Trivia: The three Viking ships in the film were designed using blueprints for an actual Viking ship salvaged from the water and restored by a Viking museum in Norway. It turned out that the boats built for the film were too accurate, because the modern actors were taller than their historical counterparts. Every second oar hole had to be plugged so the modern men would have room to row with a full oar stroke. Otherwise, they would hit the backs of the oarsmen seated in front of them when pushing the oar handles forward to start each new stroke.
Trivia: The Ice Cold in Alex refers to an Ice Cold Carlsberg lager when they reach their destination - the final scene, where they get their ice cold lager was later used by Carlsberg in an advertising campaign.
Trivia: After Ernest Hemingway guided two extremely expensive (and failed) offshore excursions for original marlin-fishing footage, Warner Brothers settled for existing footage of a world-record marlin caught off the coast of Peru by Alfred C. Glassell, Jr. His taut, heavy-duty fishing line can be seen bouncing wildly, high in the air, in the scene where the marlin finally breaches (even though the Old Man's hand-line is pretty much stationary and angled low to the ocean surface).