Deep Blue Sea is a 1999 American science fiction horror movie directed by Renny Harlin. It stars Saffron Burrows, Thomas Jane, Samuel L. Jackson, Michael Rapaport and rapper LL Cool J. Take a look below for 25 more fun and interesting facts about Deep Blue Sea.

1. Set in an isolated underwater facility, the movie follows a team of scientists and their research on mako sharks to help fight Alzheimer’s disease. The situation plunges into chaos when multiple genetically engineered sharks go on a rampage and flood the facility.

2. Although Deep Blue Sea features some shots of real sharks, most of the sharks used in the movie were either animatronic or computer generated.

3. LL Cool J contributed tow songs to the movie: “Deepest Bluest (Shark’s Fin)” and “Say What.”

4. The movie was a moderate commercial success, grossing more than $73 million in the United States and Canada, and $164 million worldwide.

5. The license plate pulled from the shark’s teeth is the same one found in the tiger shark in Jaws.

6. For one scene, Thomas Jane had to swim alongside a real live shark. He was only allowed to shoot this once he had completed all his other scenes.

7. The orange colored mini-sub in the wet-entry area was the same mini-sub seen in the end of Sphere, which was also starring Samuel L. Jackson.

8. Samuel L. Jackson happily signed on for the movie, as he had enjoyed his experience working with Renny Harlin on The Long Kiss Goodnight.

9. Renny Harlin has said that Deep Blue Sea was the hardest movie he’s ever made.

10. The Gen 2 Mako is described as 8,000 pounds and 45 feet long. This would make it more than four times the weight, and three times the length, of the biggest mako shark ever recorded, and twice the size of the biggest great white shark.

11. The seaplane used in this movie is the same one used in Six Days Seven Nights.

12. The SyFy channel is making a sequel to Deep Blue Sea and is expected to release it in 2018.

13. Russell Franklin’s Fantasy Island tattoo reference, upon arriving at Aquatica, was improvised by Samuel L. Jackson.

14. Samuel L. Jackson was initially offered the role played by LL Cool J. Jackson’s management didn’t like the idea of him playing a chief so director Renny Harlin create the role of Russell Franklin for him.

15. Fourteen different visual effects houses worked on the movie’s sharks.

16. An uncredited Ronny Cox doesn’t get any lines at all in the one scene in which he appears in.

17. Despite the fact that the movie was filmed in Super 35, “Filmed in Panavision” is listed in the end credits.

18. Some of the sets were built on top of the Baja Studios tanks and were designed to submerge, others were built on soundstages so the production designers put fishtanks full of water outside potholes and lit them to make it appear as though the facility was underwater.

19. Deep Blue Sea was the first movie Stephen King saw after his near fatal encounter with a van. He stated, “My first trip after being smacked by a van and almost killed was to the movies, I went in my wheelchair and loved every minute of it.”

20. Samuel L. Jackson golfed during breaks from filming.

21. The seaplane that Susan and Franklin fly to Aquatica in is a De Havillan DHC-2 Beaver.

22. Renny Harlin admitted that the idea of abruptly killing off Samuel L. Jackson’s character at two-thirds of the movie was borrowed from the similar fate of Tom Skerritt in Alien.

23. Originally, Saffron Burrows was to be the hero of the movie. However, after viewing the first cut of the movie, Renny Harlin thought that her character was more or less the evil genius of the movie, and had to be punished for it at the end. He purposely cut out some earlier scenes of Burrows to make her less sympathetic. It was also his idea to make LL Cool J the hero, citing that everyone liked him, and that he was a, “pretty cool guy.”

24. Nine people died in the movie, four by shark attack, four by explosion and one by drowning.

25. A deleted scene made it more obvious that Janice and Dr. Whitlock are in a relationship, and it also revealed that Janice is pregnant with their child. Renny Harlin cut the scene because killing off a pregnant character, “didn’t feel right.”