10 Movies Teased In Other Movies YEARS Earlier
4. Hugh Grant Is Reading Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Notting Hill
At the very end of the classic Hugh Grant/Julia Roberts rom-com Notting Hill, especially keen-eyed observers might've noticed that Grant's foppish bookseller William Thacker is reading a copy of Captain Corelli's Mandolin to a pregnant Anna (Julia Roberts).
This book wasn't chosen at random, though: Notting Hill director Roger Michell had already been tapped to direct Captain Corelli's Mandolin as his next project, starring Nicolas Cage and Penélope Cruz and intended to release two years later in 2001.
However, Michell ended up suffering a heart attack before the start of production, resulting in filmmaker John Madden (Shakespeare in Love) being drafted in as his replacement.
Despite this change in director, the rest of the project was largely set in Michell's mould, yet under Madden was a critical and commercial failure.
Michell, who sadly passed away recently, returned to directing the very next year with the Ben Affleck/Samuel L. Jackson thriller Changing Lanes, which was received considerably more favourably.