in Abruzzo, the Lanaitto valley (Oliena) in Sardinia, Italy, and at Pinewood Studios in England. It was a difficult shoot. Both Beresford and Gere came down with viruses. Extras went on strike for more pay. Many locations were remote. The script used was the ninth draft. ""Normally if you're making an ordinary movie and the weather turns bad you say: Oh well, we'll shoot tomorrow", said Beresford. "But if you've got 2,000 extras there and suddenly it starts snowing-as it did with us-it's useless saying: I can't shoot in this. You've got to because you can't get the people back again." According to one report "Gere knew Beresford wanted him replaced, and that made for quite a bit of friction on the set. Beresford did what he wanted to do in the scenes where Gere doesn't appear, and Gere did what he wanted to do in his scenes. The film ended up as a multi-million dollar joke that everyone thinks is funny except the people who made it and the Paramount investors." Beresford later said "The King David script was just never right. We started off on the wrong foot and then it turned into a catalogue of disaster. Really, I don't know how I got mixed up in such a mess – I felt like the captain of the Titanic heading toward a critical iceberg and I hit it. It was inevitable." Reception The film was not well received by the critics, with The New York Times calling it "not a good film". Review aggregate Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a 'rotten' 8% rating. Richard Gere's performance in the film earned him a Golden Raspberry Award nomination for Worst Actor, which he lost to Sylvester Stallone for Rambo: First Blood Part II and Rocky IV. Box office Beresford said ""The film cost $22 million and lost it all – and more. And the minute the movie died, I checked out a list of famous directors who also had works that bombed – to see if they ever got back on the right foot again." Beresford's reaction Years later, Bruce Beresford said of the film: I think there are a few things in it that are interesting. But, I think there are so many things that are wrong. We never liked the script... we never really caught the friendship between David and Jonathan. There weren't enough scenes between them. And