In Lapa, Rio de Janeiro, the homosexual drug dealer lord Rainha Diaba (Milton Gonçalves) decides to find a scapegoat to save his lover from the jail for traffic with students. His gang, under the command of Catitu (Nelson Xavier), uses the young pimp Bereco (Stepan Nercessian), but he escapes from the police siege and decides to break and rob the points where Rainha Diaba sells his marijuana, initiating a bloody war against the powerful dealer. — Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
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Fun Facts
It was originally set on an airplane — until the director realized it was just Airplane! with drag queens. When Adam Shankman first read the script, he found it funny but immediately told the producers, "It's 'Airplane,' and some of the characters are drag queens." He suggested moving the entire story to a train, arguing they could keep all the same stakes and jokes while finally making it feel like its own movie.
The entire film was shot in just 19 days. Shankman compressed the shoot into a tight three-week window, which he said was only possible because the script was structured as "joke to joke to joke" — allowing him to set up a gag, deliver it, and move on. The rapid, discontinuous shooting also meant characters were deliberately placed in different spots across takes, which ultimately made the train feel bigger because audiences could never tell where anyone was sitting
It was a secret "undisclosed project" that scored $1.7 million in state tax credits. In March 2025, the California Film Commission announced that an unnamed production involving drag performers had been awarded $1.7 million in tax incentives — the largest round in state history at the time. The project wasn't publicly identified as Stop! That! Train! until months later.
RuPaul plays the President of the United States. In the film's alternate-reality universe, RuPaul stars as President Judy Gagwell, who must manage a national crisis when the luxury "Glamazonian Express" train is struck by lightning and hurtles toward disaster during a "stormaganza.