bombed bad at the box office.

It was a huge flop.

An interesting bit of trivia is that many of the sandals, boots, garments, swords, etc., used in "King David" at Paramount were originally designed and made for Martin Scorsese's "The Last Temptation of Christ", when it was set up at Paramount in 1983. Scorsese first tried to make it in the late 70s at United Artists, but it was cancelled after "New York, New York" bombed. Then, he got a deal in place in late '82 to make the film at Paramount. He'd scouted locations, hired crew, cast the picture, and various departments had already designed things like shoes, garments, props, swords, etc.. Then, on Easter Sunday morning of 1983, Scorsese received a call from Paramount bosses saying that the film was being cancelled. I guess they got cold feet about the controversial picture. Paramount actually did several cases of backtracking in the early 80s; they'd make daring films, or start out making them, and then back down. They completely made, then shelved, Sam Fuller's "White Dog" in 1982 (it wasn't shown for several years). Anyway, they quit while they were ahead on "Temptation". Scorsese finally made the film at Universal several years later.

Meanwhile, Paramount, I suppose in an effort to recoup some of what they'd spent on "Temptation"'s pre-production, used all of the clothes, props and shoes from that cancelled film in "King David", which in turn saved that film some money. All in vain, as it were, as it bombed, anyway.