Director Rob Marshall had wanted Catherine Zeta-Jones to keep her naturally long hair for the film, but she insisted on a short bob. She told People magazine she did not want her hair falling across her face and giving viewers cause to doubt that she had performed all the dancing herself.
At the beginning of the scene that introduces Matron Mama Morton (Queen Latifah) to the new inmates, Roxie Hart (Renée Zellweger) has a brief exchange with a cigarette‑smoking woman. That part is played by long‑standing Broadway actress Chita Rivera, who portrayed Velma Kelly in the original 1975 stage production of Chicago.
Richard Gere took tap-dancing lessons for three months. His tap-dancing number was filmed in half a day.
Producer Martin Richards approached Catherine Zeta-Jones about appearing in this film adaptation of the play after being thoroughly impressed by her carol performances at a family Christmas party in Bermuda (at the home she shared with her husband, Michael Douglas). Richards sought her for the role of Roxie Hart, but Zeta-Jones, while unfamiliar with the original production, knew that the character Velma Kelly sings 'All That Jazz'. She only wanted that part because it would allow her to sing that number.
In the "Cell Block Tango" sequence, each woman re-creates her crime and uses a red silk handkerchief to mark where the blood would have been. However, when Hunyak (Ekaterina Chtchelkanova) speaks, she produces a white handkerchief instead of a red one, signalling that she is in fact innocent.
Charlize Theron was originally cast as Roxie Hart while Nicholas Hytner was attached to direct. After Hytner pulled out and Rob Marshall stepped in, Theron was asked to re-audition and ultimately lost the leading role to Renée Zellweger.
The translated speech by Hunyak (Ekaterina Chtchelkanova) reads: "How did I come to be here? They say my famous lover (neighbour?) held my husband down and I cut off his head. But that isn't true. I am innocent. I don't know why Uncle Sam claims it was me. I tried to explain myself at the police station, but they didn't understand." The original, in Hungarian: "Mit keresek én itt? Azt mondják, a híres lakóm lefogta a férjem, én meg lecsaptam a fejét. De nem igaz. Én ártatlan vagyok. Nem tudom, miért mondja Uncle Sam, hogy én voltam. Próbáltam a rendõrségen megmagyarázni, de nem értették meg."
John C. Reilly is such a fan of clowning that he insisted on creating his own clown make-up for "Mister Cellophane." He also proposed including a moment in the number that shows Amos applying the make-up.
The play 'Chicago' was Maurine Dallas Watkins's re-telling of two highly publicised murder trials held in Chicago in 1924 — those of Beulah Sheriff-Annan and Belva Gaertner. Watkins covered the cases for the Chicago Tribune and modelled the character Mary Sunshine on herself. Belva Gaertner (better known as Velma Kelly) endured a far less glamorous fate: she was acquitted, had several later run-ins with the law, but ultimately led a fairly ordinary life and died of natural causes in California in 1965 at the age of eighty. By contrast, Beulah Sheriff-Annan (a.k.a. Roxie Hart) met a grimmer end. She was found not guilty of murdering her lover thanks to the skill of her highly paid lawyer, who had been funded by her remarkably loyal husband, and she repaid that loyalty by publicly divorcing him after her release. She married twice more before dying of tuberculosis four years later.
During the number "Cell Block Tango" Hunyak (Ekaterina Chtchelkanova) speaks Hungarian, but Chtchelkanova is Russian and her accent makes her speech very difficult to follow, even for native Hungarian speakers.
The part of Billy Flynn was offered to John Travolta on several occasions before it was ultimately given to Richard Gere. It was the fourth film that Travolta had turned down, and which Gere subsequently accepted. The others were American Gigolo (1980), Days of Heaven (1978) and An Officer and a Gentleman (1982). Travolta has said he deeply regrets having turned the role down.
An extended dispute unfolded between the representatives of Renée Zellweger and Catherine Zeta-Jones over the billing on the film poster. Ultimately, they opted for a 'diagonal billing' solution — depending on whether one reads it top-to-bottom or left-to-right, each could claim top billing.
With regard to some of the assertions about Roxie Hart's background in the song "We Both Reached for the Gun," in an era when people had to employ private detectives to dig up a person’s past, many women trying to break into show business routinely fabricated one or more of the following: that they were born to and/or brought up by wealthy parents; that they came from a remote place (such as Mississippi); that they were orphans; that they had been educated in a convent; or that they had run away from violent parents, suitors or husbands. By the early 1920s such claims had become such clichés in the entertainment world that any woman asserting them without producing proof was immediately viewed with suspicion and they frequently became the butt of ridicule and humour.
Several aspects differ between the stage productions and the film, which posed challenges when adapting the piece for the screen. One notable difference concerns the portrayal of the reporter Mary Sunshine (played in the film by Christine Baranski). In the stage version, Mary Sunshine is played by a very convincing female impersonator who presents as a large, matronly woman. He sings in falsetto, and the audience does not realise he is a man until the second act, when, after a line to the effect of "Things are not always what they appear to be!", someone pulls off the wig and dress, revealing the truth about Mary Sunshine.
Kathy Bates was director Rob Marshall's first choice to portray Matron Mama Morton, but she was due to be filming About Schmidt (2002). Queen Latifah (Matron Mama Morton in this film) and Kathy Bates for About Schmidt (2002) were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 2003.
Catherine Zeta-Jones was a few months pregnant during the production of this film. Once her pregnancy began to show, the production would sometimes employ a body double filmed from behind and shoot her only from the waist up, so the slight bump that started to appear in certain scenes wasn't visible.
At the start of the film Chicago (2002), during the bar scene, a painting on the wall displays the faces of the women who appear in the 'Cell Block Tango' routine.
Rob Marshall was initially being considered by Miramax Films to direct the film adaptation of the hit Broadway show "Rent." When he turned up for the meeting, he told Miramax Films he wanted to discuss "Chicago" instead and pitched the idea of a "musical inside Roxie's mind." The studio liked the concept and put "Rent" on the back burner, ultimately producing Rent (2005) three years later.
Catherine Zeta-Jones devised Velma's pose for the photographers during the "Cell Block Tango" number.
Whilst Billy Flynn (Richard Gere) walks past the cells, Hunyak (Ekaterina Chtchelkanova) begins speaking Hungarian, but her final sentence is in Russian — she says, 'Help, help me, please.'
After producer Martin Richards initially acquired the film rights in the 1970s, Bob Fosse was slated to work on the project, with Goldie Hawn, Liza Minnelli and Frank Sinatra announced as the intended leads; however, Fosse's death in 1987 brought that attempt at a film adaptation to an end.
A $5,000 fee that Billy Flynn (Richard Gere) demanded from Roxie Hart (Renée Zellweger) would equate to roughly $61,500 in 2013.
When Matron Mama Morton (Queen Latifah) first introduces Billy Flynn (Richard Gere), the dancers for the number "All I Care About is Love" slowly materialise behind her. No CGI was used — it was merely a scrim. In fact, the only CGI in the film involved digitally "erasing" the harnesses on Christine Baranski (Mary Sunshine) and on some of the reporters at the end of the "We Both Reached for the Gun" sequence.
The film became Miramax Films' highest-grossing release when its domestic box-office takings reached $171 million.
The role of Mary Sunshine is customarily played by a man in drag. In an interview with the gay-oriented magazine Genre Christine Baranski she said she regretted having taken a part that would otherwise have gone to a drag queen. Consequently, she chose to portray the character as gay. 'That was my little secret — I was one of those fabulous 1920s lesbians!'
The 1996 stage revival of "Chicago" remains, at present, the longest-running revival on Broadway, the longest show still playing, and the second-longest-running Broadway production overall.
The film was cited as one of the productions that prompted the M.P.A.A. to add smoking to its film classification criteria in 2007, owing to the numerous scenes of smoking by the principal characters and the ensemble cast.
Although the original proposal to adapt the play "Chicago" into a musical came from Gwen Verdon, and she helped supervise the production, she was never credited.
The original production of "Chicago" premiered at the 46th Street Theatre on 3 June 1975, ran for 936 performances and was nominated at the 1976 Tony Awards for Best Musical, Best Book and Best Score.
Cinematographer Dion Beebe was on his way to a theatre in London, England, to see the musical when his agent rang to tell him that director Rob Marshall was keen for him to shoot the film.
All the musical numbers in the film, apart from "Roxie", "Mister Cellophane" and "Razzle Dazzle", are introduced by the bandleader (Taye Diggs).
Deidre Goodwin (as June), Denise Faye (as Annie), Taye Diggs (the band leader), and Sebastian La Cause (June's husband) featured in the cast of the 'Chicago' revival.
The original Broadway play, which was not a musical, had already been adapted for the screen on two occasions: initially as the silent film Chicago (1927), and later as Roxie Hart (1942) featuring Ginger Rogers.
Entertainment Weekly included it among the "Best 25 Film Musicals of All Time".
Two musical numbers, "My Own Best Friend" and "Me and My Baby", were originally intended for the screenplay but were cut at the last minute. "My Own Best Friend" was planned to take place when Roxie Hart and Velma Kelly are held in solitary after a cat‑fight, and "Me and My Baby" can be heard briefly when Roxie faints and announces she is pregnant.
As of 2018, the film Chicago (2002) was the most recent of 10 Best Picture winners not to have won either the Best Screenplay or Best Director awards at the Oscars.
At one stage, Michael Jackson was Rob Marshall's preferred choice to play Billy Flynn, but executive producer Harvey Weinstein objected, believing Jackson would draw more attention than Catherine Zeta-Jones and Renée Zellweger.
Throughout the film, Billy Flynn (Richard Gere) referred to Amos Hart (John C. Reilly) as 'Andy' — a nod to the radio programme 'Amos 'n' Andy', which was later adapted into the television series The Amos 'n' Andy Show (1951).
The 1996 revival of the 1975 musical was one of the rare occasions when a Broadway revival proved markedly more successful than the original production. Aside from a short hiatus during the COVID-19 pandemic, it has been staged continuously since opening and was still running as of July 2024. Given the long, arduous history of adapting the show for the screen, many contend that, had the 1996 Broadway revival not enjoyed such success, the film would probably never have been made.
Mandy Moore auditioned for the part of Kitty Baxter, but the producers judged her to be too young and therefore did not cast her.
Adapted from a 1975 stage musical directed and choreographed by Bob Fosse, whose other credits include the films Cabaret (1972), Lenny (1974), and All That Jazz (1979). The stage production "Chicago" opened at the 46th Street Theatre (now known as the Richard Rodgers Theatre) in New York City on 12 May 1975 and ran for 936 performances. Its opening-night company featured Jerry Orbach as Billy Flynn, Chita Rivera as Velma Kelly (Rivera later took the role of Roxie Hart in a 1990s London production and also had a small part in this film), Gwen Verdon as Roxie Hart, and Barney Martin as Amos Hart. A 1996 Broadway revival proved even more successful and has been running continuously since opening (apart from a short pause during the COVID-19 pandemic); it was still playing as of July 2024.
In 2005, Premiere magazine included the 2002 film Chicago in its list of 'The 20 Most Overrated Movies of All Time'.
The first film directed by Rob Marshall to be released in cinemas.
Roxie Hart performs "Nowadays" solo at first, then joins Velma Kelly for the number as a nod to how it was meant to be. Originally, at the request of Gwen Verdon (the original Broadway Roxie), "Nowadays" was written exclusively for Roxie; however, Bob Fosse wouldn't permit her to sing it alone, so it ultimately became a duet between Roxie and Velma.
Featured in the book "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die", edited by Steven Schneider.
Rob Marshall had Keanu Reeves in mind to portray Amos Hart. Charlie Sheen auditioned for the part.
As of 2018, this film contains the only Academy Award-nominated performances of John C. Reilly, Queen Latifah and Catherine Zeta-Jones (Zeta-Jones won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress).
The prisoner who speaks only Hungarian is called "Hunyak." "Hunyak" is not a given name but a derogatory slur referring to an immigrant from Hungary, or more broadly from Central Europe. In the dialogue her name is revealed to be Katalin Helinszki, yet in both the stage musical and the film the character is credited only as "Hunyak."
It is one of just eleven American musicals to have won the Academy Award for Best Picture. The others are The Broadway Melody (1929), The Great Ziegfeld (1936), Going My Way (1944), An American in Paris (1951), Gigi (1958), West Side Story (1961), My Fair Lady (1964), The Sound of Music (1965), Oliver! (1968) and Amadeus (1984).
Toni Collette, Neve Campbell, Angelina Jolie, Madonna, Jennifer Lopez, Julia Roberts, Gwyneth Paltrow and Winona Ryder were reportedly all in contention to play the part of Velma Kelly.
The 1996 smash Broadway revival sparked renewed interest, and fresh names emerged as leading contenders for the starring roles, including Goldie Hawn and Madonna. Nicholas Hytner was appointed director, and he commissioned Wendy Wasserstein to rework Larry Gelbart's script. The project was shelved once more when Madonna pulled out and Nicole Kidman opted to appear in Moulin Rouge! (2001) instead.
Rob Marshall was previously hired by the producers to direct the fifth episode of series three of The Wonderful World of Disney (1995), titled 'Annie'. He initially did not want to direct that earlier film, preferring only to handle the choreography, but was persuaded to take on both duties. The success of that film led to him being chosen to direct this film.
While filming, Catherine Zeta-Jones was also modelling for her first Elizabeth Arden, Inc. cosmetics campaign. The photo shoots and the filming were running almost concurrently, and once a day's Arden session had finished she was whisked off to rehearsals for this film.
This film represents the second occasion on which Richard Gere portrayed a smarmy, fame-hungry defence lawyer based in Chicago, Illinois. The first was in Primal Fear (1996), in which he played Marty Vail.
The 1975 stage musical was adapted from a 1926 non-musical play. That production premiered at the Music Box Theatre in New York City on 30 December 1926 and ran for 172 performances. The opening-night cast featured Francine Larrimore as Roxie Hart, Juliette Crosby as Velma Kelly, Edward Ellis as Billy Flynn, Charles Halton as Amos Hart, and Robert Barrat, Charles Bickford and Ferike Boros. The play was later filmed as Chicago (1927) and Roxie Hart (1942).
The Broadway musical production of "Chicago" premiered at the 46th Street Theatre (now the Richard Rodgers Theatre) on 3 June 1975, with Gwen Verdon, Chita Rivera (who makes a cameo in the film) and Jerry Orbach in the principal roles. While on holiday, Liza Minnelli took on the role of Roxie Hart. There were numerous replacements during the original run, including Ann Reinking as Roxie Hart. The production ran for 936 performances. The original non-musical play "Chicago" opened at the Music Box Theatre on 30 December 1926 and ran for five months. The musical enjoyed even greater success as a revival, reopening at the Richard Rodgers Theatre on 14 November 1996. It has since moved to several other theatres and, aside from a short hiatus during the COVID-19 pandemic, has run continuously; it was still running as of July 2024.
In 1994 Miramax Films became involved in a fresh attempt to bring the musical to the screen, and Larry Gelbart was commissioned to work on the screenplay, ultimately producing seven drafts, while directors Milos Forman, Herbert Ross and Baz Luhrmann declined to sign on to the project.
It was the first feature film whose soundtrack was recorded using Sony's Direct Stream Digital (DSD) process and subsequently issued on the multi-channel SACD format.
The film depicts or references a total of 14 deaths: Fred Casely; the seven people killed by Roxie's cellmates; Hunyak, who is hanged; the three victims murdered by Kitty Baxter; and the husband and the lawyer of the woman on the courthouse steps. Apart from Hunyak, every killing is carried out by women.
It was included on the American Film Institute's 2004 list of the top 100 greatest pieces of music in American films for the song "All That Jazz."
Hugh Jackman was among the actors initially offered the role of Billy Flynn but felt he was too young for the part and declined; the role was ultimately awarded to Richard Gere.
Catherine Zeta-Jones became the first actor to win an Academy Award for a musical performance since Sissy Spacek, who won for Coal Miner's Daughter (1980).
In a DVD extra, director Rob Marshall was asked on camera about a fan theory proposing that the ending — in which Roxie and Velma, after being released from prison, become immensely successful and famous — is actually a delusion fabricated by Roxie, and that in reality the pair went their separate ways and drifted into poverty and obscurity. Marshall simply smiled during the interview and gave a small nod.
Kylie Minogue auditioned for the part of Roxie Hart.
Michelle Pfeiffer was under consideration for the part of Roxie Hart in the film Chicago (2002).
Amy Poehler auditioned for the part of Roxie Hart.
The film was listed among the 400 contenders on the American Film Institute's 2004 compilation of films put forward for AFI's "100 Years...100 Songs — America's Greatest Music in the Movies", recognised for the song "Razzle Dazzle".
Counted among the 25 films on the American Film Institute's 2006 list, AFI's Greatest Movie Musicals.
Lucy Lawless was under consideration for the part of Roxie Hart.
The story of the film Chicago is based on true events. In 1924 Beulah Annan (Roxie) killed her lover but was acquitted. Her husband, who had gone broke paying for her defence, was publicly dumped the day after the trial. The character Velma was modelled on Belva "Belle" Gaertner, a cabaret singer who killed her married lover while they were in his car; she claimed to have no memory of the incident and was acquitted after her defence argued the lover must have taken his own life. She later said: "No woman can love a man enough to kill him. They're not worth it, because there are always plenty more."
Famke Janssen was in contention for the part of Velma Kelly.
Emma Thompson was under consideration for the part of Roxie Hart.
Melanie Griffith was among those considered to portray Roxie Hart in the 2002 film Chicago.
Leslie Mann attended auditions for the part of Velma Kelly.
Angelina Jolie auditioned for the part of Velma Kelly.
Maggie Gyllenhaal auditioned for the part of Velma Kelly.
Chloë Sevigny was among those under consideration to portray Roxie Hart.
Kristin Davis was under consideration for the part of Velma Kelly.
Toni Collette read for the part of Velma Kelly.
Kirsten Dunst auditioned for the part of Roxie Hart.
Penélope Cruz was in contention for the part of Roxie Hart.
Gloria Estefan was in contention for the part of Velma Kelly.
Anna Friel was among those considered for the part of Velma Kelly in the 2002 film Chicago.
Sean McCann (Judge) and Jayne Eastwood (Mrs. Borusewicz) both featured in the Canadian children's programme Noddy (1998).
Danny Trejo was in contention for the part of Fred Casely.
Cindy Crawford was among those considered for the part of Roxie Hart in the 2002 film Chicago.
John C. Reilly is originally from Chicago.
Sophie Marceau auditioned for the part of Roxie Hart.
Izabella Scorupco was among the actresses under consideration to play Roxie Hart.
Shakira was among those being considered to play Roxie Hart in the film Chicago (2002).
Tyra Banks was among those considered to play Roxie Hart in the film Chicago (2002).
Claudia Schiffer was mooted for the part of Roxie Hart.
Neve Campbell was among those considered to play the part of Velma Kelly.
Mimi Rogers was in contention for the part of Roxie Hart.
Kim Basinger was under consideration to play Roxie Hart in the 2002 film Chicago.
Courtney Love was being considered for the part of Velma Kelly in the 2002 film Chicago.
Jenny McCarthy was under consideration to play the part of Roxie Hart.
Robert Rodriguez was in contention for the part of Fred Casely.
Of all the prisoners, the Hungarian woman - the only one not guilty of murder - was nevertheless the only prisoner to be hanged.
While Lucy Liu was presenting Saturday Night Live (1975) in the episode Lucy Liu/Jay-Z (2000), she lampooned Catherine Zeta-Jones in the 'Celebrity Jeopardy!' sketch.
