20 facts you might not know about 'Saving Private Ryan'

Screenwriter Robert Rodat was given the book D-Day: June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II by Stephen Ambrose. In addition to being a big book for colons, it also helped inspire Rodat — along with a monument he saw to lives lost in various wars. There was a family, the Nilands, mentioned in Ambrose’s book that gave Rodat the hook about multiple sons from the same family in World War II.

Rodat pitched his idea to producer Mark Gordon, who pitched the idea to Paramount. There was no script at the time, but Paramount liked the idea and commissioned a script from Rodat. Once the script was finished, Spielberg and his agent read the script and liked it. Spielberg agreed to direct it, and no other director’s name was ever attached.

Prior to making Saving Private Ryan, Spielberg had already directed 1941, Empire of the Sun, and Schindler’s List. Heck, even two of the Indiana Jones movies have World War II connections. Clearly, Spielberg had an interest in the subject.

When casting his film, Spielberg said he wanted to cast actors who would look the part. Specifically, he believed that people during World War II looked different than people in the ‘90s. In short, Spielberg wanted the cast to “match the faces I saw on the newsreels" (h/t Roger Ebert).

These days, Spielberg and Hanks are tied together. In addition to their multiple films, they produced two World War II TV shows together, Band of Brothers and The Pacific. While Hanks said he and Spielberg had wanted to work together, Saving Private Ryan marked their first project together.

When making a movie on a grand scale, you can’t merely settle on one actor you want and hope for the best. In addition to Hanks, Harrison Ford, Mel Gibson, and Pete Postlethwaite were considered for the role of Captain Miller.

Rising star Edward Norton was the first choice for the role of Ryan, the soldier that Miller’s entire squad is pressed into finding and saving so that he can be sent home on account of the fact all his brothers have died in battle. However, he turned down the role for a larger starring role in American History X. Then, they wanted Noah Wyle for the role, but he had to turn it down due to his contract with ER. Thus, Damon stepped into the role.

Hanks was already a big star, but the rest of the cast was relatively star-free. That being said, you will definitely recognize some faces. Vin Diesel, in the first feature film that he didn’t write, is a private and a member of Hanks’ squad. Nathan Fillion has an even more minor role, and there is a brief appearance from Andrew Scott, perhaps best known as the hot priest from Fleabag.

Tom Sizemore’s problems are well known. While filming Saving Private Ryan, he was trying to kick a drug addiction. Things were so severe Spielberg had him drug tested every day. He would have been recast on the spot if he had failed a test.

As is often the case with war movies, an intensive 10-day boot camp was implemented by the production for the cast. However, Spielberg did not do it to teach them proper military techniques. Instead, he told Roger Ebert he wanted them to “respect what it was like to be a soldier.”

While Damon did train before the film, he did not train alongside his castmates. This was an intentional decision by Spielberg. He did not want Damon to bond with the cast and wanted to create a potential feeling of resentment in the actors playing Captain Miller’s squad. This was to reflect the way the squad felt toward Private Ryan in the film.

Marine veteran Dale Dye and his company Warriors Inc. were the ones who handled the training for the cast of Saving Private Ryan. That was not all he did for the movie. Dye plays an unnamed war department colonel in the film.

The showpiece of Saving Private Ryan is the landing at Omaha Beach in Normandy for the D-Day scene. It’s the movie's second scene and lasts a full 20 minutes. Spielberg searched high and wide for a beach that could replicate Omaha and ended up at Ballinesker Beach in Ireland. This scene alone cost $12 million and used over 1,500 extras.

Despite all the money spent and extras hired, Spielberg did not plan the Omaha Beach landing to a tee. Spielberg didn’t even storyboard the scene. He said he wanted spontaneous reactions and let the action inspire his camera shots, not the other way around.

Spielberg and cinematographer Janusz Kaminski were really into the whole “newsreel” thing. That’s how they wanted the whole movie to look. They didn’t want a bright, colorful film about the war in the 1940s. Kaminski removed the protective coating from the camera lenses to change how light would react with the cameras so that the film would look more like footage from the ‘40s.

Critics loved Saving Private Ryan, and the movie was lauded for its veracity. However, the realism and intensity did not sit well with everybody. Many World War II veterans said it was the most realistic depiction of the war they had ever seen, but many veterans also had to leave theaters during the D-Day scene due to PTSD reactions.

Saving Private Ryan opened atop the U.S. box office and remained the top film in the country for four weeks. By the end of its run, it had made $216.5 million in the United States and Canada and $481.8 million worldwide. It was the highest-grossing film in the United States and the second-highest-grossing movie worldwide.

Saving Private Ryan was nominated for 11 Academy Awards and won five. They were more on the technical side, but Spielberg did take home his second Best Director award. However, in what was a huge upset, Saving Private Ryan did not win Best Picture. That went to Shakespeare in Love.

In 2015, some Academy members were polled and asked about past controversial Best Picture choices. You know, stuff like saying they would have taken Brokeback Mountain over Crash. In that poll, Academy voters said that, given a second chance, they would vote Saving Private Ryan as Best Picture of 1998.

In three different years — 2001, 2002, and 2004 — ABC aired Saving Private Ryan on Veteran’s Day. Not only that, they aired it uncut and with limited commercial interruptions. That meant keeping the violence and the language intact. The reason 2004 might have been the final year is that that year a lot of ABC stations decided to preempt airing of the film. The speculation is that they were afraid of being fined for language by the FCC in the wake of that year’s Super Bowl halftime show controversy surrounding Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson. While no complaints were filed and no fines were levied, Saving Private Ryan was no longer a Veteran’s Day screening after that.