Kings of the Sun is a 1963 DeLuxe Color film directed by J. Lee Thompson for Mirisch Productions set in Mesoamerica at the time of the conquest of Chichen Itza by Hunac Ceel.

Balam succeeds to the throne, but is convinced by his advisers, including the head priest, to lead his followers away from the Yucatán, sail to the American Gulf Coast region, so they might regain their strength and fight again another day.

The new land they arrive in across the Gulf is a province occupied by a Native American tribe led by Black Eagle.

However, due to jealousy, they quarrel over Ixchel and the Native Americans depart, just as Hunac Ceel finds Balam and his people.

Hunac Ceel's army mounts a furious attack, but is eventually defeated by the united front of Indians and the transplanted Mayans.

The Mirisch brothers, United Artists and Yul Brynner had enjoyed a success collaborating on The Magnificent Seven and signed a three picture film deal in 1961.

[4] Walter Mirisch wrote in his memoirs that Kings of the Sun began when Arnold Picker of United Artists read an article about Mound builders of Mexico.

Mirisch commissioned an original treatment for a film from Elliott Arnold which theorised about what happened to the Mayan civilisation and who built the mounds in the present-day USA specifically as a vehicle for Brynner.

It supposes that over a thousand years ago the Mayans fled to the area of present-day Texas where they exchanged technology with the local Indians.

"[13] Thomson had previously made a film about capital punishment, Yield to the Night and said Kings of the Sun dealt with a similar theme.

As the high priest of the Mayans, swathed in dirty dresses and adorned with a mountainous gray wig, he looks exactly like the late Maria Ouspenskaya.