FILM · 2014
Sabotage
18 archived facts 2 topics 1 source Last reviewed Oct 2026
All facts (18)
- #001
According to director David Ayer, Sabotage was heavily cut by the studio in favor of delivering a more action-based film rather than a mysterious thriller. The original cut was said to run close to 3 hours.
- #002
The film initially had a completely different ending. In it, Caroline and Breacher catch Lizzy as she confesses. Breacher shoots Lizzy without further explanation, and Caroline realizes that Breacher is behind the murders. Breacher slips away unnoticed. Caroline and her partner Jackson later go to the lake to retrieve the money. Breacher appears, stabs Jackson and begins fighting Caroline in the water. David Ayer shot two alternative versions of this ending. In the first, Caroline escapes and Breacher, trying to leave with the money, is confronted by two police cars. Breacher kills the officers and prepares to flee in one of the cars. Then Caroline appears and asks him why he killed his team. She says they will not let him kill the murderer of his family, knowing she can catch him. When he then tries to go for his gun, she shoots him. In the second version, when Caroline asks, Breacher tells her that a member of his team betrayed him and that one of them was responsible for selling his family to the cartel for money. He did not know which one, so he took them all out. When Caroline tries to arrest him, he shoots her and then takes the money and leaves. Both versions were rejected by the producers, and Ayer was forced to create a new ending showing Arnold Schwarzenegger's character as an anti-hero rather than a villain.
- #003
Arnold Schwarzenegger did not much like the haircut he had to wear in this film.
- #004
The Beastie Boys' Mike D and Adam Horovitz declined a request to use their 1994 song "Sabotage" in the film's promotions. Adam Yauch stipulated in his will that his music not be used in advertisements.
- #005
In the scene where Breacher writes statistics at his desk, the pictures of his family on his computer are real photos of Arnold Schwarzenegger's family. Pictures of Patrick Schwarzenegger can be seen.
- #006
Kate Mara and Isla Fisher auditioned for the role that went to Malin Akerman. Akerman later left due to pregnancy and was replaced by Mireille Enos.
- #007
The DVD that the Stakeout Agent returns to Breacher is a Netflix copy of Training Day (2001), whose screenplay was written by Sabotage director David Ayer.
- #008
A subplot involving Brentwood trying to nail an abusive father who killed a young girl was cut from the final film, but it is briefly mentioned in the scene where Brentwood and Breacher talk on the way to Tripod's house. This story was cut to increase the film's pace and focus on the action.
- #009
Although screenwriter Skip Woods is credited with writing the screenplay alongside David Ayer, very little of his original script was used in the film; only the main plot idea of a group of police officers being killed one by one.
- #010
The word "sabotage" comes from the French word "sabot," meaning "wooden shoe." Poor French workers wore these during the Industrial Revolution (mid-1800s). These workers were often replaced by machines and lost their jobs. They threw their wooden shoes into the machines, rendering them unusable and thereby giving the workers their jobs back. So sabotage is a deliberate act aimed at destruction.
- #011
The tattoo on Grinder's shoulder is from a cartoon strip called "Terminal Lance." It depicts a Grim Reaper holding an eagle clutching a skull with a Navy emblem for eyes, and below it an M240B medium machine gun with the baby Jesus hanging from it.
- #012
After the grim showing in US box office receipts, Australian distributors pulled the film from its planned theatrical release on May 1, 2014, and instead released it directly on DVD on July 31, 2014.
- #013
Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sam Worthington both had roles in Terminator films; Worthington's character was a human/machine hybrid and not a true terminator.
- #014
The nickname "Brujo" means male witch or sorcerer.
- #015
Harold Perrineau (Det. Jackson) and Josh Holloway (Eddie "Neck" Jordan) both appeared on the TV series Lost (2004); in this film they do not share screen time.
- #016
Detective Brentwood's radio number is 21-50. This is the famous radio identifier used by Broderick Crawford in Highway Patrol (1955).
- #017
Both David Ayer and Joe Manganiello have worked in the DC Extended Universe. Ayer directed Suicide Squad (2016), and Manganiello plays Slade Wilson/Deathstroke in Justice League (2017)/Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021).
- #018
Dwayne Johnson was accepted for the role of Joe "Grinder" Phillips.
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