Trivia / Timeline

• Box Office Bomb: Budget, $80 million. Box office, $43.9 million.
• California Doubling: Quebec and the Czech Republic double for medieval France.
• Creator Killer: Timeline was the last straw for executive producer Michael Ovitz after his run as Disney's president turned out poorly and started a bitter feud between him and chairman Michael Eisner (this was after Jeffrey Katzenberg was denied the position, which started a different feud). It was also ultimately was a deciding factor in the demolition of the careers of director Richard Donner and writer Jeff Maguire.
• Disowned Adaptation: Michael Crichton hated the film so much that he refused to allow studios to do any more film adaptations of his works until his death in 2008.
• Executive Meddling:
  • How Jerry Goldsmith's score got replaced by Brian Tyler's score in the final cut. This turned out to be Tyler's Breakthrough Hit.
  • The prologue, which would have explained the backstory, was cut from the final version.
  • Twenty minutes of footage was cut from the film, shortening it from 136 minutes to 116 minutes.
• Fake American: Australian Frances O'Connor, Brit David Thewlis and New Zealander Marton Csokas play Americans.
• Fake Nationality: Brit Anna Friel as fictional historic Frenchwoman Lady Claire.
• Release Date Change: It was originally scheduled for a fall 2002 release, but Executive Meddling led it to be rescheduled to March 2003, before it was ultimately released in November 2003.
• What Could Have Been: Pierce Brosnan was considered for the role of Andre Marek.

---