Stone of Destiny
Stone of Destiny is a 2008 Scottish-Canadian historical adventure comedy film written and directed by Charles Martin Smith and starring Charlie Cox, Billy Boyd, Robert Carlyle, and Kate Mara. Based on real events, the film tells the story of the removal of the Stone of Scone from Westminster Abbey. The stone, supposedly the Stone of Jacob over which Scottish monarchs were traditionally crowned at Scone in Perthshire, was taken by King Edward I of England in 1296 and placed under the throne at Westminster Abbey in London. In 1950, a group of Scottish nationalist students succeeded in liberating it from Westminster Abbey and returning it to Scotland where it was placed symbolically at Arbroath Abbey, the site of the signing of the Declaration of Arbroath and an important site in the Scottish nationalist cause.
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| Produced by | Andrew Boswell
Rob Merilees |
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| Written by | Charles Martin Smith
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story by
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based on
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narrated by
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music by
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| Edited by | Fredrik Thorsen
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animation by
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layouts by
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backgrounds by
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| Production company | Infinity Features Entertainment The Mob Film Company |
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| Running time | 96 minutes
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| Country | United Kingdom
Canada |
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| Language | English
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| Budget | £6 million
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- Christopher Lee was originally cast as "Elder Ian Hamilton", the lead character, now in his 80s, who begins to the tell the story of what happened 57 years ago. However, when the rough cut of the film was screened for a test audience, the director, editor and producers all decided that this device of a "Flashback" was not necessary to the film, and in fact, unnecessarily slowed down the beginning of the story. Therefore that scene was cut and as a result the film is told completely from the point of view of Young Ian Hamilton.
- Robert Carlyle, who played John McCormick in this film, also starred in Hamish Macbeth (1995), a show whose final episode also dealt with a theft of the Stone of Destiny.
- A joint UK/Canadian film.
- Though not specifically mentioned in the film, a man by the name of John Josselyn was one of the men who went with Ian Hamilton to the field to recover the stashed stone. John Josselyn, ironically, was a 21st great-grandson of King Edward I.
- A lot of the external night scenes and interior scenes were shot at Paisley Abbey, not Westminster Abbey.
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