1.This is one of two movies released to cinemas in 2013 with the same premise: the garrisoning of the White House by criminals who hold the President hostage. The other is White House Down (2013).
2.Cerberus, or Hellhound, is the three-headed dog that guards the gates of the Underworld in Greek mythology. It keeps those who have died from escaping across the river Styx.
3.Morgan Freeman was filming the crisis room scenes in Louisiana at the height of his Internet death hoax. He began each day of filming by serenading the extras with old jazz songs, and endeared himself to the unsuspecting crew with pranks.
4.Putting North Korean terrorists in the plot was widely viewed as prescient when real-world tensions between North Korea and the USA emerged in 2013. In an interview, director Antoine Fuqua said he didn’t want the film’s villains to be from the Middle East because he felt other films had covered that, to the point of saturation. North Korea was interesting to him because it was completely closed off to the outside world, and no one really knew what it wanted or was capable of doing.
5.While filming the White House tourist scenes in Louisiana, the weather was so hot that the Humane Society representative insisted that the German Shepherds playing K-9 watch dogs stay in an air-conditioned van between shoots.
6.For her more physically demanding scenes, Melissa Leo did step-ups on an apple box in-between takes, to keep her heart-rate up. She also wore a brown wig, because she needed to keep her hair long while shooting Treme (2010).
7.Gerard Butler was once in consideration to star as CIA operative Mitch Rapp in a proposed film adaptation of Vince Flynn’s novels. One’s plot is very similar to this film; terrorists seize control of the White House, and Rapp must get to the President in his bunker before the terrorists do.
8.One trailer, used in TV ads, included Emergency Alert System tones. They are used to alert TV viewers about real-life emergencies; using them outside of emergency broadcasts or tests violates federal law. In 2014, the FCC fined ESPN, Viacom, and NBC Universal $1.93 million for broadcasting Emergency Alert System tones in non-emergency broadcasts.
9.The role of the Secret Service director was originally written for a man. Antoine Fuqua persuaded Angela Bassett to audition, then had the role re-written for a woman.
10.This is the second time Dylan McDermott has played a Secret Service Agent. He also played a similar role in In the Line of Fire (1993) with Clint Eastwood.
11.Winona Ryder was the studio’s first choice to play the First Lady.
12.This is the fourth film in which Morgan Freeman and Ashley Judd have appeared in together, but this is the first time that their characters do not share any screen time together. The first three films they worked together in were Kiss the Girls (1997), High Crimes (2002) and Dolphin Tale (2011).
13.Aaron Eckhart (the President) and Morgan Freeman (the House Speaker) both played Batman allies in The Dark Knight (2008).
14.The intruding aircraft is a modified Lockheed AC-130, itself a modified C-130 Hercules. In the movie, the plane has two GE M134 miniguns on each side. In real life, the aircraft only has air-to-ground armament on the left side to provide close air support to ground troops, among other high-risk tasks.
15.Dylan McDermott and Angela Bassett have both starred on the hit TV show American Horror Story.
16.Hamish MacDonald is a real news reporter for channel 10, based in Sydney, Australia.
17.The interceptor planes are Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor jets designed for air superiority and intercept roles.
18.The typeface used for the word “Olympus” in the poster is the same as that of the logo of company “Olympus”, manufacturer of optics.
19.Dylan McDermott and Robert Forster appeared together in Automata (2014).
20.Ironically, Rick Yune, who plays the villain, was born in Washington D.C..
After the attack on the White House and kidnapping of the President and Vice President, Speaker Allan Trumbull (Morgan Freeman) becomes Acting President of the United States. Freeman previously played the President of United States in Deep Impact (1998).
21.After the president is shot, there would have been much more blood, yet as they are walking out the rotunda, the presidents shirt is spotless and then bloody again but not as much as when he is propped against the wall when Banning reaches him
22.Second film where Dylan McDermott is a secret service agent. (First one being In The Line of Fire)
Aaron Eckhart Web 