The Monty Python troupe made their first foray into filmmaking with 1971’s And Now for Something Completely Different. Intended to introduce the group to American audiences, the film recreated several sketches from their popular TV series, Monty Python’s Flying Circus. It wasn’t much of a success at the box office, and it would be a few years before the Pythons would attempt to get another movie made. The next time around, they switched their focus to the Middle Ages, and the result was the 1975 classic Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
But first came the problem of funding the film. According to director Terry Gilliam, none of the studios they approached were interested in footing the bill for their proposed project. “This was at the time income tax was running as high as 90%, so we turned to rock stars for finance,” he told The Guardian in 2002. “Elton John, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, they all had money, they knew our work and we seemed a good tax write-off. Except, of course we weren’t. It was like The Producers.”
The members of Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin were big Python fans and, as a matter of fact, recording sessions for Floyd’s 1973 album The Dark Side of the Moon were often put on hold so that the band could catch Flying Circus on TV. In addition to helping them get the movie made, both bands also offered to compose the theme music for Holy Grail, which didn’t happen. Some of them showed up for the film’s premiere in New York, however. Led Zeppelin singer Robert Plant can even be heard telling the audience at the end of a May 1975 concert in London to “watch out for The Holy Grail”:
In 2021, Eric Idle tweeted a partial breakdown of how much money was provided by the film’s different investors. Interestingly, the biggest contribution came from Holy Grail’s co-producer Michael White, who shelled out £78,750—which would be over $600,000 today. Zeppelin came in second with £31,500 ($255,360 in today’s money), and Floyd gave them £21,000 ($170,195 now). Other contributors included Jethro Tull singer Ian Anderson, songwriter Tim Rice’s cricket team the Heartaches, and three different record labels: Island Records, Chrysalis Records, and Charisma Records.
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