Trivia / King David

• Box Office Bomb: Budget, $21 million. Box office, $5,111,099.
• Creator Backlash: Bruce Bereford said about the film:
  I think there are a few things in it that are interesting. But, I think there are so many things that are wrong. We never liked the script... we never really caught the friendship between David and Jonathan. There weren't enough scenes between them. And David, himself – I think Richard Gere was miscast. He is a wonderful actor but he is much better in contemporary pieces.
• Real-Life Relative: Playing Joab was Tim Woodward, who is the son of Edward Woodward, who played Saul.
• Star-Derailing Role: Richard Gere's performance in this film earned him a Golden Raspberry nomination; the film's box office failure led to him being passed over for a lot of roles producers would previously have fought to give him for the next five years until Internal Affairs and Pretty Woman.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Bruce Bereford wanted Daniel Day-Lewis for the lead role after seeing him on the stage.
  • Rachel Weisz was offered a large part in this film when she was only 14, but her parents would not allow her to do it. For a long time, the specific role was unknown...until this article reported that she was up for the role of King David's daughter… who gets raped by her brother, who is in turn murdered by another brother as revenge, so it's understandable if she and her parents had misgivings. (In the final film, David's daughter appears very briefly and the first crime is mercifully offscreen.)
• Working Title: The Story of David.

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