A movie that was doomed to fail upon it's release.
Incredibly poor timing. It is a movie about the crusades. And tells the story of both sides without favor.
It was released in 2005. Only 4 years after 9/11, and in the middle of the Gulf War.
America was in no mood for a movie that showed Muslims in a favorable light.
At all. So it failed.
The second reason it failed was the original screening was over 3 hours long. It did not screen well. Studios blamed it on the length, in error. The Director/producer removed 40 minutes of primarily dialogue.
But the result of that was a movie without any room to tell the story. without that dialogue it is just a collection if scenes.
I read critics saying it is the "best movie you have never seen".
Despite the fact that, for whatever reason, HBO released the short version rather than the longer Directors cut that critics raved over - we gave it a go.
We lasted about 45 minutes and switched to something else.
What a mistake by HBO. Making the same error as the original studios 17 years prior.
Skip it folks.
Incredibly poor timing. It is a movie about the crusades. And tells the story of both sides without favor.
It was released in 2005. Only 4 years after 9/11, and in the middle of the Gulf War.
America was in no mood for a movie that showed Muslims in a favorable light.
At all. So it failed.
The second reason it failed was the original screening was over 3 hours long. It did not screen well. Studios blamed it on the length, in error. The Director/producer removed 40 minutes of primarily dialogue.
But the result of that was a movie without any room to tell the story. without that dialogue it is just a collection if scenes.
I read critics saying it is the "best movie you have never seen".
Despite the fact that, for whatever reason, HBO released the short version rather than the longer Directors cut that critics raved over - we gave it a go.
We lasted about 45 minutes and switched to something else.
What a mistake by HBO. Making the same error as the original studios 17 years prior.
Skip it folks.