Trivia / The Fall of the Roman Empire

• Box Office Bomb: Budget, $19 million. Box office, $4.75 million. Comparisons with contemporary Roman times epic Cleopatra are inevitable, although this one had a substantially less gruelling production and was much more well-received by critics (Stephen Boyd actually left the role of Mark Antony in Cleopatra due to its extensive Troubled Production). Audiences, however, had lost interest in sword and sandal epics following Cleopatra (and, unlike Cleopatra, this film has faded into obscurity since its initial release in 1964).
• Contest Winner Cameo: The Price Is Right gave the role of an extra in this film away as a bonus prize. The winner was a man named Robert Reynolds, and he appears in the background of an arena scene.
• Creator Killer: The film's massive box office failure effectively killed the career of Madrid-based Hollywood film producer Samuel Bronston, who could not match the success of his masterpiece, El Cid. He ultimately filed for bankruptcy and his lavish studio folded thereafter. It also might have cost 28-year Paramount executive Barney Balaban (Bob's uncle) his job.
• Dawson Casting: Christopher Plummer was 33 at the time of filming, two years older than his character was when he died. Commodus became Emperor at 19 and reined for twelve years, before being killed at 31.
• Genre-Killer: The film is one of the last, if not the last, of the Epic Movies of the The Golden Age of Hollywood, and its box office failure along with that of Cleopatra made it unsustainable for studios to pursue more costly Sword and Sandal projects. Further smaller scale attempts such as 1970's Julius Caesar and 1972's Antony and Cleopatra weren't successful despite packing star power, albeit the genre would survive on television with a few examples standing out such as I, Claudius and Masada. It wouldn't be until 2000 that the genre would be truly revived on the big screen, with Gladiator.
• Star-Making Role: Fall of the Roman Empire was Christopher Plummer's feature film debut (he'd previously appeared in a short in 1958), he was previously a stage actor who sometimes appeared on TV. The film bombed, but Plummer gained enough attention and accolades to ensure his casting in The Sound of Music the following year, and the rest is history.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Charlton Heston turned down the role of Livius, not wanting to work with Sophia Loren again after El Cid, he was also considered for the role of Marcus Aurelius. Kirk Douglas was also offered the role of Livius, but was unavailable.
  • Richard Harris was originally cast as Commodus. He withdrew because of artistic differences with Anthony Mann. He was later cast as Commodus' father Marcus Aurelius in Gladiator.
  • Jack Palance turned down the role of Ballomar.
  • Albert Finney, John Gielgud and Terence Stamp were considered for roles.
  • This was intended to be the second part of a trilogy of historical epics produced by Samuel Bronston and written by Philip Yordan. The first, 55 Days at Peking, covered the Boxer Rebellion and the third, unmade film would've been about the French Revolution.

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