Celebrate the start of spooky season with these Casper fun facts, from on-set crushes…
Christina Ricci EMBARRASSED by Her Performance in Casper
There’s no unfinished business when it comes to our enduring love for Casper.
Released in May 1995 months before Halloween, no one expected Casper to become one of the year’s biggest hits, let alone one of spooky season’s most iconic staples.
Made for $55 million, the movie which starred Bill Pullman and a then-14-year-old Christina Ricci went on to gross $300 million and became one of Universal Studios’ most beloved properties in the ’90s.
But did you know that original version of the beloved classic didn’t include Casper in human form? Yes, that’s right, we were almost robbed of hearing ’90s teen heartthrob Devon Sawa famously ask, “Can I keep you?” (We shudder just thinking about all of the sexual awakenings that never would have happened!)
Helmed by first-time feature film director Brad Silbering and produced by Steven Spielberg, a lot of changes were made when the story of the world’s friendliest ghost made the jump from the comic strip to the screen, including a tragic story for the friendly ghost and the absence of a witchy character that would later be played by Hilary Duff.
But the biggest was certainly the addition of Sawa.
Decades later, though, he admits it’s not in regular rotation for his kids Hudson, 10, and Scarlett, 8.
“I have a video somewhere of my son seeing it—he didn’t get it,” the Chucky star admitted to E! News in 2022. “I think he was four at the time when he watched it and he was like ‘Oh my God! The kid comes down the stairs and it’s such a great moment,’ but I don’t think he clued in to, ‘That’s my dad!’ And we haven’t revisited it since. We don’t revisit a lot of my movies. A lot of movies don’t age well.”
Beg to differ, sir.
Here are 25 fun facts you might not know about Casper, including the secret on-set crush and the failed attempt to make a sequel…
Casper is streaming on Netflix.