20 facts you might not know about 'Finding Nemo'

Andrew Stanton directed, co-wrote, and got "story by" credit on Finding Nemo. The idea for the film came together over the years, but it really began with Stanton’s childhood. As a kid, his dentist had a fish tank, and Stanton imagined those fish were from the ocean and wanted to go home.

Stanton saw a photo of two clownfish peeking out from behind a sea anemone, and that was that. The director wanted Nemo and Marlin to be clownfish. When he first saw the photo, he found them visually striking, but he didn’t know what kind of fish they were. Upon finding out they were known as clownfish, Stanton was even more excited.

Stanton got to work on the screenplay for Finding Nemo during post-production on A Bug’s Life, the second Pixar film. Before production on Nemo even began, the screenplay was finished. This is incredibly rare for animated films, which are often storyboarded to craft the story and don’t tend to rely solely on a script.

Tragedy struck Marlin when he was young, as his wife Coral and most of their eggs are killed in a barracuda attack. Only Nemo survives. Coral’s death was originally going to be doled out in flashbacks during the film. Stanton had a change of heart, though, and decided to start the movie with the barracuda attack, nixing the flashback element.

William H. Macy was actually cast as Marlin first. He even went as far as to record a lot of the dialogue for the character. However, Stanton didn’t feel Macy’s recordings were quite right for the role, so he decided to recast Marlin.

After moving on from Macy, Stanton cast Albert Brooks as Marlin. The director credited Brooks with “saving” the movie. Brooks is a fan of improvising, as any Simpsons fan can tell you, and there are a lot of outtakes of him riffing and telling purposefully bad jokes, as he liked the idea of Marlin being a clownfish who wasn’t funny.

Originally, Dory was written as a male fish. Then, Stanton saw Ellen DeGeneres on her hit sitcom. Her performance led the director to think that Ellen would be perfect for the flighty, forgetful character.

While waiting to find an actor to voice Crush the turtle, Stanton did a recording for test reels. However, at test screenings, Stanton’s performance got a lot of love. He decided to keep himself in the film. Apparently, Stanton recorded all his dialogue laying on a sofa.

We don’t know why, but apparently Brad Bird was playing a tape recording of his young son Nicholas at Pixar one day. Stanton heard Nicholas’ voice and decided to cast him in the role of Squirt, the son of Crush.

The production team wanted Megan Mullally to provide a voice for Finding Nemo, and she was down for it. Then, the producers found out that Mullally’s real voice was not that of her character from Will & Grace. Mullally was still hired, but the producers kept nudging her not so subtly to use her Will & Grace voice. She declined and was fired.

The crew working on Finding Nemo wanted to make sure they tackled the ocean life of the movie accurately and effectively. In addition to visits to aquariums and lectures from marine biologists and fish experts, members of the team scuba dived and paid visits to coral reefs.

Bruce the villainous shark owes his name to another great white from pop culture. The animatronic shark used in the making of Jaws was nicknamed “Bruce” on set. That nickname was itself in reference to Steven Spielberg’s lawyer.

Kids seeing Finding Nemo were likely introduced to two well-used horror movie references. Bruce’s line “Heeeere’s Brucey!” is of course a reference to “Heeeere’s Johnny!” from The Shining. Meanwhile, the theme from Psycho is the music played by Darla, the dentist’s niece.

Randy Newman had provided the score for the first four Pixar movies. However, he did not handle the score for Finding Nemo. Pixar didn’t have to look far, though. Thomas Newman, Randy’s cousin, provided the score instead.

Author Franck Le Calvez brought a lawsuit against Disney related to Finding Nemo. He claimed copyright infringement of his French children’s book Pierrot the Clownfish. The book came out in 2002, well after production began on Finding Nemo, but Le Calvez claimed to have been working on the book since 1995. However, a judge dismissed his lawsuit.

Pixar had established a level of success prior to Finding Nemo, but this film took things to a whole new level. In its original run, the movie made $339.7 million domestically and $871.0 million worldwide. At the time, it was the highest-grossing animated movie and the highest-grossing G-rated movie. The film also finished second overall in the 2003 box office. In 2012, a 3D conversion re-release yielded another $69.3 million worldwide.

Ah, the days of DVDs. On the first day it was available, Finding Nemo sold eight million DVD copies, a new single-day record. Within two weeks, it was the highest-selling DVD ever. Now, Finding Nemo has sold upwards of 40 million copies on DVD, which remains the record.

The film was nominated for four Oscars, including for Best Original Screenplay. In the end, the movie won one Oscar, for Best Animated Feature. This was notable, as it was the first (of many) Pixar movies to win that award.

Part of what you can glean from Finding Nemo is that some fish don’t make good pets, and saltwater aquariums are difficult to maintain. And yet, demand for clownfish as pets soared in the wake of Finding Nemo. This caused environmental issues and reef decimation around Vanuatu. Meanwhile, other people were releasing their pet fish into the wild after seeing Finding Nemo. This was also a problem. The fish were often not released into the right environment, leading to the proliferation of invasive species around the globe.

In 2016, Finding Nemo got a sequel of the spinoff variety. Finding Dory was also written and directed by Stanton, and the movie focused on Ellen’s fish character. The film focuses on Dory looking for her parents. It proved to be an even bigger hit than its predecessor, making over $1 billion worldwide and becoming the fourth-highest-grossing animated movie ever.