FILM · 2002 · USA
The Mothman Prophecies
22 archived facts 5 topics 1 source Last reviewed Oct 2026
All facts (22)
- #001
Director Mark Pellington, who provided the voice of Indrid Cold, occasionally added his own voice beneath the dialogue of the characters speaking to John Klein on the phone throughout the film. Pellington said the aim was to create the illusion that Cold could be any of these people and that the whole situation and everyone in it might exist only in John's head.
- #002
At the end of the film it is stated that the cause of the bridge collapse was never determined. The real Silver Bridge is known to have collapsed due to the failure of I-bar 330 on the north side of the Ohio chain, just below the top of the Ohio tower. The failure of a single I-bar brought down the bridge because of a lack of redundancy in the structure's design. Traffic loads were far beyond the bridge's carrying capacity.
- #003
The film is based on real events that took place in Point Pleasant, West Virginia, between November 1966 and December 1967.
- #004
The paranormal activity expert is named Leek, the exact opposite of the paranormal expert, and the author of the novel on which the film is based is John A. Keel.
- #005
For the "Bridge collapse" sequence, Camera Assistant Gene Warren III and five other model makers, along with two production assistants, took three months to build every piece of the bridge set from scratch for Fantasy II. Warren estimated that twenty thousand separate steel parts went into the construction so that the ultra-photorealistic 1/6-scale model suspension bridge would support all the model vehicles and ultimately collapse into the water like a full-scale steel bridge. The entire set was built to cover the water tank at Fantasy II. Among the hundreds of sets he has completed, this remains Warren's favorite.
- #006
Lakeshore Entertainment cut $2 million from the budget just days before filming began. Director Mark Pellington was furious, having vowed not to make the same compromises that had plagued his previous film, Arlington Road (1999).
- #007
The bridge collapse in the film is said to kill thirty-six people. That is fewer than the real Silver Bridge collapse, which caused the deaths of forty-six people.
- #008
Contrary to popular belief, Mothman was not initially described by witnesses as a moth-like creature. At the time, the creature was described as half bird, half man. Witnesses also claimed the creature had feathers and made a screeching sound. Many skeptics attributed the Mothman sightings to birds such as cranes or herons, which are not unique to Point Pleasant. Point Pleasant locals, however, believe it was a snowy owl that had become lost and was found in the area, frightening local people unfamiliar with birds. Local hunter Ace Henry shot and killed such an owl in 1966, after which the first wave of sightings stopped. The owl in question was stuffed and is displayed at the Mothman Museum in Point Pleasant, where the museum describes it as "Mothman's corpse."
- #009
The bartender is also the voice of Indrid Cold during the telephone conversation.
- #010
The scene in which Indrid Cold is first seen in full was not done with CGI. Bill Laing was shot with a blurry effect.
- #011
The clock radio in John Klein's motel room reads 6:14. This is a reference to John 6:14 in the Bible, which reads: "This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world."
- #012
The WOWK 13 news station shown during the Charleston scenes is the real news station of the Charleston-Huntington area.
- #013
Mothman's face is seen six times in the film. The first is when he flies toward Mary's face. The second is at the end of the scene in which John Klein talks to the woman who saw Indrid through the window, when the camera pulls back and Mothman's face appears in the burn mark he left on the trees behind. The third is when the young couple recount the incident at the factory site in which Mothman got out of the car. The fourth is at the start of the pull-away from Mary's photograph after John smashes the phone, when Mothman's face and shape appear in Mary's pupil. The fifth is when he is seen in the mirror on the door John crashes into. The sixth and final time is when the cable strikes the car's windshield.
- #014
In the film the Silver Bridge collapses at Christmas. In reality it was December 15.
- #015
Two-digit numbers that change throughout the film can be seen, such as the "35" written in chalk while John interviews Nat. These are subtle foreshadowing that each character is marked as one of Mothman's victims.
- #016
This is the second film in which Lucinda Jenney and Will Patton play a couple. In Remember the Titans (2000), Patton played Coach Bill Yoast and Jenney (though uncredited) played his ex-wife, Arleen Yoast.
- #017
John Klein's first encounter with Mothman ends in a car accident when his car hits a tree. The street is Bartlett Street in Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The traffic signal they approach was installed for filming and is no longer there.
- #018
Mothman in 1966 and 1967 first took its name from the film Batman (1966).
- #019
Michael Gambon, John Hurt, David Suchet and Charles Dance were considered for the role of Alexander Leek.
- #020
Richard Gere and Laura Linney had previously appeared together in Primal Fear (1996).
- #021
After John decides not to go to the police station (1:15:10), you briefly see his dead wife Mary walking on the sidewalk behind him.
- #022
As told in the book the film is based on, Point Pleasant, the town where the film largely takes place, was the site where Chief Cornstalk of the Shawnee tribe — a Native American said to have cursed the region before his death in battle in the 1760s — was killed, which is put forward as one of the reasons for the strange events in the town. The film alludes to this indirectly, in moments where Richard Gere's character is seen passing a large mural that appears to depict a war with Native Americans, and where a ceramic Native American is shown in close-up on a character's desk.
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