Trivia for
The Beastmaster (1982) More at IMDbPro »

• Dar's black tiger is actually a regular striped tiger dyed black. The dye would wash off around the mouth whenever the tiger took a drink, so throughout the film the stripes are often visible around the mouth.
  
  
• The eagle often refused to fly on cue so in order to shoot footage of it in the air it was dropped from a trapdoor in a hot air balloon.
  
  
• The actor playing the young deposed prince was not allowed to be on the set at the same time as the tiger, so a short stunt person in a wig, photographed from behind, was used in those shots.
  
  
• Don Coscarelli claims to have read all of Andre Norton's books as a boy. Norton is the author of a novel called "The Beastmaster", in which this movie is loosely based.
  
  
• Director Don Coscarelli decided to set the story in a sort of Bronze Age milieu because he was a long time fan of Steve Reeves, Ray Harryhausen and sword and sandal flicks.
  
  
• The producers fired the original animal trainer in the middle of filming and hired another one.
  
  
• Although the film fared only modestly at the box office, it has become one of the most successful movies in history of cable-TV.
  
  
• Don Coscarelli sold off his rights on the story and characters. He has no involvement with the sequels, nor the TV-series, and doesn't see any money from them.
  
  
• Producer Dino De Laurentiis liked the movie and offered Don Coscarelli to direct Conan the Destroyer (1984). Coscarelli declined because he thought the script was quite bad.
  
  
• An eighteen years old Demi Moore auditioned several times for the part of Kiri. Although she was Don Coscarelli's favorite choice, the producers decided to cast Tanya Roberts.
  
  

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