Season of the Witch (2011 film)

Season of the Witch
Relativity's theatrical release poster
Directed by	Dominic Sena Brett Ratner (uncredited reshoots)
Produced by	Alex Gartner Charles Roven
Written by	Bragi F. Schut
Starring	Nicolas Cage Ron Perlman Stephen Campbell Moore Claire Foy Stephen Graham Ulrich Thomsen Robert Sheehan Christopher Lee
Music by	Atli Örvarsson
Cinematography	Amir Mokri
Edited by	Mark Helfrich Dan Zimmerman
Production company	Atlas Entertainment
Distributed by	Rogue (through Relativity Media, current)
Release date	January 4, 2011 (2011-01-04) (New York premiere) January 7, 2011 (2011-01-07)
Running time	98 minutes
Country	United States United Kingdom Australia
Language	English
Budget	$40 million
Box office	$91.6 million

Season of the Witch is a 2011 American fantasy adventure film starring Nicolas Cage and Ron Perlman and directed by Dominic Sena with extensive uncredited reshoots by Brett Ratner. Cage and Perlman star as Teutonic Knights, who return from the Crusades to find their fatherland ruined by the Black Death. Two church elders accuse a girl (Claire Foy) of being a witch responsible for the destruction; they command the two knights to transport the girl to a monastery so the monks can lift her curse from the land. The film draws inspiration from the 1957 film The Seventh Seal. It reunited Sena and Cage who had previously worked together on Gone in 60 Seconds.

Development on the film began in 2000 when the spec script by screenwriter Bragi F. Schut was purchased by MGM. The project moved from MGM to Columbia Pictures to Relativity Media, where the film was finally produced by Charles Roven and Alex Gartner. Filming took place primarily in Austria, Hungary and Croatia. Season of the Witch was released on January 7, 2011 in the United States, Canada and several other territories. The film received negative reviews but was a moderate box office success.

In Villach in the year 1235, three women are accused of witchcraft by a priest. While one claims to be a witch through persuasion from the church, one denies it, another does neither and curses the priest. He orders them hanged and drowned. That done, he urges the guards to pull them back up for a ritual to make sure the so-called witches never come back to life. The guards refuse, claiming they are dead enough. The priest returns late at night to perform the ritual. One of the corpses, one of a hag with a blind eye suffers a seizure but dies, While another corpse, a younger woman takes on a demonic appearance and kills the priest and burns his book with the rites in it.