FILM 2109: A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD (2019)

FILM 2109: A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD (2019)

TRIVIA: Days before the film premiered, ancestry confirmed Tom Hanks and Fred Rogers are actually sixth-cousins.

This movie is based on the article "Can You Say...'Hero'?" by Tom Junod, which was published in the November 1, 1998, issue of Esquire Magazine. In 2019, before the release of this film, Junod wrote an article in The Atlantic that was partly about this process. It started, "A long time ago, a man of resourceful and relentless kindness saw something in me that I didn't see in myself. He trusted me when I thought I was untrustworthy, and took an interest in me that went beyond my initial interest in him. He was the first person I ever wrote about who became my friend, and our friendship endured until he died. Now a movie has been made from the story I wrote about him, which is to say "inspired by" the story I wrote about him, which is to say that in the movie my name is Lloyd Vogel and I get into a fistfight with my father at my sister's wedding. I did not get into a fistfight with my father at my sister's wedding. My sister didn't have a wedding."

The puppets used in the film are not the originals but instead are meticulous recreations by the puppet makers for Sesame Street (1969). The director confirmed this during the 2019 London Film Festival.

This is the eighth film where Tom Hanks has portrayed a real life person.

In a scene in the feature film The 'Burbs (1989), Tom Hanks's character Ray Peterson is watching a television episode of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood (1968). Thirty years later, Tom Hanks would go on to portray Fred Rogers in this feature film.

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