Fascinated by numbers and their mysteries? Here is quiz on 16 films that have something to do with numbers

The opening of the animated science-fiction film 9 on 09/09/09, making it the first opening-date publicity gimmick since the Satanic-themed The Omen on 6/6/06 — was a red-letter day for fans of movies with numbers in their titles.

With the movie achieving reasonable success at the North American box-office and the musical Nine opening in November, we bring the number fans a quiz on 16 films with titles prominently featuring numbers. Get out your pencils — and your calculators — and give it a try.

1. Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994) made a star of Hugh Grant, but its ensemble cast also featured a number of up-and-coming stars, including Rowan Atkinson, Simon Callow, John Hannah, Andie MacDowell and Kristin Scott Thomas. Only one of those five plays either a bride or a groom, however. Which one?

2. Six Days Seven Nights (1998) is a rare film with two numbers in its title. Where do stars Harrison Ford and Anne Heche spend the titular vacation?

3. In Seven (1995), who sculpted the severed head of Gwyneth Paltrow’s character for the final scene?

4. Who is not a member of The Magnificent Seven (1960): Charles Bronson, Yul Brynner, James Coburn, Steve McQueen or Eli Wallach?

5. In Jennifer 8 (1992), who is the title character?

6.  Federico Fellini’s 8 ½ (1963), an autobiographical comedy about a tormented movie director (Marcello Mastroianni) struggling to sort out his romantic and professional lives, was later adapted into a Broadway musical. What musical?

7. What is unusual about The Whole Nine Yards (2000) being filmed in Montreal?

8.Blake Edwards’ 10 (1979) made an overnight star of Bo Derek, but Edwards wrote the part with another actress in mind. What future Oscar nominee was the role intended for?

9. Who were the only cast members from Ocean’s Eleven (1960) to appear in Stephen Soderbergh’s popular 2001 remake?

10. What inspired the title of 12 Monkeys (1995)?

11. In 13 Going on 30 (2004), a 13-year-old girl wakes up as her adult self, the high-powered editor of a glossy magazine. She has no idea what’s going on, of course. When an assistant tells her, “Eminem’s on the phone, he wants an answer now,” what is her reply?

12. Anthony Michael Hall’s breakthrough role was as Ted “The Geek” in Sixteen Candles (1984). What future superstar did he beat out for the part?

13. Zac Efron’s hit comedy 17 Again (2009) is based on what earlier film?

14. In the film The Number 23 (2007), Jim Carrey plays a man obsessed with the number 23, which he believes rules his life. What prominent author shared this obsession?

15. In the film 187 (1997), in which Samuel L. Jackson plays a teacher in a school ravaged by gang violence, what is the significance of the title?

16. 300 (2006) is about a gallant group of Greek soldiers fighting against impossible odds. What city-state do they hail from, and who are their enemies?

 Answers

1.  Andie MacDowell’s Carrie, the bride in the third wedding in Four Weddings and a Funeral, is the only one of the five to actually marry during the film. Atkinson plays the minister at the second wedding, Callow and Hannah play a gay couple — Callow is the deceased at the funeral — and Scott Thomas plays the lovesick Fiona, mooning after Grant’s character throughout the movie.

2.  In Six Days Seven Nights, Quinn Harris (Ford) and Robin Monroe (Heche) are stranded on a remote island in the South Pacific after a plane crash. The movie was shot in not-so-remote Kauai, Hawaii.

3.  Though many who have seen the film are convinced that they saw the head-in-a-box at the end of Seven, in fact the “money shot” is not in the movie. Director David Fincher is not noted for subtlety, but in this case proves himself a master of the power of suggestion.

4.  Bronson, Brynner, Coburn and McQueen play four of the mercenary gunslingers labelled ‘The Magnificent Seven.’ Eli Wallach doesn’t. He plays the villain, a bandit chieftain named Calvera.

5.  ‘Jennifer’ is the code name given by police to an unidentified murder victim. Sgt. John Berlin (Andy Garcia) deduces that she is actually the eighth victim of a serial killer, hence “Jennifer 8.”

6.  Fellini’s 8 ½ — whose title is essentially an opus number, meaning that it was the eighth film he’d directed after his first, which was a joint effort with another director — was adapted into the Broadway musical Nine (1982), to be released as a film in November 2009. Composer Maury Yeston once said that the title, which has several meanings within the show, was 8 ½ plus ½ for his music.

7.  The Whole Nine Yards was filmed in Montreal, which Hollywood often uses as a stand-in for American cities such as New York, where filming is more expensive. However, The Whole Nine Yards is believed to be the first Hollywood film ever shot in Montreal and actually set in that city.

8.  When Melanie Griffith, for whom he had intended the role of Jenny, turned down the part, writer-director Edwards turned to Derek, the wife of an old friend of his, actor-director John Derek. Her only previous film was the killer-whale movie Orca (1977).

9.  Angie Dickinson and Henry Silva, veterans of the original Rat Pack film, have cameos as spectators at a boxing match in Ocean’s Eleven (2001).

10.   This is easily the toughest question in the quiz. If you got it, either you have a highly unusual overlap of interests, or you seriously need to get a life. Or maybe both. For the record, though, 12 Monkeys takes its title from the Army of the 12 Monkeys, a bunch of fanatic terrorists who may or may not be responsible for the end of the world as we know it. Their name was inspired by a scene in L. Frank Baum’s novel The Magic of Oz (1919), in which the scheming Gnome King convinces 12 monkeys to be magically transformed into human soldiers to fight for him.

11. Asked to make a decision about Eminem, Jenna Rink replies, “Uh, plain. Peanut? Plain!”

12.  Jim Carrey auditioned for the role of “The Geek” in Sixteen Candles, but writer-director John Hughes chose Hall instead.

13.  17 Again is loosely inspired by 18 Again! (1988), which starred Charlie Schlatter, plus a dash of Freaky Friday (2003) and a splash of Big (1988). Apparently 17 is the new 18.

14.  Novelist and experimental writer William S. Burroughs (1914-1997) was obsessed with the mystical significance of the number 23 long before Jim Carrey’s character in The Number 23.

15.  187 is the police code for a homicide.

16.  300, based on a comic book by Frank Miller, pits a group of 300 Spartans against tens of thousands of invading Persian soldiers.