Kingdom of Heaven

Kingdom of Heaven (2005)

Timing: 2:24 (144 min)

7.021/10
4859

7.669/10
236890

7.3/10
351000

All about film

Video 5

Photo 119

Actors and characters

Release date

2005-05-03

Country

Germany, Spain, United Kingdom, United States

Production

20th Century Fox, Scott Free Productions, BK, KOH, Reino del Cielo, Inside Track 3, Babelsberg Film

Genre

Drama, Action, Adventure, History, War

Budget

$130 000 000

Revenue

$218 366 336

Website

Director

Ridley Scott

Actors

Orlando Bloom, Eva Green, Jeremy Irons, David Thewlis, Ghassan Massoud, Liam Neeson, Brendan Gleeson, Marton Csokas, Alexander Siddig, Michael Sheen
All actors and roles (10)

Scenario

Producer

Ridley Scott, Branko Lustig, Terry Needham, Lisa Ellzey

Operator

John Mathieson

Composer

Harry Gregson-Williams

Artist

Abdellah Baadil

Audition

Debra Zane, Jina Jay, Antoinette Boulat

Editing

Dody Dorn, Kimberley Ann Berdy
All team (220)

• Specifically for the filming, Orlando Bloom gained an extra 9 kg of weight. During the work on the film, Orlando caught a cold and was ill for about a month. The unfortunate actor also suffered a serious hand injury while filming the battle scenes.
• In reality, Baldwin, the leper king, died in 1185 at the age of 24, a year before the events of the film began to unfold.
• The film's screenplay consists of 260 pages. This volume is approximately twice the average Hollywood screenplay.
• Approximately 14,000 costumes were sewn for the filming of the picture. Chainmail was produced in China, and clothing was sewn in Thailand and Turkey.
• Three siege towers were built, each weighing 17 tons. And 4 catapults were also constructed.
• Around 800 visual effects were used in the film (for comparison: the movie “Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith” (2005) had about 2200).
• With the permission of the King of Morocco – Mohammed VI – filmmakers hired approximately one and a half thousand Moroccan soldiers as extras.
• Initially, Hans Zimmer was supposed to compose the music for the film, but he was replaced by Harry Gregson-Williams. Notably, a couple of weeks later, Gregson-Williams was replaced by Zimmer to compose the music for "Madagascar" (2005).
• In the film, Saladin’s army attacks only one part of the wall of Jerusalem. However, in reality, Saladin’s troops first besieged the northwest and then the north side.
• All scenes featuring Edward Norton were filmed in two weeks.
• William Monahan borrowed many ideas and metaphors for "Kingdom of Heaven" from his unproduced screenplay "Tripoli".
• January 12, 2004 – official start of filming.
• Initially, Edward Norton was offered the role of René de Châtillon, but he declined, preferring to play King Baldwin. As the king wears a mask, Edward requested that his name be removed from the final credits. However, his name was still included in the final credits, but only with the film's release on video and DVD.
• For filming Kerak, slightly rebuilt Jerusalem sets were used, which saved approximately $5 million.
• From the very beginning of the project's development, the studio positioned it as a historical adventure film, not a historical epic. Therefore, when studio executives saw the initial version of the film, they considered it too long and demanded that Ridley Scott reduce the film to two hours and twenty minutes. Ultimately, the studio's calculation did not pay off: the film grossed $211 million at the box office, which was considered a failure. In 2006, a special edition of the film was released on DVD, which included the original version of the film, titled the director's cut.
• Several shots for the shipwreck scene were taken from Ridley Scott's film 'White Squall' (1996).
• The runtime of the director's cut is 189 minutes.
• A Wilhelm Scream can be heard when the first catapult projectile hits Saladin's army's siege tower.
• During the final day of the siege of Jerusalem, a burning siege tower can be seen, which unfortunately caught fire during filming.
• During the scene of King Baldwin's funeral, the composition Vide Cor Meum – an aria set to words from Dante Alighieri's "The New Life" – plays, written by Patrick Cassidy in collaboration with Hans Zimmer for one of Ridley Scott's previous films, "Hannibal" (2001).
• Initially, Hans Zimmer was supposed to compose the music for the film, but was replaced by Harry Gregson-Williams. Notably, a couple of weeks later, Gregson-Williams was replaced by Zimmer to compose the music for "Madagascar" (2005).
• The Wilhelm scream sounds when the first catapult projectile hits the siege tower of Saladin’s army.
• The composition Vide Cor Meum – an aria set to words from Dante Alighieri's "La Vita Nuova" – plays during the scene of King Baldwin's funeral, and was written by Patrick Cassidy in collaboration with Hans Zimmer for one of Ridley Scott’s earlier films, "Hannibal" (2001).