Trivia / Prince Valiant (1954)

• Box Office Bomb: It fell $300,000 short of recouping its $2.9 million budget.
• Cast the Runner-Up: Michael Rennie missed out on a role (see below) but ended up narrating the film.
• Costume Backlash: Robert Wagner joked in his memoir that his hair in this was so bad that Dean Martin mistook him for Jane Wyman while he had it.
• Creator Backlash: Robert Wagner was a fan of the original comic strip but later felt he'd been miscast in the title role, and grew to dislike how he was teased so much about it.
• Dueling Works: Filmed around the same time as MGM's Knights of the Round Table, and had its release date pushed back several months to avoid competing with it too much.
• Follow the Leader: The film was greenlit to follow the sudden popularity of medieval swashbucklers thanks to Ivanhoe.
• Looping Lines: Primo Carnera was dubbed over due to his thick Italian accent.
• What Could Have Been:
  • A 1953 Hollywood Reporter article stated that the film was intended to be made in 3-D.
  • Michael Rennie was announced to play King Arthur and Robert Newton as Bolthar, but the roles went to Brian Aherne and Victor McLaglen.
  • Victor Mature refused the role of Sir Gawain and was suspended by the studio as a result.
  • A sequel dealing with Valiant and Aleta's married life, titled Valiant and Aleta was planned but never got made.