Trivia / Sir Billi

• Box Office Bomb: Budget: £15 million. Box office: US$15,838. Though it was only released to three theaters in the UK for one weekend before heading straight to DVD.
• Development Hell: Production began in 2006, but the movie itself wasn't released until six years later in 2012.
• Doing It for the Art: Sean Connery reportedly agreed to do the movie in order to support the animation industry in his native Scotland.
• Market-Based Title: The film was titled Guardian of the Highlands in the United States.
• One-Book Author: The only film to have been made by Sascha Hartmann.
• Troubled Production: According to the animators who worked on it, the movie suffered from a hellish production to the point where many have called it the Scottish counterpart of Foodfight!.
  • The film was originally promoted to be the first animated film from Scotland — though by the time it was actually released that promotion was overthrown by The Illusionist (2010), forcing them to market it as the first computer-animated film from that country.
  • Things quickly fell apart throughout production, as the film's director immediately proved to be a Prima Donna Director by demanding that the animators use his ugly character designs (not even with any adjustments to them), constantly making various changes to scenes, and also calling back the cast to re-record their dialogue countless times, as evidenced by the inconsistency of the voices. Hartmann also fired any animator that protested the film's overall humor or other aspects of the project, and anyone who was actually managing to create any stand-out work, as they were considered a threat to his authority as director. The finished product speaks for itself.

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