- The production company hired local contractors to build a massive indoor wave pool for production.
- Following the series of hurricanes in the southern United States in 2005, production moved to Shreveport, Louisiana.
- 60,000 pounds of ice were used on the Elizabeth City set to recreate some of the scenes that were supposed to be filmed in Kodiak, Alaska.
- The movie uses clips of real incidents supplied to Walt Disney by the UK Maritime and Coastguard Agency during the training sequences in scenes at the training school.
- The Coast Guard A school for rescue swimmers is not at Barksdale AFB in Louisainia, but Elizabeth City, North Carolina.
- Chief Flythe, played by Joseph 'Butch' Flythe, who can be seen in various scenes throughout the film, was one of the first five operating rescue swimmers in the Coast Guard, graduating from A school in 1984 and beginning his work at the Elizabeth City base in 1985.
- One of the students was Mark Gangloff, an Olympic swimmer who won gold in Athens.
- Clancy Brown, who plays Captain Hadley in The Guardian (2006/I) also played a different Captain Hadley in The Shawshank Redemption (1994).'
- Part of the movie was filmed in the pool at Louisianna State University of Shreveport, and the local Olympic Weightlifting club was forced to train outside of the building during filming because their location across the hall made too much noise when athletes dropped the weights.
- Kevin Costner and Ashton Kutcher are both members of the Delta Chi fraternity.
- When Ben shows Jake the newspaper story, the name of the newspaper is the Cedar Rapids Chronicle - presumably chosen because Ashton Kutcher's hometown is Cedar Rapids, IA.
- In one of the sequences, stunt coordinator Alex Daniels was shown in a picture hung up on the wall where Ashton Kutcher and so onward were looking. The photo of Daniel's was taken in his years spent as a lifeguard.
- The opening story of the helo rescue gone bad was loosely based on a real event that occurred August 7, 1981. The crew of CG1471 from Airsta Kodiak was responding to a distress call of a fishing vessel near Prince William Sound. As the crew attempted to hoist the survivors of the boat, a wave hit the tail of CG1471 causing the helo to crash into the seas. A painting named "So Others May Live" hangs on CG Airsta Kodiak depicting the rescue.
>>> WARNING: Here Be Spoilers <<<
Trivia items below here contain information that may give away important plot points. You may not want to read any further if you've not already seen this title.
- SPOILER: A prominent scene in the movie's trailer, where Fisch tells Randall, "That is definitely NOT in the manual!" isn't in the theatrical release of the film because it actually comes from an alternate ending. In the alternate ending, Fisch successfully holds onto Randall's fingertips, getting him into the helicopter and saving him. The writer, director, producer, and others involved in the film preferred the ending where Randall dies, as it had more emotional impact.
Related Links
