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| First Knight | |
|---|---|
| Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Jerry Zucker |
| Produced by | Hunt Lowry Jerry Zucker |
| Screenplay by | William Nicholson |
| Story by | Lorne Cameron David Hoselton William Nicholson |
| Starring | Sean ConneryRichard GereJulia OrmondBen Cross |
| Music by | Jerry Goldsmith |
| Cinematography | Adam Greenberg |
| Edited by | Walter Murch |
| Production company | Zucker Brothers Entertainment |
| Distributed by | Columbia Pictures |
| Release date | July 7, 1995 |
| Running time | 134 minutes |
| Country | United StatesUnited Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $55 million |
| Box office | $127.6 million |
First Knight is a 1995 medieval film based on Arthurian legend, directed by Jerry Zucker. It stars Sean Connery asKing Arthur, Richard Gere as Lancelot, Julia Ormond as Guinevere and Ben Cross as Malagant.
The film follows the rogue Lancelot’s romance with Lady Guinevere of Leonesse, who is to marry King Arthur ofCamelot, while the land is threatened by the renegade knight Malagant. The film is noteworthy within Arthurian cinema for its absence of magical elements, its drawing on the material of Chrétien de Troyes for plot elements and the substantial age difference between Arthur and Guinevere.
Director Jerry Zucker, who also co-produced with Hunt Lowry, made First Knight as a follow-up to his Academy Award-nominated 1990 hit Ghost. Previously, he was primarily known for teaming with his brother David Zucker and with Jim Abrahams to create comedies such as Airplane! and The Naked Gun.
The script was written by William Nicholson. Adam Greenberg was in charge of cinematography, while production design was under John Box. The score was composed by Jerry Goldsmith. The film was edited and mixed by Walter Murch.
Filming was shot on location in Great Britain. Exteriors were done in Gwynedd, North Wales and in England around Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire, with the wedding scene being shot at St Albans Cathedral. Interiors were completed at Pinewood Studios.
The critically acclaimed orchestral score for First Knight was composed and conducted by veteran composer Jerry Goldsmith. Goldsmith was hired as a last-minute replacement to other noteworthy film score veteran Maurice Jarre, who was hired to score the original three-hour cut, but as Jarre stated in a 1995 Film Score Monthly interview, he had four weeks to do 90 minutes and that was not enough time and declined the offer to score the film. As a result, Goldsmith had limited time to compose original music and was left with only three and a half days to record the entire score. A soundtrack was released 4 July 1995 through Epic Soundtrax and features ten tracks of score at a running time of forty minutes. Due to the shortness of the original release, bootleg versions began to appear in 2000. However, limited edition 2-CD (5,000 copies) soundtrack was released April 12, 2011 through La-La Land Records and features the complete score plus the original album tracks and additional alternate recordings.
The film earned a domestic gross of $37,600,435 and $90,000,000 in foreign markets; overall, earning a combined take of $127,600,435 worldwide.
Based on 44 reviews, First Knight is rated at 45% at review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. Film critic Roger Ebert gave the film two stars in his review, citing Connery and his performance along with the sets but stating that it paled in comparison to other medieval films released the same year such as Rob Roy and Braveheart (with First Knight coming out two months after the latter film), calling it “thin and unconvincing” compared to the other two, while also describing Gere as one who “plays Lancelot with such insouciance that he doesn’t seem serious enough to love. He doesn’t have the psychic weight to be worth a kingdom.”
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