Trailer
Plot summary
Merlin retrieves the magic sword from the Lady of the Lake and gives it to Uther Pendragon, who is declared king. Uther promises Merlin the child he will father, and Merlin's Charm of Making helps him seduce Igrayne, the wife of the Duke of Cornwall. The Duke dies in battle, and Igrayne bears Arthur, whom Merlin takes. Ambushed by the Duke's men and mortally wounded, Uther thrusts the sword into a stone, and Merlin declares that whoever pulls it free will be king. Ector raises Arthur as squire to his son Kay. At an annual jousting tournament whose winner may try the stone, Arthur loses Kay's sword and, desperate for a replacement, draws the blade himself.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Excalibur (1981)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Boorman had planned a film of the Merlin legend as early as 1969, but United Artists rejected the three-hour script he wrote with Rospo Pallenberg as too costly and offered him Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings instead. Much of Excalibur's imagery and set designs were created with that project in mind.
- As early as 1974 Boorman had considered Max von Sydow, Sean Connery or Lee Marvin as Merlin, but the film's comparatively low budget precluded such marquee casting. He considered Klaus Kinski for the part before choosing Nicol Williamson.
- Boorman cast Williamson and Helen Mirren opposite each other as Merlin and Morgana knowing the two were on less than friendly terms after a production of Macbeth seven years earlier, saying on the DVD commentary that he felt the tension on set would come through in their performances.
- The opening battle sequence had to be remounted twice when a fault in the light meter left the first two attempts underexposed, and original director of photography Tony Pierce-Roberts suffered a nervous breakdown and was replaced by Alex Thomson.
- So many of the Boorman family appear in the cast, his daughter Katrine as Arthur's mother Igraine and his son Charley as Mordred as a boy, that the film is sometimes called "The Boorman Family Project".
- During filming, Liam Neeson and Helen Mirren became romantically involved, and the couple went on to live together for several years thereafter.
- According to Boorman the love scene between Lancelot and Guenevere in the forest was filmed on a very cold night, but Nicholas Clay and Cherie Lunghi performed the scene nude anyway.
- Merlin's Charm of Making outlived the film: the 2018 adaptation of Ready Player One uses it as an activation code, and the British extreme metal band Anaal Nathrakh took their name from it.
