Brad Pitt's Achilles tendon tear could not have come at a worse time for his Troy director Wolfgang Petersen, who is convinced eagle-eyed film fans will spot the epic's continuity problem.

Petersen filmed Pitt's ACHILLES preparing to battle his onscreen enemy Hector, played by Aussie Eric Bana, just before the movie hunk was struck down by his injury - and then had to wait three months to shoot the actual fight.

As a result, the light in the fight scene is completely different to the one in the scene leading up to it.

Petersen says, "They come out, they face each other and they talk about the upcoming fight. Then Brad takes his spear and off we go. Off we go is three months later!

"If you really watch it carefully, the shadows are much longer, the light is completely different because it's winter. When we started shooting it was September.

"It looked so awful in the previews, where it was not timed correctly with the colour."

But digital technology allowed Petersen to tamper with the light on screen, and he's fairly pleased with the outcome: "Later on we added digital timing and you really wouldn't know unless you look really hard. Although, now, in telling this, everybody will know."