FILM · 1996 · USA
Thinner
34 archived facts 4 topics 1 source Last reviewed Oct 2026
All facts (34)
- #001
Co-writer/director Tom Holland contracted Bell's Palsy, a virus that paralyzed one side of his face, during production. The effects could have been minimized if he had received a steroid injection immediately, but the producers insisted he keep working, so it took him 36 hours to get to a doctor. His full recovery took more than a year and a half.
- #002
Robert John Burke lost 20 kilos to play the role.
- #003
Billy Halleck's (Robert John Burke) weight of 120 pounds at his thinnest was a challenge for the FX team, since the actor weighed 160 pounds during production.
- #004
Initially the team planned a more horrifying FX makeup that would make Billy Halleck's (Robert John Burke) flesh sag from his protruding chin and cheekbones. Halfway through shooting, they decided this look was too horrifying.
- #005
Depending on his character's stage of deterioration, Robert John Burke had to spend four to six hours a day in the makeup chair.
- #006
Horrifying footage of Linda Halleck's final fate was shot but was not used in the film's final cut.
- #007
The film was scheduled to be released on May 3, 1996, but the studio pushed the release to October due to negative reactions from test audiences; audiences were reported to want more blood and to hate the film's ending. In April, the team returned to Maine for six days of reshoots.
- #008
Director Tom Holland was not satisfied with the film's ending; the producers changed the original (which stayed faithful to the novel) because every test audience member hated it.
- #009
Co-writer/director Tom Holland spent six years developing the film. Among the many reasons production kept being delayed was that executives feared the public would liken the protagonist's condition to the AIDS epidemic.
- #010
(13 minutes 18 seconds) The author plays the pharmacist Dr. Bangor. King famously lives in Bangor, ME.
- #011
Although the story is set in Connecticut, writer-director Tom Holland preferred to shoot in Maine, where Stephen King composed the novel.
- #012
When Billy Halleck (Robert John Burke) opens the refrigerator, a carton of milk from Stew Leonard's is visible inside. Stew Leonard's is a well-known local grocer in Norwalk, CT, said to be close to Fairview, CT, where both the novel and the film are set.
- #013
John Candy was Stephen King's preference to play Billy Halleck, but he turned it down. Candy died a year before shooting began.
- #014
Along with The Long Walk (2025), The Running Man (1987) and The Running Man (2025), this is one of four adaptations based on a novel Stephen King wrote under the Richard Bachman pseudonym.
- #015
The film does not explain Ginelli's (Joe Mantegna) fate. In the novel, after Billy (Robert John Burke) meets with Lemke (Michael Constantine), he finds Ginelli's severed hand holding a handful of BBs in his car. He later learns from a news report that Richie was probably killed by Gina Lemke's (Kari Wuhrer) slingshot-wielding hands, shot with the word "pig" written in blood on his forehead.
- #016
According to their license plates, the gypsies are from Georgia.
- #017
After receiving Michael McDowell's screenplay in 1990, director Tom Holland had to do more than 10 rewrites to get executives to greenlight the film.
- #018
Dino De Laurentiis first tried to produce this film in 1986, after completing another Stephen King adaptation, Maximum Overdrive (1986). He approached Sam Raimi to direct, Scott Spiegel to write and Rob Tapert to produce, but they were busy working on Evil Dead II (1987). De Laurentiis would eventually help produce ED2.
- #019
Writer-director Tom Holland scouted locations while shooting the previous Stephen King adaptation, The Langoliers (1995).
- #020
John Horton, who played Judge Cary Rossington, took on the jury role in another Stephen King adaptation, The Shawshank Redemption (1994).
- #021
This was the first film of Bethany Joy Lenz, then credited as Joy Lenz.
- #022
Budget: 17 million dollars.
- #023
Joe Mantegna studied Stephen King's source novel to get into his character's head.
- #024
Joe Mantegna, who plays a gangster in the film, is best known for voicing the long-running mob boss Fat Tony on The Simpsons (1989). He also played the gangster Joey Zasa in The Godfather Part III (1990) and Pippi De Lena, a member of the Clericuzio crime family, in the 1997 miniseries The Last Don (1997) and The Last Don II (1998).
- #025
Michael Douglas was offered the lead role but turned it down.
- #026
The film implies that Billy's wife is having an affair with his doctor. This plot point is not in the original story.
- #027
Pies in the oven are a prominent plot device in this film and its book, just as they were in Stand by Me (1986) and the 1982 short story "The Body."
- #028
Linda Halleck's (Bethany Joy Lenz) scenes were shot only in her home.
- #029
The license plate of Billy Halleck's (Robert John Burke) car is NO 6651. Taking the liberty of adding the last two digits, the number becomes 666. In some Western religions, the number 666 is generally interpreted as the mark of evil, the devil or the Antichrist.
- #030
The gypsy's car was a 1960 Cadillac Fleetwood 75.
- #031
Billy Halleck's (Robert John Burke) car is a 1994 Infiniti Q45 (G50).
- #032
Dr. Houston's (Sam Freed) car is a 1978 Porsche 928.
- #033
Richie's (Joe Mantegna) car is a 1993 Pontiac Bonneville SE.
- #034
Judge Cary's (John Horton) car is a 1990 Lincoln Continental.
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