Box Office Bomb: Budget: $24.5 million, Box office: $23.5 million
Cameo Prop: The Statue of Pazuzu from The Exorcist is visible as an atmospheric prop in two shots, and appears as a silhouette each time. Once in Meg Mucklebones' Swamp, and later in the long shot of the chained up Unicorn. It is recognizable as Pazuzu due to the distinctive wings.
Creator Backlash: Tom Cruise reportedly wasn't happy with the American cut of the film and wouldn't talk about it for years because of it. He very much encouraged fans to go with the Director's Cut.
Dawson Casting: David Bennent was about 18 when he played the boy-elf Gump and Annabelle Lanyon, who played the faerie Oona, was about 24.
Real-Life Relative: When Jack dives off the rock in the Forest, it is Ridley Scott's daughter Jordan who is playing Princess Lili, and a stuntman playing Jack. This was done to make the rock look larger than what it was; the added close-ups of Mia Sara were added in during editing.
Troubled Production: Given it's a fantasy film directed by Ridley Scott, a highly ambitious production ensued. With the inherent problems - an enormous make-up crew, Tim Curry injuring himself removing the claustrophobic prosthetics too fast, the famed 007 stage at Pinewood Studios where the film was shot burning down - and long production - Mia Sara came of age during the three years of filming! Also, during post-production Scott came down to cutting the film profusely and change its soundtrack from Jerry Goldsmith's orchestra to Tangerine Dream's electronica (both were restored in the director's cut).
The film originally ran much longer and had a number of scenes deleted from it, at least two of which were not included in the director's cut.
The first involved an alternate opening sequence wherein the goblins encounter the unicorns, represented as light beams, and report back to Darkness. For the most part, this sequence is uninteresting but for two elements: one, it features four goblins (the fourth, Tic, comes to a bad end), and two, it explains why Blunder has a chicken foot for a left hand (Darkness changed it when Blunder spoke out of turn).
The second is an extended version of the scene by Jack's fire wherein Gump is even less forgiving of Jack than in the director's cut, using his violin to magically force Jack to dance before making him answer the riddle. This explains Jack's sudden sweatiness and seeming exhaustion between shots in the finished version, and why Gump refers to him as "riddle-solver, dancing fool and faerie-friend". On the Blu-Ray the scene is represented by stills and storyboards over the surviving soundtrack. A couple of behind the scenes shots are also seen in the accompanying making-of documentary.
There are also elements from the original script which Scott never even attempted, such as Lili's encounter with a "house brownie" (like the ones in Willow), Lili transforming into a humanoid cat creature, Darkness growing huge bat wings during his battle with Jack, a final revelation that Jack is actually immortal, and the unicorn taking Darkness down after the sun sets causing the light trick used to send Darkness to his doom to fail.
Another major departure was Meg Mucklebones (originally called Jenny Greenteeth), who's original purpose was for Jack and the fairies to consult her to find out the reason behind the sudden winter (confirming it's link to the unicorn's death), as well as pointing him in the direction of Darkness (here called Baron Couer de Noir).
There were plans for a novelization, possibly written by the film's own screenwriter William Hjortsberg, that would have elaborated further on the world of Legend and its mythology. For various reasons (mainly difficulty with potential publishers) the tie-in fell through.
Written-In Infirmity: Darkness is introduced largely in shadows because Tim Curry had injured himself while removing his make-upnote he'd suffered a panic attack and ripped off the prosthetics before the spirit gum could be softened and took off large amounts of skin in the process. Ridley Scott was so horrified at what had happened and came up with this technique so that Curry would only have to wear sections of his make-up while he healed and the make-up crew could redesign the prosthetics so that Curry would be more comfortable.
