'You've Got Mail' trivia and fun facts
Crew reunion.
Director Nora Ephron reunites Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks 5 years after the success of the movie 'Something to Remember'.
Remake
A remake of the 1940 film El bazar de las sorpresas (1940) starring James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan. The original film involved two employees at a leather goods store. (In the source play it was a perfumerie). They could not stand each other at work, but were unknowingly falling in love through the mail as anonymous pen pals.
New York
The New York City previews were shown in the exact same theater (same building, same "room") that Meg Ryan and Greg Kinnear go into to see their movie, the Sony Lincoln Square 13 and IMAX Theater.
Real location
The location of Fox Books in the movie is actually the location of a real-life Barnes & Noble, on Broadway and 83rd Street on the Upper West Side. The Barnes and Noble generated considerable neighborhood opposition when it opened in the early 1990s, as many feared it would drive a local bookseller, Shakespeare & Co. on 81st Street, out of business. This is exactly what happened.
Funny accident
The scene where Joe accidentally closes the door of Kathleen's shop on the balloons was unscripted. Tom Hanks actually did that, and ad libbed the line, "Good thing it wasn't the fish." Nora Ephron thought it was so funny that she kept it in.