Trivia / Macbeth (1971)

• Box Office Bomb: The film ultimately lost $3.5 million for the studio.
• California Doubling: Mildly. The film is set in Scotland of course, but the majority of filming happened in Wales and England.
• Creator Recovery: An odd example, given the film's brutality. But it was the first Roman Polański made after the Manson Family murders, and it helped bring him out of a deep depression, even though the production was far from smooth.
• Dark Horse Casting: Jon Finch was mostly known for character parts in Hammer Horror, making him a surprising choice to play the lead.
• Follow the Leader: This one was clearly following the lead of Franco Zeffirelli's lavish adaptations of The Taming of the Shrew and especially Romeo and Juliet (1968) in casting relative unknowns.
• Genre-Killer: The financial failure of this killed the trend of big-budget Shakespeare films that wouldn't rebound until the early 90s.
• Role-Ending Misdemeanor: Marianne Faithfull screen tested for the role of Lady Macbeth but was rejected once her heroin usage was discovered.
• Troubled Production: Production suffered lots of setbacks due to bad weather delaying filming, special effects malfunctioning and Roman Polański insisting on doing several long excessive takes. He would also snatch the camera away to film some shots himself, greatly annoying the crew. Production ran six months over schedule and $600,000 over budget.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The first draft of the screenplay expanded the role of the mysterious Third Murderer in the text, who would be known as just 'The Bodyguard'. They eventually merged this character with the Thane of Ross, who now is responsible for killing Macduff's family.
  • Richard Burton offered to star as Macbeth, with Elizabeth Taylor playing Lady Macbeth - as they had starred as the leads of The Taming of the Shrew in 1967. Albert Finney turned the role down, and Nicol Williamson was rejected by Roman Polanski for not being attractive enough. Nicol Williamson would go on to play Macbeth in 1983 for The BBC.

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