Farrell: 'Alexander was a glorious failure'

Colin Farrell has admitted that he was initially shocked that his 2004 movie Alexander was a commercial failure.

The 33-year-old played the lead in Oliver Stone's Greek epic, which also starred Angelina Jolie and Val Kilmer.

As well as being universally derided by critics upon release, the film only managed to claw back one quarter of its $155m (£101m) outlay at the US box office.

Farrell told Total Film: "We were splitting the atom on Alexander - we were really doing something that had never been done and we were telling an epic tale that would harp back to the days of Cecil B. DeMille and we were going to get 12 Oscar nominations. In our heads. That's one case of where we completely misjudged the situation.

"It was a very big story and I know that Oliver was very rushed to do a cut, but for me it just failed gloriously. It just kept in step with the magnitude of Alexander's ambition and ego."