The Mask of Zorro (1998)
The Mask of Zorro is a 1998 American swashbuckler film based on the character of the masked vigilante Zorro created by Johnston McCulley. It was directed by Martin Campbell and stars Antonio Banderas, Anthony Hopkins, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Stuart Wilson. The film features the original Zorro, Don Diego de la Vega (Hopkins), escaping from prison to find his long-lost daughter (Zeta-Jones) and avenge the death of his wife at the hands of the corrupt governor Rafael Montero (Wilson). He is aided by his successor (Banderas), who is pursuing his own vendetta against the governor’s right-hand man while falling in love with de la Vega’s daughter. Executive producer Steven Spielberg had initially developed the film for TriStar Pictures with directors Mikael Salomon and Robert Rodriguez, before Campbell signed on in 1996.
Salomon cast Sean Connery as Don Diego de la Vega, while Rodriguez brought Banderas in the lead role. Connery dropped out and was replaced with Hopkins, and The Mask of Zorro began filming in January 1997 at Estudios Churubusco in Mexico City, Mexico.
The film was released in the United States on July 17, 1998 to critical and commercial success, grossing $250 million on a $95 million budget. The Legend of Zorro, a sequel also starring Banderas and Zeta-Jones and directed by Campbell, was released in 2005, but did not fare as well as its predecessor.
Plot.
In 1821, Don Diego de la Vega, a Spanish-born California nobleman, fights against the Spanish in the Mexican War of Independence as Zorro, a mysterious masked swordsman who defends the Mexican peasants and commoners of Las Californias. Don Rafael Montero, the corrupt governor of the region, sets a trap for Zorro at a public execution of three innocent peasants. Zorro stops the execution, and Montero’s soldiers are thwarted by two young brothers, Alejandro and Joaquin Murrieta. Zorro fights the remaining Spanish soldiers and thanks the Murrieta brothers by giving Joaquin a silver medallion. Don Montero suspects de la Vega of being Zorro and attempts to arrest him at his home. A swordfight begins, a fire breaks out, and de la Vega’s wife Esperanza, whom Montero held unrequited love for, is shot and killed during the ensuing scuffle. While Diego’s home burns, Montero takes his infant daughter, Elena, as his own before sending de la Vega to prison and returning to Spain.
Twenty years later, Alejandro and Joaquin are bandits, running a scam with Three-Fingered Jack to collect the bounty on their heads and steal a strongbox. Before they can escape with the money, they are caught by Captain Harrison Love, Montero’s new American right-hand man. Jack and Joaquin are captured while Alejandro escapes, and Joaquin shoots himself rather than be executed by Captain Love. Love then beheads Joaquin’s corpse and takes the head. Montero returns to California as a civilian, alongside Elena, who has grown into a beautiful woman and resembles her late mother. Montero’s reappearance motivates de la Vega to escape from prison. He encounters Alejandro getting drunk and recognizes the silver medallion he gave his brother as a boy. De la Vega learns Murietta is on a similar quest for vengeance on Captain Love for his brother’s death and agrees to make Alejandro his protégé, recruiting him to be the new Zorro. Alejandro agrees to undergo de la Vega’s training regimen in Zorro’s secret cave underneath the ruins of his family estate to be able to take revenge.
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Cast.
Banderas was paid $5 million for the role. The character of Alejandro Murrieta was conceived as the fictional brother of the real-life Joaquin Murrieta, making the character either Mexican or Chilean. To prepare for his role, Banderas practiced with the Olympic fencing team in Spain for four months, before studying additional fencing and swordsmanship with Anthony Hopkins and Catherine Zeta-Jones. The three were trained by Bob Anderson during pre-production in Mexico, spending 10 hours a day for two months specifically on fight scenes from the film. “We used to call him Grumpy Bob on the set, he was such a perfectionist,” director Martin Campbell reflected. “He was incredibly inventive, and also refused to treat any of the actors as stars. They would complain about the intensity of the training, but having worked with him there’s nobody I’d rather use.”
Development.
In October 1992, TriStar Pictures and Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment were planning to start production on Zorro the following year, and hired Joel Gross to rewrite the script after they were impressed with his adaptation of The Three Musketeers. At the time, Spielberg was producing Zorro with the potential to direct. Gross completed his rewrite in March 1993, and TriStar entered pre-production, creating early promotion for the film that same month at the ShoWest trade show. By December 1993, Branko Lustig was producing the film with Spielberg, and Mikael Salomon was attached as director. In August 1994, Sean Connery was cast as Don Diego de la Vega, while Salomon stated that the rest of the major cast would be Hispanic or Latino. The first chosen for the role of Zorro in his young version was Andy García, a fashionable Latin actor at the time. Colombian singer Shakira was also initially considered to play Elena but turned it down due to her limited acting experience (despite having co-starred in the Colombian TV series El Oasis) and poor English skills at the time.
Filming.
The principal photography for the film began in Mexico on January 27, 1997 on a $60 million budget. The Mask of Zorro was mostly shot at Estudios Churubusco in Mexico City. Production stalled for four days in February when the director, Martin Campbell, was hospitalized for bronchitis. Filming resumed in Tlaxcala, three hours east of Mexico City, where the production crew constructed the Montero hacienda and town set pieces. Sony sent David Foster to join the project as a producer to help fill the void left by Steven Spielberg, Walter F. Parkes, and Laurie MacDonald, who were busy running DreamWorks. Foster and David S. Ward, who went uncredited, re-wrote some scenes; the troubled production caused The Mask of Zorro to go $10 million over its budget. In December, the producers were frustrated by customs agents when some props and other items, including Zorro’s plastic sword, were held for nine days. Rossio and Elliott originally planned to have Don Rafael Montero be introduced by arriving on shore in a boat while sitting on a horse standing in the boat, but the scene was cut for being deemed too expensive.
Release.
The Mask of Zorro was initially set for release on December 19, 1997 before the release date was changed to March 1998. There was speculation within the media about whether TriStar changed the date in an attempt to avoid competition with Titanic. In reality Zorro had encountered production problems that extended its shooting schedule. In addition, Sony Pictures Entertainment, TriStar’s parent company, wanted an action film for its first quarter releases of 1998. The release date was once again pushed back, this time to July 1998, when pick-ups were commissioned. The delay from March to July added $3 million in interest costs. To market The Mask of Zorro, TriStar purchased a 30-second advertising spot at Super Bowl XXXII for $1.3 million. Sony, who had been known for their low-key presence at the ShoWest trade show, showed clips from the film, while actors Antonio Banderas and Anthony Hopkins presented a panel at the conference on May 10, 1998.