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Behind-the-scenes at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival, Fox Searchlight Pictures engaged in a bidding war with Warner Independent Pictures over the distribution rights to this movie, until Fox Searchlight put in a last-minute bid of over $3 million, and won. They would later join forces with Paramount Pictures and MTV Films to distribute the film, a mere 17 days before its release.
Jon Heder was paid $1,000 to play Napoleon Dynamite. The movie grossed over $40 million in the United States.
The scene of the farmer shooting the cow in front of the school bus full of children is a true anecdote from director Jared Hess' childhood.
For Napoleon's dance routine, director Jared Hess had Jon Heder improvise and dance to three different songs. Hess then took the "best" moves from each song and put them in one routine, using one song.
A "Napoleon Dynamite" festival was held every year from 2004 to 2008 in Preston, Idaho, the city where the movie was filmed. The festival had contests that included a tater-tot eating contest, football-throwing, look-a-likes, and other types of competition based on scenes from the movie.