We almost didn't get to see it, and in the end very few did, but there was a "Solomon Kane" movie produced in 2009 -- and released three years later.

Solomon Kane is the globe-wandering, evil-fighting Puritan warrior created by pulp author Robert E. Howard in a series of stories published in the 1920s and '30s. Howard created him a few years before his more famous character, Conan the Barbarian, and, indeed, when Weird Tales magazine published the first Conan story, they promoted it by saying it was from the creator of Solomon Kane.

So it's not surprising that Hollywood eventually got around to making a Kane movie. What's surprising is that it took so long and failed so badly.

"Solomon Kane" premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2009. It starred James Purefoy as the title character, fresh off his leading role as Mark Antony on HBO's "Rome." But if you remember, 2009 was a tough economic time for everyone, including those in the film industry, who were reportedly more reluctant to spend that year.

As a result, "Solomon Kane" sat on the shelf until 2012, when it was given a limited theatrical release. It ultimately made back less than half its budget and just sort of disappeared from public memory. The video release a year later didn't excite anyone, either.

Reviews were mixed (sometimes literally -- one review of the DVD release called it a "mixed bag" with "good moments"), but weren't good enough to help it shake off the dust of having sat on a shelf for three years.

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