60 Fun Facts About Se7en

In what year was Se7en released in theaters?

It premiered on September 19, 1995 in Beverly Hills and went wide three days later, topping the box office in its first weekend.

Who directed Se7en?

His only previous feature was a studio-mangled Alien 3, and he later said he was mistakenly sent the writer's original, bleaker draft of the script.

Who plays the young detective David Mills?

He cut his hair and lost the muscle he had built for Legends of the Fall to look less like a romantic lead.

Who plays Detective Lieutenant William Somerset?

The role was written with William Hurt in mind, and Robert Duvall, Gene Hackman and Al Pacino all turned it down first.

Which actor plays the killer, John Doe?

He insisted his name be left out of the marketing and opening credits so audiences would not guess who the killer was.

Who plays Tracy, Mills's wife?

Robin Wright auditioned and Christina Applegate turned the part down; Pitt suggested her after seeing her audition for Legends of the Fall.

John Doe's murders are patterned on which idea?

Somerset works it out at the sloth scene and sends Mills off to read Dante, Chaucer and Milton.

The obese man forced to eat until his stomach burst represents which sin?

The word is written on the wall behind the refrigerator; the 480-pound actor Bob Mack made his film debut face down in a plate of spaghetti.

The victim forced to cut a pound of flesh from his own body was marked with which sin?

He was a criminal attorney; the filmmakers cast Gene Borkan partly because he looked like the lawyer Robert Shapiro.

According to the photographs at the scene, how long was the sloth victim kept restrained to his bed?

Actor Michael Reid MacKay weighed under 100 pounds during filming and spent up to 14 hours in prosthetics for the part.

Which sin does John Doe claim to embody himself at the end?

He says he coveted Mills's ordinary life with his wife, which is why she became the final target.

Which sin is Mills goaded into completing in the final scene?

Pitt insisted that Mills be the one to shoot Doe, believing the character had to act out of passion rather than morality.

Who wrote the screenplay for Se7en?

He wrote it while working as a Tower Records sales assistant, drawing on a miserable stretch living in late-1980s New York.

The older detective is named after which writer?

The film's own literary streak runs deep: Somerset's library reading list includes Dante, Chaucer's Parson's Tale and Milton.

Before Se7en, the director's only feature film was which one?

He disowned that film after the studio recut it, saying he would rather die of colon cancer than make another movie.

The film's city is never named on screen. Where was location filming actually done?

Constant rain was kept in deliberately, partly to make the city look less like sunny California and partly to avoid continuity headaches.

Which song, in a remixed version, plays over the opening title sequence?

Coil and Danny Hyde remixed it, replacing Howard Shore's more upbeat opening cue "The Last Seven Days".

Which David Bowie song plays over the end credits?

Like "Closer", it was left off the 11-track soundtrack album released that November.

Who composed the score for Se7en?

He was hired on the strength of his music for The Silence of the Lambs and used an orchestra of up to 100 musicians.

Which designer created the film's scratched, hand-made title sequence?

The New York Times later called it one of the most important design innovations of the 1990s, and it cost about $50,000.

Which studio produced and released Se7en?

At $33-34 million it was the most expensive film the studio had made to that point, after the director talked them into $3 million more.

Which actor turned down John Doe, calling the script "the most evil thing I've ever read"?

The filmmakers wanted a face like the 1969 Zodiac Killer composite sketch, someone who could "look like a poster".

Which rock frontman was considered for John Doe but was unavailable because his band was touring?

Christopher Guest was also considered, and Val Kilmer declined outright.

How did Pitt injure his hand during production, an injury then written into the script?

He insisted on his own stunts, slipped on a rain-slicked hood and cut tendons and nerves; the cast on his forearm is real.

Pitt was only available for 55 days because he was due to start shooting which film?

That squeeze is one reason the director shot in the rain rather than waiting for it to stop.

Roughly how much did Se7en gross worldwide?

That made it the seventh highest-grossing film of 1995, a sleeper hit for a movie the studio expected to struggle.

Which studio production president sided with the director in keeping the original ending?

The two agreed to start shooting within six weeks so no other executive had time to interfere.

Se7en opened at number one with $14M, beating the debut of which notorious film?

It was the biggest September opening to that point, overtaking Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare.

Who was the cinematographer on Se7en?

He shot warm Chinese lanterns for the past and present and cold Kino Flo tubes for the future, and refused to print the dailies brighter when the studio complained.

The cinematographer named which 1971 thriller as a major visual influence?

The director singled out a scene from it lit only by a flashlight, disliking films where characters say it is dark but the audience sees everything.

Se7en's only Academy Award nomination came in which category?

A December re-release aimed at getting Freeman, Pitt and the director nominated did not work.

Which director, fresh off National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, was first hired to direct the script?

He and the Italian producers demanded the head-in-the-box ending be dropped, and the writer ended up producing thirteen drafts.

The screenwriter originally pictured which actor as Somerset?

Producer Arnold Kopelson suggested Freeman instead, over studio worries the black-and-white pairing would look like Lethal Weapon.

Which actor auditioned for John Doe and ended up playing the police captain instead?

The director found his Doe unsympathetic and lacking depth, but he made a fine grizzled captain.

What cameo does the screenwriter make in the film?

He later said the fake blood was so cold he had a minor panic attack lying in it, worried about ruining the shot.

Which reality TV series influenced the film's over-the-shoulder camera style?

The filmmakers liked the implicit vulnerability of that viewpoint, alongside influences from All That Jazz and The French Connection.

According to the director, what was physically inside the box prop in the final scene?

He believed leaving the contents to the imagination worked better than any effect, and once met a woman convinced she had seen the head.

Which lab process was used on some prints to keep the blacks deeper and darker?

It retains silver that would normally be washed out of the film; only a few hundred of the 2,500 prints got the expensive treatment.

Somerset's closing voiceover quotes which author on the world being "worth fighting for"?

That epilogue was the filmmakers' compromise: the studio wanted a happier ending, they wanted a hard cut to black, and they met at a narration.

Which publisher released a seven-issue prequel comic about John Doe in 2006-07?

A novelization by Anthony Bruno had come out alongside the film back in 1995.

What was the working title of the sequel New Line proposed in 2002?

It would have given Somerset psychic powers; the director said he'd rather have cigarettes put out in his eyes.

The abandoned sequel script was eventually filmed as which standalone 2015 thriller?

It starred Anthony Hopkins as a psychic and was a critical and commercial failure.

In which year did Se7en get a one-week IMAX re-release for its 30th anniversary?

A 4K restoration from the original negative followed on disc days later; the director promised not to change the content.

At what time is Doe's package delivered to Mills in the finale?

It is a Sunday, the seventh day, one of many quiet nods to the number seven scattered through the film.

How do the detectives first find John Doe's apartment?

Doe was photographing them at that very sloth scene, posing as a nosy journalist.

Roughly how much did Bob Mack, the actor who played the first victim, weigh?

He spent up to ten hours a day in prosthetics and only learned about the live insects from a call sheet listing a "cockroach wrangler".

Se7en took three prizes, including Best Villain for the killer, at which ceremony?

Its BAFTA nomination went to the screenplay and its lone Oscar nod to the editing.

Whose face appears in a four-frame insert as Mills pulls the trigger?

Editor Richard Francis-Bruce added it to compensate for never showing what is in the box.

Which actor plays California, the SWAT team leader who finds the sloth victim alive?

The sloth actor claimed the SWAT extras were only told to expect "a corpse", so some of the shock on the first take was real.

Pitt insisted on keeping the dark ending because which earlier film of his had its ending cut after test screenings?

He also demanded that Mills, not Somerset, be the one who shoots Doe.

The green-tinted sloth crime scene was influenced by the work of which painter?

The murder tableaux more broadly drew on the photography of Joel-Peter Witkin.

Where did the director want to shoot the film, for its clapboard houses, before scheduling intervened?

The unnamed city was left deliberately free of street signs and landmarks so it could be everywhere and nowhere.

How long is the theatrical cut of Se7en?

Editor Richard Francis-Bruce favoured 'motivated cuts', speeding up the finale as John Doe's plan is revealed.

Fincher hired Se7en's composer on the strength of his score for which 1991 thriller?

That earlier film also influenced Se7en's look, along with All That Jazz and The French Connection.

What approval rating does Se7en hold on Rotten Tomatoes?

Metacritic gives it 65, and a 2014 Hollywood Reporter poll of industry professionals ranked it the 85th-best film of all time.

Where did Se7en's $327 million worldwide gross rank it among the films of 1995?

It was an unexpected sleeper hit in a year when horror films from directors like Wes Craven and John Carpenter flopped.

What fee did Andrew Kevin Walker receive when his script was first optioned?

It was still enough for him to quit his job, move to Los Angeles and work on the screenplay full-time.

Which Italian company first optioned Walker's script in the early 1990s?

Under manager Phyllis Carlyle it hired Jeremiah S. Chechik to direct, but financial trouble led it to sell the rights to Arnold Kopelson.

Who edited Se7en, earning its only Academy Award nomination?

He inserted a four-frame flash of Tracy as Mills pulls the trigger to compensate for never showing the contents of the box.

Gene Borkan was cast as the greed victim because he resembled which famous lawyer?

Borkan had not realised his character would already be dead and renegotiated his pay to five times the SAG day rate on set.