited it incorrectly during one take.
One key scene that told part of the novel's backstory was cut after filming. For this scene, many actresses dressed in period clothes from the early 20th century. The scene was supposed to appear during the movie's introduction and again at the end. It was eventually cut when the director decided that it just didn't work with his vision for those parts of the film.
Spin Him Right Around
Director Richard LaGravenese suffers from motion sickness. His insistence on keeping computer graphics to a minimum in the movie led to his continual use of Dramamine to calm his stomach during filming. One of the movie's key scenes, a dinner party attended by many of the main characters, had to be filmed with a special set constructed from parade-float seats so that the unit could rock, shake, and spin as needed. Hydraulics located beneath the set allowed the entire room to shake, and the chandelier was designed to move independently of the other pieces on the set. The chairs were bolted into place, but the spinning table effect was said to be one of the roughest on LaGravenese due to his motion sickness. The entire sequence took a little over a week to fully shoot, and LaGravenese has noted that working on the scene was exciting.
Technical Goofs
Two different lockets belonging to the character Genevieve appear in the film, though only one is supposed to be part of the story. The second locket has a much fancier font for its inscription than the first. It also seems strange that a town of only 400 residents should have a football stadium large enough to easily seat twice that number of people. The stadium features many modern amenities not common in small-town arenas, including expensive artificial turf.
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