FILM · 1992 · USA
Sneakers
29 archived facts 3 topics 1 source Last reviewed Oct 2026
29 Interesting Facts About Sneakers
Interesting Facts (23)
- #001
- #002
At the end, the character "Mary" (Amy Benedict) gives "Carl" (River Phoenix) the phone number 415-273-9164. This is a San Francisco area code and one of the rare instances in film and television where a real phone number was used instead of a "555" number. In the audio commentary, the writers explain that they bought a real phone number because they wanted it to be believable that the woman actually gives him her number in a film full of deceptions, and that a 555 number could be unintentionally funny. They set up a voicemail promoting the film, but after its theatrical release they allowed it to revert to a real number and assumed the person who held it received strange calls.
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In a 2012 article for Slate, Stephen Tobolowsky recalled that while filming on the Universal Studios lot, he saw Robert Redford and James Earl Jones walk in front of a tour bus unnoticed. Dozens of tourists instead took photos of inanimate attractions such as E. T.'s bicycle from E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) and the shark from Jaws (1975).
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After identifying the small black box in Janek's office, Sister Dan Aykroyd, while in the van, fits Bishop Robert Redford with a hidden microphone and earpiece. Mother praises the microphone's quality and says it is "the same microphone NASA used in the fake Apollo moon landing. The astronauts broadcast worldwide from an audio station at Norton Air Force Base in San Bernardino, California." The Aerospace Audio-Visual Service (A.A.V.S.) sound stage at Norton Air Force Base in San Bernardino, California, is where U.S. Air Force Captain Phil Alden Robinson cut his teeth as a television producer and director in the mid-1970s.
- #017
According to director/writer Phil Alden Robinson, the film's concept dates to the early 1980s, when screenwriters/producers Lawrence Lasker and Walter F. Parkes were developing WarGames (1983), which also dealt with the dangers of technology and government secrets. Many drafts were written and many revisions made over that decade, and it was passed to many different studios until Universal picked it up in 1991.
- #018
At the end of the film, when James Earl Jones comes to collect the mysterious box, Robert Redford threatens to give the story to the newspapers if he does not reveal his identity to the federal government. In Three Days of the Condor (1975), Robert Redford's character passes his story about CIA involvement in assassinations to The New York Times.
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Easter Eggs & References (4)
- #024
While rummaging through Dr. Brandes's (Stephen Tobolowsky's) trash, Anne (Dan Aykroyd) holds up a folded "Cap'n Crunch" box. In the 1970s, "Cap'n Crunch" came with a small whistle in the box. A "phone phreaker" named "Captain Crunch" (John Draper) discovered that this whistle could be used to make free telephone calls (one of many components of the practice of "phone phreaking," which digital telephone switching systems almost entirely rendered obsolete). There is another reference to Draper during the Scrabble game (the word "CRUNCH" appears upside down before it becomes SCRUNCHY). Cosmo (Sir Ben Kingsley) also tells Martin (Robert Redford) that while in prison he helped some Mafia men make some "free telephone calls." Whistler (David Strathairn) was modeled on Joe Engressia, a blind telephone expert born with perfect pitch and one of the original phone phreakers.
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Deeper Meaning (2)
- #028
Professor Len Adleman is one of the three mathematicians who invented the RSA ("A") encryption system, now the leading method for encrypting all kinds of data worldwide. Adleman served as the film's mathematics consultant and spent several days creating the slides Janek (Donal Logue) presents at the "unbreakable codes" university symposium (which took him considerable time using early 1990s primitive computer graphics technology). In the end, writer-director Phil Alden Robinson rendered the slides as oil-paint scrawls because of the idea, which Adleman later confirmed was actually true, that this is what a regular mathematician would have done and would have saved him days had he known.
- #029
In the film Blindfold (1966), the kidnappers take Dr. Snow (Rock Hudson) past a lake with a flock of geese nearby. He later thinks this is the sound of guests at a cocktail party, until he retraces his route and discovers the true source of the sounds. Phil Alden Robinson borrowed this idea for when Martin (Robert Redford) is kidnapped, blindfolded, and thinks the sound of the geese he passes is people at a cocktail party.
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Sources & editorial notes
Reference databases
- IMDb
Information from external sources is independently selected, consolidated and edited by Arka Evren. Sources are listed for verification and further reading. Encyclopedia text is used under its licence (CC BY-SA). How we work