Tower Heist

Casey Affleck was keen to take part in Tower Heist (2011), as he really wanted to do a comedy and was very rarely being approached to do anything other than serious drama.

The only improvised scene was when Odessa instructs Slide how to crack a safe in a very suggestive manner.

The 1912 chess game Shaw (Alan Alda) references, while talking to Kovaks (Ben Stiller), is a real game. However, rather than playing it out, Levitsky resigned after Marshall moved his queen, realizing checkmate was inevitable. The “Marshall Swindle” term did not derive solely from that game, as it was a well known tactic of Frank Marshall’s to often play a game in a lazy or relaxed style that ceded his opponent the advantage. Just when he appeared to be in a totally lost position, he would summon up a marvelous tactical flight of fancy to smash his unaware opponent. Some of his defeated and frustrated opponents, believing that they had a moral right to the victory after having established decisive advantage, felt that Marshall had cheated them out of their just deserts, and often complained that they had been “swindled.” A well-known “Marshall Swindle” occurred in a game between Marshall and Georg Marco in 1904.

The original idea for the movie came from Eddie Murphy, who first pitched it to both director and producer Brett Ratner and Brian Grazer, years before the project was finally launched.

Brett Ratner turned down the opportunity to direct Horrible Bosses (2011) in order to make this film.

Donald Trump International Hotel and Tower in Manhattan was the stand-in for “The Tower” in the film.