Sir Ridley Scott disowned the theatrical cut. He claims that the Director's Cut is the definitive version.
Edward Norton was briefly considered for the role of Guy, but upon reading the script he lobbied for the role of King Baldwin. Because the King appears behind a mask, he requested not to be credited. However, his name was put back in the video releases of the film.
The flag budget for the film was $250,000. In total, 1,200 flags, comprising 650 separate designs, were made in Spain, England, Morocco, and India.
In real life, Balian of Ibelin was a legitimate nobleman born in the Kingdom of Jerusalem.
After the film was pitched to them, studio marketing executives took it to be an action-adventure hybrid, rather than what Sir Ridley Scott and William Monahan intended it to be--a historical epic examining religious conflict. 20th Century Fox promoted the film as an action movie with heavy elements of romance, and in the advertising campaign it made much of the "From the director of Gladiator (2000)" slogan. When Scott presented the 194-minute version of the film to the studio, it balked at the length, and studio head Tom Rothman ordered the film to be trimmed down to two hours, feeling people wouldn't go to see a three-hour movie. Ultimately, Rothman's decision backfired, as the film gained mixed reviews (with many commenting that the film seemed "incomplete"), and it did not perform well at the U.S. box office.