Colin Farrell's Most Dangerous Scene Was For A Historical Flop With A Cult Following

Shooting an action movie always comes with its risks as well as rewards, as Colin Farrell can attest to. Speaking with Collider in a joint interview with "Barbie" star Margot Robbie, Farrell said that hardest sequence he's ever had to film was a set piece for the box office bomb "Alexander." 

"We were four weeks doing the battle of the Battle of Gaugamela," he said. When Robbie explained that his character had to climb aboard the back of an elephant and do battle, he described it as the most dangerous thing he'd ever done for a movie. "They would say 'action' and there was eight head of elephant, 200 head of horse, and 800 foreground and 800 background [actors] ... would move." Somehow, they managed not to die, though one stuntman did end up breaking his leg. 

"Alexander" was a big-budget film that purported to tell the life story of Alexander the Great. Written and directed by Oliver Stone, it should have hit the top of the box office — but it flopped at the box office, reportedly causing Farrell unbearable shame and ranking among Angelina Jolie's six worst movies. Yet the film saw an amazing resurgence thanks to multiple DVD re-edits. 

Only making $167.3 million worldwide on a budget of $155 million, "Alexander" ended up losing Warner Bros. an estimated $71 million. Critics also found this version of Alexander's life to be an overlong mess, and it sits at 15% critical approval score at Rotten Tomatoes. The movie also saw its share of nominations at the Stinkers Bad Movie Awards and Golden Raspberries that year.

And yet, Oliver Stone went on to re-release the film three times on DVD in a variety of extended cuts. "Alexander Revisited: The Final Cut" has become the definitive version, with over a million DVDs sold and running 214 minutes (complete with an intermission thrown in). As of 2012, it's one of the most popular DVDs in the Warner Bros. back catalog. It looks like even the lowliest of failures can eventually make it back into the national conversation — with a little bit of elbow grease.