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  • Acting for Two: The 1500 members of the Moroccan military doubled up to play soldiers of both the Christian and Muslim armies
  • Actor Allusion: Liam Neeson is no stranger to playing Knights, Medieval or otherwise.
  • All-Star Cast: Much like Troy and Alexander, the film has a number of notable actors and actresses from North America and Europe portraying real-life historical figures such as Orlando Bloom, Jeremy Irons, Brendan Gleeson, Liam Neeson, Edward Norton, Michael Sheen and David Thewlis.
  • Awesome, Dear Boy: Orlando Bloom had just finished Troy and was reluctant to do another historical epic, but signed on once he heard it was a Ridley Scott film.
  • Backed by the Pentagon: King Mohammed VI of Morocco, where the movie was filmed, is a good friend of Ridley Scott and personally provided the movie with around 1500 military personnel and equipment.
  • California Doubling: Huesca, Spain stands for France, Seville stands for Jerusalem, and Morocco stands for any exterior shot in the Holy Land.
  • Cast the Expert:
    • Capitalizing on the fact that part of the film was shot in Huesca, Spanish craftsmen and artisans were brought in to build part of the sets, as the kind of slate roofs, thatching and stone dry-walling used in the Middle Ages is still used in rural Spain. The same was done with the villages of Ibelin, shot in Morocco, where local craftsmen helped to build the sets. (Note, however, that many of the castles and kasbahs seen in the film are completely real locations in Spain and Morocco, with some of them actually predating the real life Kingdom of Jerusalem.)
    • Many of the film's knights and soldiers were played by real soldiers from the Moroccan Army.
    • For the soundtrack of key scenes, director Scott sought out the work of Luis Delgado, a Spanish musician that specializes in Arab-Andalusian music.
  • Cast the Runner-Up:
    • Marton Csokas auditioned for Balian, but was rejected. He would play the role of Guy de Lusignan.
    • Edward Norton was actually the first choice for Guy. Upon reading the script, he asked to play King Baldwin instead.
    • Michael Sheen auditioned for the role of Baldwin IV before being cast as the priest.
  • Completely Different Title: In Latin America, the film is simply known as Cruzada ("Crusade").
  • Cowboy BeBop at His Computer: An article incorrectly described the film as pandering to Osama bin Laden, and it was later found out that the journalist hadn't even seen the screenplay. After the screenplay was leaked, another article claimed that the film depicted Muslims as stereotypically stupid, backwards-thinking and unable to think in complex forms. These allegations made King Mohammed VI of Morocco worry for Ridley Scott's safety, so he provided him with four bodyguards. Ironically, when the movie was released, Scott received many letters of thanks from Muslim groups for the even-handed depiction of the religion.
  • Creator Backlash: Ridley Scott has gone on record that he disowns the theatrical version and much prefers his Director's Cut.
  • Dueling Works: Came out within a year of three other historical battle epics that were following-up on the success of Gladiator. Its competitors being Troy, King Arthur (2004), and Alexander.
  • Dyeing for Your Art: Orlando Bloom gained twenty pounds of muscle for his role as Balian.
  • Executive Meddling:
    • The reason the theatrical cut was so much shorter than the Director's Cut. Fox wanted a Gladiator style action movie with a romance subplot, rather than the political drama Scott and co created. On top of that, they thought audiences wouldn't be able to handle a 3 hour film, disregarding high grossing films like Titanic (1997) and The Lord of the Rings. The theater-released version was panned, yet the Director's Cut was critically acclaimed as one of the best movies of the year.
    • Ridley Scott wanted the character of Sibylla to become a nun at the end of the film but the studio insisted it end with her and Balian ending up together.
    • Ridley Scott used the cue "Valhalla/Viking Victory" from The 13th Warrior for this film. Slightly controversial, given the director's turbulent relationship with The 13th Warrior's composer, Jerry Goldsmith, when they worked together on Alien and Legend (1985) that saw Scott cutting off a large part of Goldsmith's music on the former and re-using parts of Goldsmith's earlier score from Freud; while simultaneously throwing out Goldsmith's entire score in favor of Tangerine Dream's music for the latter. Bitter and upset by the rejection, Goldsmith never spoke to Scott again even unto his passing as a result of this.
  • Fake Brit: The American Edward Norton gives Baldwin a British accent. The Irish Brendan Gleeson does likewise with Reynald. The Scottish Kevin McKidd plays the "English Sergeant" with no attempt to hide his native accent.
  • Fake Nationality:
    • Saladin is played by Ghassan Massoud, who is Syrian, and the real man was Kurdish.
    • French characters are played by English actors including Orlando Bloom and Michael Sheen, the Irish Liam Neeson, the American Edward Norton, and the Danish Nikolaj Coster-Waldau.
    • As mentioned, the 'English Sergeant' is played by the very Scottish Kevin Mc Kidd, who does not change his accent.
    • Odo, referred to exclusively in dialogue as "the German," is played by Finnish strongman Jouko Ahola.
    • Sudanese born English actor Alexander Siddig plays Persian historian Imad ad-Din al-Isfahani.
  • Follow the Leader: Was a part of a wave of films inspired by the success of Ridley Scott's prior historical battle epic Gladiator, with this film's marketing getting a lot of mileage out of highlighting the connection. Then again you can trace this trend's lineage back to Braveheart and even further if one wishes to Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves which led to contemporary interest in Medieval adventure/epic films.
  • Method Acting: Eva Green read The Crusades Through Arab Eyes and went to the Arab Institute in Paris to familiarise herself with "both sides of the argument".
  • Playing Against Type: At the beginning of her career, Eva Green was often typecast as a Femme Fatale, and later on would often play very dark characters, a lot of them witches or Action Girls. Here she plays Sibylla as The Woman Wearing The Queenly Mask, who is more political and romantic rather than aggressive or eccentric.
  • Star-Making Role: While she had already made a splash in her home country France with her film debut in The Dreamers, this is the film that brought Eva Green to the attention of Hollywood, leading her to being cast in the James Bond film Casino Royale.
  • Throw It In!:
    • During filming of the siege scene, one of the towers caught fire for real and burned down. Ridley Scott liked the authentic look of it and left it in the film.
    • When Balian realizes the Hospitalier has mysteriously vanished, his horse does a little jump, as if it was surprised and startled too. This was actually a random reaction by the animal, not a scripted event, and was left in because it fitted the scene.
  • Troubled Production:
    • Kingdom of Heaven originally began as a Russell Crowe vehicle called Tripoli, a period film about the 19th century Barbary Wars. Although Keanu Reeves ended up replacing Crowe, screenwriter William Monahan (The Departed) had a script written, Scott signed on to direct, 20th Century Fox greenlit it, sets and art assets were being made, and then things went nowhere. After two attempts at getting it off the ground, Monahan began writing Heaven after Tripoli fell apart, and Scott took it because he had always wanted to do a movie about the Crusades. (There was a token attempt to revive the Tripoli project in 2019, but it went nowhere again.)
    • The film was pretty much hit with Executive Meddling from the start, with the execs being very uncomfortable with the length of the script and the subplot of Eva Green's Princess Sybilla's son, who briefly ruled Jerusalem after King Baldwin (Edward Norton) dies. In Scott's words on the 4 disc DVD set, he mentioned that studio heads said that the plot "went off on a tangent". The studio demanded Monahan to write two different versions of the script, one with and without the kid, and Scott and company shot the former.
    • Filming was actually pretty smooth, save for an instance in which Orlando Bloom came down with the flu and suffered some hand injuries.
    • Jeremy Irons' character's name went from Raymond to Tiberius to avoid confusion with Brendan Gleeson's Reynauld, which may not have been a bad thing.
    • When filming wrapped up, Fox was bothered by the length of the cut that Scott had presented them (around 186 minutes) and forced him to cut the film down to a measly 145 running time, exercising the plot about Sybilla's kid, among many other scenes. Their reasoning was that audiences couldn't handle a three hour film, disregarding successful long movies such as the studio's own Titanic (1997) and The Lord of the Rings. They also mismarketed the film, making it seem more like Gladiator set in the Crusades, rather than the Drama that was made. This backfired, resulting in poor box office returns and mediocre reviews (though it did fare better in international markets).
    • Luckily, the film found new life on video in the form of the Director's Cut, which restored the original running time and as a result, received much better reviews than its theatrical version.
  • Uncredited Role: Edward Norton asked not to be credited as King Baldwin, as he spent his screentime behind a mask. However, his name was put back in the video releases of the film.
  • What Could Have Been:
    • Paul Bettany and Goran Višnjić auditioned for Balian.
    • Russell Crowe was supposed to cameo as Richard I but couldn't make it due to a scheduling conflict. Iain Glen plays him instead.
    • The first draft of the script opened directly after the shipwreck. Screenwriter William Monahan had wanted to open with the death of Balian's wife, but feared it would make the movie too long. When Ridley Scott came on board, he told Monahan not to worry about length and thus the film opens with the death.
    • Many ideas in the finished film were incorporated from another project Ridley Scott had first put into pre-production called Tripoli. The project was falling apart around the time the Kingdom of Heaven script came along, so Scott opted to work on the latter instead.
    • Alternate endings were filmed, two of which featured Balian arriving back in France alone. As noted above, Sibylla's planned fate was to become a nun to atone for her sins of adultery and murder, but the studio insisted she end up with Balian.
    • Hans Zimmer was originally attached as the film's composer but was replaced by Harry Gregson-Williams.
  • Word of God: Ridley Scott and writer William Monahan felt that David Thewlis's character, called only the Hospitaller was an angel on a mission from God. The director's cut makes this more apparent.

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