Beat Street (1984): 15 Shocking Facts You Totally Missed

Beat Street (1984): 15 weird facts you never knew Beat Street was shot in freezing December 1983 on real Bronx streets, then released on June 8th, 1984, right as summer began. Audiences in shorts and tank tops walked into air conditioned theaters to watch ninety minutes of characters in heavy winter coats, right after the sunny California hit Breakin'. The rivalry between the Rock Steady Crew and the New York City Breakers wasn't acting either. It was completely real, and producers kept the two crews on opposite sides of the set at all times to avoid a real fight. Meanwhile roughly 80 percent of the spray painted graffiti on screen was actually airbrushed by studio set decorators who had never tagged a wall in their lives. Original director Andrew Davis was removed just weeks into production and replaced by Stan Lathan, and the film lost its cinematographer Tak Fujimoto in the shakeup too. Puma sponsored the entire production to beat Adidas, who had been featured in the rival movie Breakin', and it backfired badly. Kadeem Hardison is credited in the cast as High School Student, but every one of his scenes was cut from the theatrical release. Doug E. Fresh introduced human beatboxing to a national audience at just 17 years old, and a year later he had released The Show. East Germany's communist government screened the film in 1985 hoping it would expose the failures of American capitalism, and instead East German teenagers started forming their own breakdancing crews. Production costs mysteriously ballooned from $7.5 million to $9.5 million with no special effects, no elaborate sets, and no A-list stars to explain the overrun. The New York City Breakers became the first hip hop group to ever perform for a sitting president at Ronald Reagan's second inaugural gala in January 1985, thanks to a friendship with Frank Sinatra. Atlantic Records planned an unprecedented three volume soundtrack, and only the first earned Gold certification, right as the film was down to just 211 theaters. Guy Davis, who plays lead character Kenny, is the son of Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, and he pivoted from acting to become a two time Grammy nominated blues musician. Roughly 80 percent of the footage shown in the original theatrical trailer never appeared in the finished film, including an entirely different version of the title song performed by Kool Moe Dee. And the bonus: the MPAA originally slapped Beat Street with an R rating, which would have blocked the teenage hip hop fans who were its exact target audience. The studio appealed and won a PG rating on April 26th, 1984. If that single appeal had failed, the movie almost nobody talks about today might never have reached the very audience that eventually turned it into a hip hop landmark. ⏱ Timestamps in the chapters below 👇 Which fact surprised you most? Drop it in the comments