A Knight's Tale (2001) and King Arthur: Legend Of The Sword (2017)

Coming off the back of the film Payback, Oscar-winning writer/director Brian Helgeland feared he might be in movie jail. Thus, he got writing, and came up with A Knight's Tale, a film mixing jousting, modern music, Heath Ledger, and a naked Paul Bettany.

It took months to shoot in Europe. When it came to the music, David Bowie turned up. And then there's the tale of its sequel that never was.

King Arthur: Legend Of The Sword meanwhile was to be the first of six films, as originally pitched. Guy Ritchie came in to direct, and star Charlie Hunnam would admit that the film they started making wasn't the one they ended up with. Quite the story, though. Includes elephants and David Beckham.

Tales of both are told in this episode.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Film Stories with Simon Brew is a podcast that looks to dig into the stories behind popular movies.From troubled productions, to rights issues, to difficulties with release to films nearly falling apart, the podcast will be looking at the stories that don't always seem apparent when watching a movie!
The podcast is hosted by Simon Brew, the founder of Den Of Geek. Support the podcast at www.patreon.com/simonbrew. Thank you!

• No. of episodes: 384
• Latest episode: 2025-05-12
• TV & Film Film History

Where can you listen?