Pretty Woman Turns 25: Here Are 15 Things You Never Knew About the Film Inline
Photo: Courtesy of © Buena Vista Pictures1/15That’s not Julia Roberts’s body on the poster.
The film’s iconic poster, on which a scantily clad Roberts is grabbing Gere by the necktie, was actually a clever work of Photoshop. Shelley Michelle, Roberts’s body double in the film, was the one striking a pose; Roberts’s head was later superimposed.
Photo: Courtesy of © Buena Vista Pictures/Everett Collection2/15The film was initially called $3,000, and it was much darker.
The title, a reference to how much Edward paid Vivian to be his escort, wasn’t the only difference about the original script. While the premise was the same, $3,000 was supposed to be a comment on Los Angeles’s prostitution scene in the late eighties and early nineties. Roberts described the initial plot as “a really dark and depressing, horrible, terrible story about two horrible people and my character was this drug addict . . . and it was just a grisly, ugly story about these two people.”
Photo: Courtesy of © Buena Vista Pictures/Everett Collection3/15The role of Vivian Ward was originally offered to Molly Ringwald.
During a Reddit AMA, Ringwald said: “I think I saw an early draft and it was called $3,000. I don t specifically remember turning it down. The script was okay, but I gotta say, Julia Roberts is what makes that movie. It was her part. Every actor hopes for a part that lets them shine like that.”
Photo: Getty Images4/15Al Pacino turned down the role of Edward Lewis.
After the success of The Godfather, Pacino was offered many roles—including a part in Apocalypse Now and Die Hard, which he also turned down.
Photo: Courtesy of © Buena Vista Pictures/Everett Collection5/15Gere improvised closing the jewelry box on Roberts’s hand.
But it was so adorable that the filmmakers decided to leave it in the final cut.
