Queen of the Desert

Queen of the Desert (2015)

Timing: 2:8 (128 min)

5.885/10
266

All about film

Video 3

Photo 11

Actors and characters

Release date

2015-09-03

Country

Morocco, United States

Production

Sierra/Affinity, Elevated Films, Benaroya Pictures, 120dB Films, Palmyra Films

Genre

Drama, Adventure, History

Budget

$15 000 000

Revenue

$1 592 853

Website

https://queenofthedesertmovie.com/

Director

Werner Herzog

Actors

Nicole Kidman, James Franco, Damian Lewis, Jay Abdo, Robert Pattinson, Jenny Agutter, David Calder, Christopher Fulford, Nick Waring, Holly Earl
All actors and roles (10)

Scenario

Werner Herzog

Producer

Nick N. Raslan, Cassian Elwes, Michael Benaroya, Peter Graham, Stephen Hays, Jonathan Debin, Cathy Gesualdo, James Lejsek, Ben Sachs, Shelley Madison

Operator

Peter Zeitlinger

Composer

Klaus Badelt

Artist

Audition

Shannon Makhanian, Beth Charkham, Salaheddine Benchegra

Editing

Joe Bini, Donall McCusker
All team (91)

• Naomi Watts was originally slated to star in the lead female role, but she later left the project. Nicole Kidman, a close friend of Watts, was chosen to replace her.
• Jude Law was supposed to play Henry Cadogan, but after filming was postponed for a while, Law left the project. He was eventually replaced by James Franco.
• On the very first day of filming, they shot a scene in which the characters of Nicole Kidman and James Franco climbed a tower where a vulture was perched. Director Werner Herzog stumbled upon the predatory bird and its owner purely by chance and decided to include them in the film. The vulture had not been trained for filming, so it attempted to peck Kidman, but failed because the bird was on a leash. The scene with the vulture became Kidman's favorite scene.
• Werner Herzog decided to film during a real sandstorm, which is almost never done in feature films due to the sand getting into the filming equipment and causing technical problems. During filming, a very rare natural phenomenon also occurred – a snowfall in the desert. Footage of both of these natural events made it into the film.