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Trivia / Excalibur

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For the film:

  • All-Star Cast: Patrick Stewart (Leondegrance), Liam Neeson (Gawain), Gabriel Byrne (Uther), Helen Mirren (Morgana), Nicol Williamson (Merlin), and Ciarán Hinds (Lot). This is actually an inversion, as none of them were especially big at the time, at least not in the United States, and John Boorman chose them because they were relatively unknown and didn't want big stars to overshadow the production. Which makes this Hilarious in Hindsight.
  • California Doubling: The movie was shot entirely in Ireland, and was a major boon to the country's film industry.
  • Completely Different Title:
    • Norway: The King's Sword
    • Turkey: Kings Fighting
  • Darkhorse Casting: John Boorman wanted the movie to focus on the story, not the actors and actresses, so he cast relative unknowns. At the time, only Nicol Williamson was relatively familiar to American moviegoers.
  • Dawson Casting: Nigel Terry was 35 playing Arthur from a teenager to a 20-to-30-something king, and then finally as an old man. Similarly, 29-year old Cherie Lunghi played Guinevere from teenager to full adult queen to an old woman living out the rest of her life in quiet misery as a nun.
  • Deleted Role: Peter Benson had a featured role that was removed in post-production.
  • Development Hell: A remake directed by Bryan Singer spent years in Development Hell until it was cancelled. Singer instead made the medieval-ish Jack the Giant Slayer and went back to the X-Men Film Series.
  • Divorced Installment: John Boorman originally wanted to do a film adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings trilogy, compressing the trilogy into one very long film, but he couldn't get the rights to it so he made Excalibur instead. Reportedly his screen treatments sexed up Tolkien's story quite a bit, including but not limited to giving Frodo Baggins nude scenes with Arwen and Galadriel and having the House of Healing scene between Eowyn and Aragorn feel like a sex scene (as he planned to have Eowyn settle down with Aragorn, which reportedly was Tolkien's original idea). Generally the Arthurian myth sounds like it was better suited to him than Tolkien!
  • Doing It for the Art: The film was a real labour of love for John Boorman, who had been trying to get it made since 1969.
  • Fake Nationality: Patrick Stewart as a French Kingnote . And not for the last time.
  • Friendship on the Set: Nicol Williamson and Helen Mirren had previously co-starred in a disastrous production of Macbeth where they absolutely hated each other. John Boorman felt that their natural animosity would be perfect for their roles. Neither realised the other would be in the film until filming started. Mirren recalled that they got on very well once they were "freed from the shackles of Macbeth".
  • Hey, It's That Place!:
    • John Boorman used many of the same locations that he had used for Zardoz. In fact, most of these are quite close to his house in Annamoe, County Wicklow, Ireland.
    • The fight between King Arthur and Sir Lancelot was filmed on the Powerscourt estate. The battle scenes in Henry V (1944) were also filmed there due to wartime restrictions in England.
  • Hostility on the Set: The Irish extras fighting each other did not want to stop after Boorman yelled cut, "to settle old scores".
  • Irony as She Is Cast: Liam Neeson had never ridden a horse prior to working on this movie.
  • Missing Trailer Scene: The trailer has Lancelot defending Guenevere from a forest bandit. This doesn't happen in the film.
  • Never Work with Children or Animals: According to Helen Mirren, John Boorman sacked dogs from this movie for not acting to his satisfaction. While they looked threatening, they didn't act as such.
  • Production Nickname: This movie was referred to as The Boorman Family Project.
  • Reality Subtext: The animosity between Merlin and Morgaine wasn't just acting. Nicol Williamson and Helen Mirren had previously co-starred in a disastrous production of Macbeth, where they couldn't stand each other. John Boorman cast them because he thought their natural animosity would be perfect. Neither realised the other would be in the film until filming started.
  • Real-Life Relative: Queen Igrayne and her grandson Mordred (as a boy) were played by John Boorman's daughter Katrine and son Charley. Another daughter, Telsche, played the Lady of the Lake.
    • It might count as Fridge Horror when you realize that, in casting his daughter Katrine to play Igraine, Boorman directed his own daughter in a pretty aggressive sex scene.
  • Referenced by...:
  • Romance on the Set: Helen Mirren and Liam Neeson met and fell in love on the set of this film, and even lived together for four years.
  • Saved from Development Hell: John Boorman had planned the film as early as 1969. United Artists rejected his concept and offered him The Lord of the Rings instead. When that fell through, he went back to this movie. Some of the UA brass who had turned this project down had eventually moved on to found Orion Pictures.
  • Throw It In!:
    • When Uryens knights Arthur with Excalibur, he's visibly trembling from emotion. In reality, Keith Buckley was shivering from the cold; they were in the castle moat.
    • Baby Arthur grabbing a hold of Igrayne's hair was a coincidence.
  • What Could Have Been:
  • Working Title: John Boorman had wanted to call this Merlin but CBS had a show called Mr Merlin so they had exclusive usage of the "Merlin" name. It began shooting as Knights but Ridley Scott had registered Knight for a medieval epic he was planning with Walter Hill as his follow-up to Alien. They were already shooting before they decided on Excalibur.

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