FILM · 1974 · IRELAND
Zardoz
39 archived facts 5 topics 1 source Last reviewed Oct 2026
All facts (39)
- #001
The opening sequence was added at the request of 20th Century Fox executives as an introduction by Sir John Boorman to help audiences understand the film.
- #002
According to writer, producer and director John Boorman, Sean Connery had great difficulty finding work after it was claimed that Boorman was able to hire him for $200,000 following Diamonds Are Forever (1971).
- #003
A real monkey on the film set attacked a stuntman who was wearing a monkey costume and playing a monkey.
- #004
To help keep costs down, Sean Connery used his own car during the production and drove it himself. Sir John Boorman later gave him half of the budget set aside for renting him a car and driver. According to Boorman, the idea was Connery's.
- #005
Cinematographer Geoffrey Unsworth shot scenes with the lens fully open, fog filters on the camera and smoke machines on set to achieve a hazy, impressionistic look. It worked in first-generation prints, but when the film was copied for release the image quality was so poor it became almost unusable. The studio banned its cinematographers from using the process on future films.
- #006
Director John Boorman later said the political and cultural climate in Ireland made the production difficult. The Irish government initially did not allow the production crew to import prop guns because of the IRA terrorist attacks taking place at the time, which almost completely blocked the making of the film. He also noted that many cast members had problems with the required nudity and that it was very difficult for the women to bare their breasts.
- #007
John Boorman used Irish Travellers as extras. He said they were the best extras he had ever had, extremely pleasant and reliable. He chose them because he thought they resembled people who actually lived life on the outside.
- #008
Sean Connery's reported $200,000 salary was one fifth of the film's $1 million budget.
- #009
Charlotte Rampling was reportedly looking forward to the love scene with Sir Sean Connery, but was disappointed when it was over so quickly.
- #010
The final shot had to be done three times in total. According to director John Boorman, it was a very difficult scene because it involved a locked-off camera filming Sean Connery and Charlotte Rampling in many takes, each a few seconds long. Between takes, aging makeup was applied to create the effect of growing old over time, and the process took all day. Connery absolutely hated the makeup and the long process, so he was furious when he heard that the negative had been scratched and they had to redo the scene once more. Boorman later described what happened: "We redid everything throughout the whole process. The assistant camera loader opened the camera and exposed the film. So we had to redo the process. Sean didn't believe me; he thought I was making fun of him. When I convinced him we had to do it a third time, he went after the camera loader and nearly killed him. We had to grab him three times to restrain him." Boorman also joked that the camera loader had to move to another country under a different name to escape Connery's wrath.
- #011
Charley Boorman recalled that Sir Sean Connery stayed at the Boorman family home in Annamoe, County Wicklow, Ireland, during the shoot. At the end of each week, Connery paid Sir John Boorman's wife "rent" money to cover the cost of keeping him.
- #012
The radio spots (available on the DVD) were narrated by Rod Serling.
- #013
The atmosphere away from the shoot, fueled by abundant drugs, was so hedonistic that the village of Garrykennedy, where filming took place, was temporarily granted access to a mobile STD clinic. The 1975 census also revealed that the village's population had increased by 15%.
- #014
Director John Boorman later admitted that he was under the heavy influence of drugs while writing the film and during production. He also claims that, because of the drug haze he was in at the time, even he is not sure which parts of the film he was involved with, and that he now feels some scenes are meaningless.
- #015
The exterior shots in the film's opening were filmed right next to John Boorman's home in Ireland.
- #016
To make the stone head's mouth move correctly during filming, the camera was placed inside the mouth and filmed looking backward, and the film was reversed in the lab.
- #017
The first choice for the lead role of Zed was Burt Reynolds, who had previously worked with John Boorman on Deliverance (1972) and was a major box-office star at the time. He bowed out due to illness. According to an article in the April 11, 1973 issue of Variety, the illness was "overwork."
- #018
The "hand print" cave art in the final sequence refers to the oldest known examples of cave art, such as the hand stencils in Spain's El Castillo cave.
- #019
John Boorman offered the lead role of Zed to Richard Harris. Harris never responded.
- #020
The design of the character selection screen in the 1989 arcade video game "Golden Axe" was taken directly from the design of the Zardoz film poster. In both, the main character or characters stand on a giant hand while a face is visible in the background.
- #021
The Renegade's rest home was filmed, with some minor changes, in the staff canteen of Ardmore Studios in Ireland.
- #022
Sean Connery appears as a bride in one scene. Reportedly, Connery was initially uncomfortable about performing the cross-dressing scene.
- #023
Five identifiable groups of people appear in the film: the Brutals, the Eternals, the Renegades, the Apathetics and the Exterminators.
- #024
Zed's pistol is a .455-caliber Webley-Fosbery, a unique handgun because it is semi-automatic. The recoil rotates the cylinder and unlocks the hammer.
- #025
Three of John Boorman's children appear in the flashback scene depicting the raising of the tent: Daisy Boorman, Telsche Boorman and Katrine Boorman.
- #026
The film was criticized by both critics and audiences at the time; it was reported that people walking out of theaters discouraged others waiting in line from seeing the film, which contributed to the bombing of its box office returns. However, the film was later regarded as a cult film and was included in Danny Peary's book "Cult Movies 2" (1983). In 2007, Empire called it: "A fascinating reminder of what cinematic science fiction was like before Star Wars, literary allusions, intellectual porn, sci-fi basics, half-baked intellectualism and a desire to do something truly revelatory misses the target by hundreds of kilometers, but there are elements that make it strangely attractive - its evil being one of them."
- #027
It was shot in the Republic of Ireland for tax reasons.
- #028
The flying mask is a type of the Wiccan 'green man' mask.
- #029
The title is a reduced combination of the phrase "Wizard of Oz," formed by removing the first two letters "Wi" from the word "Wizard" and also the word "of" in the middle to create the word "Zardoz." "The Wizard of Oz" is the famous character from L. Frank Baum's "Oz" book series, which has been adapted into various film and television productions. The relevance of this to the film becomes apparent later.
- #030
In Papua New Guinea, during the filming of Charley Boorman: Sydney to Tokyo by Any Means (2009), Sir John Boorman's son Charley Boorman met tribal members wearing masks similar to those seen in this film.
- #031
The Swedish metal band Brundle Haze released an instrumental album titled "Zardoz" (2018) containing dialogue from the film.
- #032
The head coverings worn by the Eternals recall the Nemes royal headdress of ancient Egypt.
- #033
In the opening scene, Sean Connery turns toward the camera and fires his gun, much like the famous move in the opening scene of the James Bond films.
- #034
At 11 minutes and 25 seconds, a loud and distinct bird call is heard; the same sound was also heard in a scene in director John Boorman's previous feature film Deliverance (1972).
- #035
The film was at one point to be called Sardos; it was eventually changed to "Zardoz" to prevent Sean Connery's trademark accent from turning the name into "Shardosh."
- #036
Director Ben Wheatley is a big fan of the film.
- #037
It was Bosco Hogan's (George Saden) first film.
- #038
It was the first job as costume designer for Christel Kruse Boorman, the wife of the film's director.
- #039
The Italian censorship visa #64200 was issued on March 26, 1974.
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