40 BRAVEHEART
Background
On vacation in Scotland in 1983, screenwriter Randall Wallace got the idea for
Braveheart when he encountered a statue of Sir William Wallace (1270–1305) at
Edinburgh Castle and learned from a Black Watch guard that Wallace was Scot-
land’s greatest hero: a medieval warrior- leader who gloriously defied British rule,
at least for a time. In 1988 Wallace wrote the first draft of a script for an epic biopic
of his namesake (no relation), based on The Actes and Deidis of the Illustre and Vally-
eant Campioun Schir William Wallace (more commonly known as The Wallace), an
epic poem by Scottish poet Blind Harry (c.1440–1492). Written some 170 years
after Wallace’s death, The Wallace mostly traffics in patriotic myth. Randall Wal-
lace used Blind Harry’s poem indiscriminately and salted it with a good deal more
romanticized balderdash. Wallace sold the script to MGM/UA in 1992. When stu-
dio chief Alan Ladd Jr. was ousted from MGM in July 1993, he was allowed to take
Braveheart with him when he re- established his in de pen dent firm, The Ladd Com-
pany. The proj ect lay fallow for a year, during which time Mel Gibson, who had
initially passed on the proj ect, changed his mind and offered to direct the picture
if he could radically revise the script. Though he would have preferred young Jason
Patric as Wallace, Gibson eventually agreed to star in the movie as well. During
pre- production negotiations with Paramount, Gibson waived his salary— usually
$10 to $12 million a movie—in lieu of a share of the gross profits and had his own
production com pany, Icon Entertainment, put in $15 million toward a projected
bud get of $60 million. Hedging its bets, Paramount Pictures opted to acquire only
U.S. and Canada distribution rights on the condition that 20th Century Fox acquire
the foreign rights. Paramount ultimately put in $17 million and 20th Century Fox
contributed $43 million, after overruns pushed the final production cost up to
$75 million.Production
The grueling 105- day shoot began on 6 June 1994 (the 50th anniversary of D- Day)
and ended on 22 September 1994. During the first six weeks the scenes covering
William Wallace’s early years were shot on location in Glen Nevis in the Scottish
highlands, where it rained almost every day. From mid- July to late August the major
battle scenes were shot on the Curragh Plains, about 30 miles southwest of Dub-
lin, Ireland. The opposing armies were played by 1,500 reserve members of the
Irish Defence Forces (IDF). With 1,400 extras for some scenes, it took hours to get
every one through costume, makeup, and armoring. The Battle of Stirling Bridge
took six weeks to film (though the actual battle in 1297 took only an hour or two).
Gibson used hundreds of extras, many real horses, and a couple of mechanical
horses for shots showing horses being felled in battle (the animatronic beasts
weighed 200 pounds and were fueled by nitrogen cylinders that propelled them at
30 mph on 20- foot tracks). Using nine cameras, cinematographer John Toll shot
roughly half a million feet of film for the Stirling battle sequence that was later
edited down to only seven minutes of screen time. During editing, a few frames
were removed at vari ous points in the combat sequences to produce a jarring effect
and accentuate the frenzied vio lence. After test screenings elicited audience