Captain Blood (1935 film) was $1,242,000. The lead role was originally offered to Robert Donat, who had starred in the successful 1934 film "The Count of Monte Cristo". The asthmatic Donat turned down the role, concerned that the action sequences would be too strenuous for him. A series of screen tests with various actors led to an unknown Australian actor named Errol Flynn. In January 1935, Warner Bros. signed the young actor and brought him to Hollywood after seeing him in a British B picture "Murder at Monte Carlo". For the female lead role, Jean Muir was originally picked to play opposite Donat, but
Captain Blood (1935 film) of "Captain Blood" starred J. Warren Kerrigan as Peter Blood, the physician-turned-pirate in this Vitagraph production. Warner Bros. Pictures took a serious risk in pairing two relatively unknown performers in the lead roles. Flynn's performance made him a major Hollywood star and established him as the natural successor to Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. and a "symbol of an unvanquished man" during the Depression. "Captain Blood" also established de Havilland, in just her fourth screen appearance, as a major star and was the first of eight films co-starring Flynn and de Havilland; in 1938 the two would be re-united with Rathbone in