The Arthurian legend seen through the eyes of Guy Ritchie was one of Warner’s great projects 15 years ago, but after its release they had to put the brakes on.
It has rained ever since, but in the year 2010 Warner Bros. announced a new film based on the legend of King Arthur which, under the title King Arthur: The Legend of Excaliburit looked like a grandiose project in which the production company had placed great expectations. The film, directed by renowned filmmaker Guy Ritchie, was primarily intended to differentiate itself from previous film adaptations of Thomas Malory’s famous stories, such as The knights of the round table, Excalibur, the first knight And a long etcetera. As? Hand in hand with a more particular tone that introduced new elements into the equation and an air more similar to The Lord of the rings either Game of Thronesalthough the truth is that the latter, in 2010, still had a few months to see the light.
After several problems that arose during filming and post-production, as well as several delays in the release, the film finally It hit movie screens in 2017 to find itself face to face with critical rejection and a less receptive audience than expected. The film starring Charlie Hunnam managed to raise only 148 million dollars worldwide, a figure that was very far from recovering the 175 million dollars that had been invested in it and that generated losses of up to 150 million dollars to the producer.
King Arthur: The Legend of Excalibur
Unable to face the bitter setback in any other way, Warner had to accept defeat and abandon the idea of making a franchisewhich had come to be planned as a seven-film saga, with six sequels to the original.
The scores of King Arthur: The Legend of Excalibur they weren’t good either. The critics were quite disappointed – it has only a 31% average in Rotten Tomatoes– and, although the public received it much better, the bad box office figures did not improve the situation. But was it really that bad?
If we look at the data on invested and collected, there is no doubt that King Arthur: The Legend of Excalibur It’s a flop at the box office, but almost $150 million certainly is a lot of millions of dollars and a lot of people going to the movies. However, considering the money invested in marketing, a huge bombshell with capital letters was expected that did not take place. In addition, with the delays, the premiere of the tape was quite far from the end of Sons of Anarchythe series broadcast between 2008 and 2014 starring the film’s star, Charlie Hunnam, and which, if they had been closer to each other, might have been better for the film.
At the production level, King Arthur: The Legend of Excalibur it was not a catastrophe. as he did with Sherlock Holmesdirector Guy Ritchie signed a modern adaptation of the Arthurian legend with great visual effects and offered a different image of his hero: more than a brave knight, the future King Arthur played by Charlie Hunnam was a hateful character at first glance, self-centered and rude.
It’s never too late to give it a try and, now that it’s not a saga, doing it will only take you a couple of hours. It is available on Prime Video and HBO Max.
