20 facts you might not know about 'The Polar Express'

“The Polar Express” originated as a 1985 book by Chris Van Allsburg. It wasn’t the first time one of his books was adapted into a movie. Van Allsburg also wrote the book “Jumanji.”

It was Hanks who first optioned the book, doing so in 1999. However, when he optioned the book, he had one condition for any production: The movie had to be live action, not animated.

When Hanks and Zemeckis started talking about the project, Zemeckis was highly skeptical of live action. He didn’t mince words, saying it would look “awful,” specifically stating the movie would lose the richness of the art in the book. Plus, Zemeckis figured it would cost approximately a billion dollars to make the live-action version of the film.

Zemeckis and Hanks were able to meet in the middle on the animation versus live action thing. Actual actors gave all the performances in the movie in a black box theater. There, they were filmed with motion-capture equipment. At that point, the motion-capture footage was then turned into animation. The “Guinness Book of World Records” called it the world’s first all-digital capture movie.

You might think doing all your acting in an empty black box theater when you are supposed to be at the North Pole or on a train might feel jarring. Hanks, for one, enjoyed the experience. He called it, “a return to a type of acting that acting in films does not allow you to do” and compared it to doing theater.

Zemeckis’ initial idea was a bold one. Namely, Hanks would perform the motion capture for every single character, in addition to doing the voices of several of them. However, after trying this they quickly realized it wouldn’t work. Hanks was completely exhausted from the experience right from the start, so they nixed the idea.

Though he didn’t do every role, Hanks was still quite busy in the film. He did the motion capture and the voice for the adult “Hero Boy,” the conductor, the hobo, Santa Claus, Hero Boy’s father, and the Scrooge puppet. On top of that, he performed the motion capture for the Hero Boy, but Daryl Sabara, as an actual child, did the voice.

Perhaps to give people, especially children, a chance to feel like the story is universal, the characters largely don’t have names. In addition to “Hero Boy” there’s also “Hero Girl,” “Know-It-All,” and the plainly named “Boy on Train.”

The late, great Peter Scolari was an excellent sitcom actor who made pretty much everything he was in better. Scolari did the motion capture for “Billy the Lonely Boy” in “The Polar Express.” He first rose to fame on the ‘80s sitcom “Bosom Buddies” where he played Henry, the best friend of Kip. Who played Kip? Why, that would be Hanks, who was also getting his first shot at the big time.

The train driver Steamer and his assistant Smokey are both played by Michael Jeter. This was a new kind of production and it involved a lot of animation and time, and unfortunately during that production time Jeter passed away. This was his last movie, and when it was released it was dedicated to his memory.

Zemeckis and actress Mary Ellen Trainor divorced after a 20-year marriage in 2000, and the next year he married Leslie Harter, now Leslie Zemeckis. He has a tendency to give her small roles in his films, and that includes “The Polar Express,” where she played Hero Boy’s mother and did the motion capture for Sister Sarah.

The Elf Lieutenant and the Elf Singer are both played by Steven Tyler, the lead singer of Aerosmith. While Tyler is used to being the frontman in his band, he doesn’t play the Elf General. You might know who does, though. He’s played by Charles Fleischer, who played Roger Rabbit in Zemeckis’ “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?”

In the movie, an elf mentions a naughty child named Steven who lives in New Jersey and treats his sisters poorly. This was Zemeckis poking a little fun at his friend and mentor Steven Spielberg, who grew up in New Jersey for part of his childhood with sisters. On top of that, the address “11344 Edbrooke” the conductor shouts out is the address of Zemeckis’ childhood home.

At the beginning of the film, Hero Boys looks at a photo of himself sitting on Santa’s lap. The stole in the photo is named “Herpolsheimer’s.” This was an actual department store in Grand Rapids, Michigan when Van Allsburg was growing up there.

The movie is all about a train that takes children to the North Pole, so naturally the railroads have a lot of impact on the film. A lot of the buildings at the North Pole are based on historical railroad buildings, including the Pullman Factory in Chicago. The train is also based on vintage steam locomotives as well.

For the film, Lionel made a whole model train set based on the trains and buildings within it. Additionally, there are a lot of real trains that have built “Polar Express” packages influenced by the movie that they run during the holidays. This is true in the United States and Canada, but especially the United Kingdom, where train travel is more common.

Some people complain that the Christmas season begins earlier and earlier every year. “The Polar Express” is not going to refute that argument. This Christmas movie was released nationwide on Nov. 10, 2004. It was already in its third weekend by the time Thanksgiving rolled around, much less Christmas.

“The Polar Express” opened number two at the box office behind “The Incredibles.” During its run, it was bolstered by the fact it was released in IMAX and in 3-D at a time when that wasn’t quite in the zeitgeist just yet. Overall, it made $286M worldwide in its initial run on a budget of $165 million. However, it was re-released in IMAX every year from 2005 through 2017, and it also got re-released in 2018 and 2020. Its lifetime box office total is $314.2 million.

Roger Ebert gave the movie four stars, but even he called it “a little creepy.” Other critics were more put off by the look of the film. Peter Travers called it “a failed and lifeless experiment.” Paul Clinton of CNN said it was, “at best disconcerting, and at worst, a wee bit horrifying.” Perhaps the strongest displeasure was voiced by Geoff Pevere of the “Toronto Star,” who declared, "If I were a child, I'd have nightmares. Come to think of it, I did anyway.”

“The Polar Express” was nominated for three categories at the Academy Awards: Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, and Best Song, which was for “Believe,” written by Glen Ballard and Alan Silvestri and sung by Josh Groban. “Believe” did actually win a Grammy for “Best Song Written for a Motion Picture, Television, or Other Visual Media.