Numbers in the Movies

In the past, movies that fea­tured tele­phone, pager, or cell phone num­bers would resort to the infa­mous string of 555. Now the 555 code in the USA is being used in the real world by a slew of ser­vice providers. To coun­ter­act this, the stu­dios are now using real phone num­bers. Yet, their rea­sons for doing so are becom­ing cum­ber­some for some peo­ple whose num­bers are fea­tured in Hol­ly­wood productions.

Case in point; In the movie, Bruce Almighty, star­ring Jim Car­rey as a man who is given the pow­ers of God, a num­ber used in the fea­ture to con­tact Bruce belongs to a woman named Dawn Jenk­ins. Accord­ing to Jenk­ins, she’s been receiv­ing about 20 calls an hour with mes­sages left for God. Yet, Jenk­ins is not alone on this issue because the num­ber belongs to other indi­vid­u­als, among them a call cen­ter for local Col­orado radio sta­tions. (Inter­est­ing, since Carrey’s Dumb and Dumber movie took place in Aspen).

While this pro­vides plenty of headaches for those indi­vid­u­als whose num­bers are fea­tured in the movies, what other pos­si­ble route can the stu­dios use? Almost every movie, unless used in a spe­cific period of time with­out elec­tric­ity or the use of com­mu­ni­ca­tions, uses phone num­bers as the basis to the plot. The Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan fea­ture You’ve Got Mail uti­lized screen­names for AOL Instant Mes­sen­ger — more specif­i­cally Shop­girl and NY152. Most likely these names were used in the past or they are being used now because of the movie.

There is no other fea­si­ble solu­tion for using phone num­bers in movies that don’t uti­lize some sort of real­is­tic string. Oth­er­wise, the notion of it being semi-realistic is thrown out the win­dow. Con­sid­er­ing phone num­bers are widely dis­trib­uted and there will come a time where num­bers will have to include a longer string of num­bers (and or let­ters), maybe Hol­ly­wood could extend the length of the string? Instead of using, 756‑0890, how about 0756–08901? It looks strange to the USA, but sim­i­lar sequences are used in other coun­tries. For instance, a num­ber in Bel­gium could read: +32 (0)16 35.34.30.

Most likely, that num­ber is in use by some­one in Bel­gium. Let’s say a cof­fee shop owner with 6 kids and a butcher for a wife. That, or a Bal­loon man­u­fac­tur­ing plant resid­ing near a Bub­ble gum fac­tory. Who knows?