1.
Batman Begins is the first movie to successfully reboot a franchise. At the time the last Batman film, Batman & Robin, had been released eight years prior — in 1997 — and the reviews and audience reactions to it were so bad that Warner Bros. put a stop to future movies.
3.
Contrary to rumors, “Umbrella” was not turned down by Mary J. Blige and Britney Spears before being offered to Rihanna. The writers of the song, The-Dream, Jay-Z, Kuk Harrell, and Tricky Stewart, offered it to all of them at the same time.
4.
According to Jonathan Bennett, Tina Fey told him he got cast as Aaron Samuels in Mean Girls because he looks like Jimmy Fallon.
5.
In 2006, at its peak, the iPod accounted for 40% of Apple’s revenue.
6.
While Juicy Couture tracksuits are very much associated with then-younger celebs, like Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, the first celebrity to wear them was actually Madonna (the founders of the company sent one directly to her with her nickname “Madge” embroidered on the back).
7.
In 2006, analog TVs still out sold HDTVs.
8.
Gwen Stefani’s “Cool” is a song she wrote about her ex and No Doubt bandmate, Tony Kanal. The music video for it stars Erin Lokitz as the “new girlfriend” and IRL, she was the then-girlfriend of Kanal (the two would eventually go on to get married).
9.
In 2004, Starbucks got into the music business with their Hear Music Coffeehouses. The new stores were a mix of a coffee shop and music store and offered the ability to make mix CDs — you would select the music you wanted from a touch-screen computer kiosk and then burn it onto a CD (for 99 cents a track).
10.
Amy Winehouse was the first choice to sing the Bond theme song for 2008’s Quantum of Solace. After meeting with the franchise’s producer, Barbara Broccoli, it was clear that she couldn’t do it. According to Broccoli, Winehouse “was not at her best” and that “she was very fragile emotionally.”
11.
The Motorola Razr is one of the most iconic cellphones of all time. However, when it was first released in 2004, it was not an immediate success because it cost $500, which was too expensive for most people at the time. Once the price was cut on it, it became a HUGE seller.
12.
Mad Men is considered one of the greatest TV shows of all time. The show’s creator, Matthew Weiner, envisioned the show for HBO, but not only did HBO pass on it, they didn’t even read the pilot.
13.
It took Beyoncé one-and-a-half months to learn all the choreography to “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It).” During the shoot, they did the routine 50 times and broke multiple pairs of high heels because they were dancing so hard.
14.
The idea for the series Queer Eye for the Straight Guy came from a total fluke. In 2001, the series co-creators, David Collins and Michael Williams, where at an open artist studio in Boston when they overheard a wife yell at her husband for not being dressed as nice as three gay men that were there — the gay men then went to talk to the couple to smooth things over. While they were all talking, Collins said to Williams, “They just got a queer eye for the straight guy. That’s the show we’ve been looking for.”
15.
Leona Lewis’s breakthrough hit “Bleeding Love” was co-written by Jesse McCartney (along with OneRepublic’s Ryan Tedder) — who intended to put it on his own album, but instead gave it to Lewis.
16.
In late 2007, Netflix got VERY close to releasing their own streaming device called The Netflix Player. However, Netflix’s CEO, Reed Hastings, realized that if he put out his own streaming device, he would likely lose out on Netflix being available on other devices — like AppleTV — because he would be a direct competitor. With just a few weeks before the product was set to launch, Hastings canceled it. However, he decided to spin off the product to Roku, which was the company that had helped develop the device.
17.
The final episode of Friends is the most-watched show of the entire 2000s. The series finale was watched by 52.5 million viewers.
18.
And lastly, The Devil Wears Prada is not only one of the most iconic fashion films of the 2000s, but of all time. However, the movie only had a wardrobe budget of $100,000, which meant the movie’s costume designer Patricia Field had to call in a lot of favors in order to create all the high fashion looks. According to Field, she imagined Andy Sachs as a “Chanel girl,” so she personally called Chanel (who she had a long relationship with) and showed them the script. Chanel was ecstatic to work with her because “they wanted to see Chanel on young women.” Of course, this collaboration all led to the iconic Chanel boots quote and look.
