The Truman Show hit theaters on June 5, 1998. Truman, played by Jim Carrey, unknowingly starred in a TV show about himself, and every facet of his life was controlled and manipulated by the show’s producers. Meanwhile, we were all watching a movie about such a TV show, and looking over our shoulders to see if anyone were filming us! But wait, it gets even more meta than that, when you know a little more about the story behind (as well as in) The Truman Show.
2. THE PLOT IS SIMILAR TO A MOVIE AND TWO EPISODES OF THE TWILIGHT ZONE.
Critics compared The Truman Show to Paul Bartel’s 1968 short film The Secret Cinema, which starred Amy Vane as a secretary who doesn’t know that her life is being filmed and shown to her duplicitous friends and family in private screenings. The Secret Cinema was played before showings of Woody Allen’s Take the Money and Run in 1969 and remade into a 1986 episode of Amazing Stories. Niccol said he had never heard of the film or the episode in question when he wrote The Truman Show. Niccol’s screenplay was also compared to two episodes of The Twilight Zone: “A World of Difference” and “Special Service.”
8. A DOCUMENTARY WAS PRODUCED WITH THE SEAHAVEN ACTORS ABOUT THE TV SHOW.
Weir found that he had so much good material asking the actors to come up with answers to his questions as their onscreen personas that he put together a documentary unit to capture everything. Some parts made it to the movie, and the rest were turned into a half-hour documentary about the show that ran on Nick at Nite, presented as an episode of Tru Talk, hosted by Harry Shearer’s Mike Michaelson character.
9. ED HARRIS WAS A LAST-MINUTE REPLACEMENT FOR DENNIS HOPPER.
Hopper was supposed to play Christof, but he was either fired or left due to “creative differences” two months into filming (different versions of the story abound). Harris met Weir on set on a Thursday, worked on another project in New York for four days, then started work as Christof on a Tuesday. He would end up winning the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor and scoring one of the film's three Oscar nods.
There’s plenty more behind-the-scenes stories and trivia about The Truman Show at mental_floss. Plus the documentary mentioned in #8.
I love Truman Show. It's a great movie.