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Antz

FILM · 1998 · USA

Antz

29 archived facts 2 topics 1 source Last reviewed Oct 2026

  • Antz — production image

29 Interesting Facts About Antz

Interesting Facts (27)

  1. #001

    Christopher Walken's vocal performance was so perfect that Cutter's role was expanded. He was originally a faceless servant of General Mandible, but Walken brought unexpected depths to the character.

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  2. #002

    Some of the characters are named after ant species: Bala is the name people in Costa Rica give to bullet ants (the species "Paraponera clavata"), Barbatus takes its name from the species "Pogonomyrmex barbatus" (the red harvester ant), Azteca takes its name from the species "Azteca andreae", Weaver takes its name from the weaver or green ant (genus Oecophylla), and Cutter takes its name from leafcutter ants (genera Atta and Acromyrmex). General Mandible, meanwhile, is named after mandibles — ant jaws.

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  3. #003

    Ants and termites really do fight each other. In reality, however, the ants would win, because they would easily outnumber those of a termite nest.

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  4. #004

    (At the 11th minute) In the bar, Z says he does not drink water from another creature's anus. In the trailer, the word "anus" was replaced with "caboose".

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  5. #005

    It was DreamWorks Animation's first feature film and the only fully computer-animated film released in the twentieth century. Starting with Shrek (2001), all of the company's subsequent CGI films premiered in the twenty-first century.

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  6. #006

    Woody Allen recorded the role of Z in only five days.

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  7. #007

    One reason the film has a PG rating is its casual profanity, which is unusual to hear in an animated film. This is usually cut when the film airs on television.

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  8. #008

    (At about 1 hour 13 minutes) In the flood scene, no ant drowned because the animators thought that would be too cruel.

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  9. #009

    It was Woody Allen's first time acting in an animated film. Although he did not much enjoy the experience, Antz remains the most successful film he has ever been involved with.

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  10. #010

    Sarah Jessica Parker had recorded dialogue for this film but was later fired for unspecified reasons. Sharon Stone was brought in to replace her.

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  11. #011

    The main characters share facial similarities with the actors who voice them, but according to the DVD commentary these were designed before the actors were hired — Weaver's lips in particular were based on Sylvester Stallone's lips. Z was also going to wear thick glasses like Woody Allen's, but the idea was dropped.

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  12. #012

    In the early days of defining the character, Bala was much meaner. Sharon Stone's reading helped change this, balancing sassiness with brattiness so that she never became too sassy.

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  13. #013

    Although it is often called the second computer-animated film (after Toy Story (1995)), it was actually the third. The second was Cassiopeia (1996).

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  14. #014

    There are several subtle shout-outs in the Star Wars dialogue: "I hope you know what you're doing." "Yeah, me too." "The Colonel's not as understanding as I am." "Aren't you a little short for a war hero?" "Who's the bigger fool, the fool or the fool who's captured by the fool?"

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  15. #015

    Although there are humans in the film, we never see a face. This may be because DreamWorks Animation did not want to face the same criticism Pixar Animation Studios received when Toy Story (1995) came out. The humans in the film looked strange and were not at all convincing because computer-animated human faces had not yet been perfected.

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  16. #016

    Woody Allen was uncomfortable watching Z because it reminded him too much of himself. That is why he cannot watch any film he has appeared in.

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  17. #017

    The film is set in Central Park in New York City, New York (on record the most-filmed public park).

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  18. #018

    Apparently Woody Allen succeeded in every reading he did for Z. But he was also very physical in the recordings, ruining some takes because the animators could not keep up with him.

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  19. #019

    (At about 15 minutes) During the dance scene, a parody of the Pulp Fiction dance moves can be seen.

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  20. #020

    (At about 25 minutes) According to the directors, any resemblance to Starship Troopers (1997) in the termite battle scene is a coincidence.

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  21. #021

    The score for this film was initially to be composed by Hans Zimmer and David Newman, but because they were busy with several films in 1997 and 1998, the score was composed by Harry Gregson-Williams and John Powell.

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  22. #022

    Z is saved from death twice by two ants; the first is Barbatus, who saves him from being eaten by a termite, and the second is Cutter, who saves him from drowning near the end and in doing so actually saves himself.

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  23. #023

    The general's name was originally Formica instead of Mandible. His initial plan was to tie Bala up and leave her in the tunnel with the workers rather than safely isolate her, and his original fate was to drown before the rescuers could reach him.

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  24. #024

    (At about 36 minutes) The boy with the magnifying glass vaporizing a stupid soldier ant who thinks the light is beautiful is a lift of similar dialogue from Independence Day (1996). The sound effects are taken directly from the original War of the Worlds (1953).

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  25. #025

    It could be argued that the film always had two simultaneous titles. "Antz" is clearly a play on Ants (plural), but with the disproportionate Z in the title graphic, it can also be read as "Ant Z," as in the protagonist Ant Z-4195, known as "Z" in the short version of his name.

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  26. #026

    Antz's plot is an ironic reversal. In the film, Mandible wants to flood the ant colony and destroy all the ants so he can start over. In the James Bond film A View to a Kill (1985), the villain Max Zorin wanted to destroy Silicon Valley by flooding the San Andreas fault by digging under Lake San Andreas. Max Zorin was played by Christopher Walken, who also appears in Antz.

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  27. #027

    The computer graphics that make up the film would later become the dominant form of animation at DreamWorks and, from 2003 onward, would replace 2D animation.

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Production Story (2)

  1. #028

    In the original development, some ants wore clothes and gloves, and light bulbs appeared when an idea came to them. None of this made it into the finished film. General Mandible also looked more overtly sinister in the early drafts, but this was softened for the final result.

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  2. #029

    In the first draft, Cutter was to have a worker girlfriend who was Bala's only friend. The idea was dropped in order to focus more on the relationships between Z and Bala and between Weaver and Azteca.

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Sources & editorial notes

Reference databases

  • IMDb IMDb title page (trivia)

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