Captain Blood (1935 film) range of interest. However, after watching the filming, with a dynamic new star, Errol Flynn in a heroic role, alongside Olivia de Havilland, who had her debut in "A Midsummer Night's Dream", he changed his mind. After he accepted, however, he learned that he needed to compose more than an hour of symphonic music in only three weeks. The short time frame forced him to include about ten percent of the score using portions of symphonic poems by Franz Liszt. Not willing to take credit for the entire film score, he insisted that his credit be only for "musical arrangement".
Captain Blood (1935 film) and the French ships used one of the largest technical crews assembled for a film, requiring 2500 extras. For sea-battle footage, Curtiz used a combination of process shots, miniatures, and footage taken from "The Sea Hawk" (1924). During filming Flynn collapsed from a bout of malaria, which he had first contracted in New Guinea. The film was a big hit making Warner Bros a profit of $1.462 million. According to Warner Bros it earned $1,087,000 domestically and $1,388,000 foreign. "Captain Blood" had its premiere on December 26, 1935 at the Mark Strand Theatre in New York City and was released