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That whole silent shawarma scene almost didn't exist. It wasn't in the original screenplay at all - the cast and crew shot it the day after the film's global premiere once Whedon decided the joke from earlier in the film deserved a payoff, and now it's basically the blueprint every MCU post credits scene since has tried to live up to.
Watch the opening recap of season four closely and you'll notice the Butcher of Blaviken flashback, originally Henry Cavill's scene from the very first episode, now plays out with Liam Hemsworth's face instead. It's framed as a story being retold generations later by an unreliable narrator, which is the show's clever in-universe excuse for the switch.
San Andreas got spoofed in an episode of Die Redaktion, a monthly comedy segment made by the German gaming magazine GameStar, which shipped on the DVD bundled with one of their 2005 issues. A funny little reminder of how far the game's cultural footprint reached.
Casting Wayne Newton as the radio host Mr. New Vegas is one of those decisions that just makes too much sense. Newton had been performing in actual Las Vegas for decades and was practically synonymous with the city, so having him play the smooth-voiced DJ of the Mojave's own radio station was a perfect bit of stunt casting that also happened to work brilliantly.
The entire single-player campaign was built in roughly five months because of a hard deadline from Microsoft, and it shows if you pay attention — several of the later levels literally reuse earlier layouts run in reverse, because there simply wasn't time to build new spaces for the back half of the game.
Studio head Vince Zampella confirmed to press that the game had passed 10 million copies sold worldwide, with the Xbox 360 version pulling ahead as the top-selling platform, not bad for a game that had launched barely a year earlier.
When Faramir gets dragged back to Minas Tirith by his spooked horse, the crew were nervous enough that they rigged a custom release into the saddle. David Wenham held a handle so he could free himself if the horse bolted for real, though he never had to use it.
That brief mid-credits shot of Thanos grabbing the Infinity Gauntlet and grumbling "Fine, I'll do it myself" actually created a small continuity headache down the line. Infinity War later established the real Gauntlet wasn't forged until the dwarf Eitri built it on Nidavellir, and Thor: Ragnarok revealed the one sitting in Odin's vault was a fake all along, so co-director Joe Russo eventually explained this particular scene must be set on Nidavellir itself rather than Asgard.
For the milestone 1000th episode, the anime didn't debut a flashy new opening, it went back to where it all began. A newly animated version of 'We Are!' played over fresh footage of the crew, while all ten main Straw Hat voice actors recorded personal messages reflecting on how far the show had come since 1999.
Finish All Ghillied Up from start to finish without a single enemy ever noticing you and you'll unlock the achievement Ghillies in the Mist, a nice nod to how tense and deliberate that mission is built to feel.
