The 13th Warrior

John McTiernan began shooting in summer 1997 as Eaters of the Dead. After bad test screenings, novelist Michael Crichton, also one of the producers, directed uncredited reshoots himself. Release slipped over a year, a new ending was added, Graeme Revell’s score was rejected for Jerry Goldsmith’s, and the title changed. McTiernan describes one fight in particular. The studio wanted subtitles on the scene where Banderas tries to understand the Norsemen around him, although the whole point was that the hero understands nothing of it. He resisted, finally added them, and says the same was done to Rollerball. The Mother of the Wendol is played uncredited by Kristen Cloke, while the closing credits still carry Susan Willis, who is not in the finished cut. Omar Sharif said that after his small part here he decided to stop acting unless a film he loved came along. He said so in a 2003 interview for Monsieur Ibrahim. Worldwide box office stopped at 61.7 million dollars, while cost estimates range by source between 85 and 160 million. A good fit if you will watch that Banderas scene imagining it unsubtitled, as the director wanted. Not for anyone after the director’s own cut, since the released version carries the novelist’s reshoots, a new ending and a second score.