Did You Know?

Orlando Bloom gained 20 pounds of muscle for this movie.

WILHELM SCREAM: During the climactic battle, when the Muslims cross the first white rocks and Christians fire for the first time.

William Monahan's first draft of the script was 186 pages. Executive producer Lisa Ellzey was worried that when such a large script was submitted to Fox for budget approval, they would balk at the length, so she called what she refers to as a 'parenthetical meeting'. According to Ellzey, almost every piece of dialogue in Monahan's script was preceded by a parenthetical description of how the lines should be spoken. Ellzey removed every single parenthetical (much to Monahan's chagrin), and thus managed to get the page count down by 20 pages before sending it to Fox.

Three 60-foot siege towers were built for the film, using the technology of the period. Each one weighed 25 tons. To accomplish the scene where a number of siege towers collapse, one of the real towers was knocked over on set and filmed from 11 different positions and locations. Various shots of the single tower falling were then composited together to give the impression that several towers have collapsed in different ways and in different directions.

Edward Norton filmed his part in two weeks.

William Monahan was brought to the attention of Ridley Scott by Scott's associate, Lisa Ellzey during filming of Scott's previous film Matchstick Men with a script titled Tripoli, intended to be a Russell Crowe vehicle. Ridley Scott would work on Tripoli in the evening after shooting Matchstick Men during the day. He and his team would then have story meetings all weekend. Indeed, Tripoli had effectively gone into preproduction. All the department heads had been appointed, Branko Lustig was working on a production schedule and budget, the major roles were being cast, design and artwork was bring done, models were being built, locations had been chosen. Indeed, some of the set was actually being built. The film was even greenlit twice, but on both occasions, things fell apart. It was around the time of the second collapse that William Monahan delivered his Kingdom of Heaven script. Scott had always wanted to make a Crusades movie, and much of the ideas and metaphors from Tripoli were incorporated into Kingdom.

The shipwreck sequence was the last scene to be added before the film's release. Since it is too expensive to build one ship from scratch only to destroy it, Ridley Scott opted to use a combination of outtakes of the siege of Jerusalem, shots of Balian with his attire digitally altered, a CG model of a ship, and finally archive footage of a heavy sea storm and outtakes from his own earlier film White Squall. The creation of this 'non-existent scene' is explained in detail on the 4-Disc Director's Cut DVD.

The little toy soldier on the horse prop which is seen in the extended version now belongs to Lisa Ellzey who keeps it on her office desk.

After the pitching of this film, studio marketing executives took it to be an action-adventure hybrid rather than what Ridley Scott and William Monahan intended it to be: an historical epic examining religious conflict. 20th Century Fox promoted the film as an action movie with heavy elements of romance, and in the advertising campaign, they made much of the 'From the Director of Gladiator' slogan. When Scott presented the 194 minute version of the film to the studio, they balked at the length and studio head Tom Rothman ordered the film to be trimmed down to two hours, feeling people wouldn't go to see a three hour movie. Ultimately, Rothman's decision backfired as the film gained mixed reviews (with many commenting that the film seemed 'incomplete') and under-performed at the US box office.

To create both the theatrical cut and the Director's Cut, editor Dody Dorn worked for 15 months straight - the average film takes at most, 4 or 5 months to edit.

The first cut of the film presented to the Fox executives was 186 minutes long. This had been taken from a 280 minute assembly edit (in the assembly, the actual siege itself was 45 minutes long). The main thing the executives questioned was the subplot involving Sibylla's son, as they felt this was Balian's story, and his story didn't need that particular plot line. Indeed, even during pre-production itself, executives had ordered writer William Monahan to write a version of the script without the Baldwin V plot, and Ridley Scott shot the film in such a way that the plot could be easily cut.

For the scene where the Templars attack the caravan in the desert, 143 extras, 60 military personnel, 125 horses and 60 camels were used, with the same stunt riders portraying both the Templar attackers and the Saracen victims. For the Battle of Kerak, 400 extras and 200 horses were used.

7500 weapons (including 250 crossbows and 20,000 arrows) and 3000 shields were made for the film.

In the 'burning bush scene' in the Director's Cut of the film, Balian's horse jumps as the camera pans across the desert, just after the character of the Hospitaler (David Thewlis) has 'disappeared', thus enhancing the sense that the character is a spirit of sorts. According to director Ridley Scott, the horse did this completely spontaneously as the scene was being shot.

Director Ridley Scott and cinematographer John Mathieson used the work of painters David Roberts and William Turner for visual inspiration.

The screenplay originally began with Balian (Orlando Bloom) awakening after the shipwreck. Writer William Monahan had wanted to begin the story with the death of Balian's wife in France, but had feared that that would make the screenplay too long. When Ridley Scott became interested in the project, he told Monahan not to worry about length and to begin the screenplay where he wanted to begin it.

After being cast as the Hospitaler in the film, David Thewlis visited the Hospitalers' Museum at St. John's Gate in London, near where he lives. Whilst there, he discovered that his flat was actually built on the remains of the old priory of the Hospitalers' headquarters.

Two practical trebuchets were built for the film. The arms could pivot 56 feet and fire loads of 100 pounds some 400 meters. During filming, the arms of one of the trebuchet towers snapped due to the extreme temperature changes which dried the wood in the arm. The snapping of the arm can be seen in the behind the scenes footage on the 4-Disc Director's Cut DVD.

Most exterior filming took place in Ouarzazate, Morocco, where Ridley Scott had also filmed Gladiator and Black Hawk Down. A massive replica of Jerusalem was constructed in the desert; the set contained 28,000 square meters of wall and used 6000 tons of plaster. The front of the set was 1,200 feet long, and the walls were 56 feet tall.

The chainmail for the film was made by the Weta Workshop, who also made the chainmail for The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Michael Sheen (who plays the Priest) auditioned for the role of Baldwin IV (ultimately played by Edward Norton).

Hamid Dabashi, Professor of Iranian studies at Columbia University, was the film's main historical consultant.

Pope Urban III was said to have died from shock when he heard about the Battle of Hattin, depicted in the film.

Orlando Bloom had just completed filming Troy when he received the screenplay for Kingdom of Heaven and was initially reluctant to even read the script for another historical epic. Knowing it was being put together by Ridley Scott convinced him to give it a chance.

The pomegranate that Sibylla feeds Balian after their first bout of lovemaking in a darkened room had to be digitally enhanced to be clearly seen among the muted colors.

Most of the swords and battle-axes were made from lightweight aluminum.

Several alternative endings were shot for the film. Orlando Bloom's preferred ending was as Balian rides past the pilgrims as they leave Jerusalem, he doesn't see Sibylla (Eva Green), but returns to France alone and resumes his life as a blacksmith. In another, version, he does see her, and they speak and ultimately take one another hand's, and the film ends with them walking away into the desert with the other pilgrims. In another version, he sees her, they talk, and then we cut to him arriving in France alone.