Simply put, it is one of director Ridley Scott’s best films for a long time, (and this is coming from somebody who found plenty to like in the much-maligned Alien: Covenant). It’s 14th Century France rendered majestically on the largest of canvases, blood and squalor juxtaposed beautifully with widescreen vistas and Middle Ages grandeur. The Last Duel is compellingly cinematic, from its bone-crunching battle sequences to its artfully-rendered wide shots of castles and keeps. Its narrative structure riffs nicely on Kurosawa’s Rashomon, telling the same event from multiple perspectives, a refreshing approach for such a big-budget film whilst still not taking too much of a stylistic risk for fear of leaving audiences behind. It tells a dramatic story and features a talented, starry quartet, all of whom put in very good work. What should be said is that The Last Duel is a very good film, with traditional Hollywood sensibilities. With its quarterly earnings call coming up in just a couple of weeks, Disney will most likely be using the failure of The Last Duel to justify its decision to not market the film, using the sort of backwards logic that Hollywood can sometimes specialise in. John Carter suffered a very public and very swift write-down, essentially consigning the film to failure before it had even caught the attention of the moviegoing public, whilst the release debacle surrounding The New Mutants killed off all but the most hardcore interest in the film, long before its release. See also: Le Mans 66 – an end of an era, last of its kind blockbusterĪlong with The Last Duel’s general lack of visibility, Disney has not been shy in the past to simply write films off as failures when their fate was very much still in the balance. As a remnant of the pre-Disney era when 20th Century Studios was good old 20th Century Fox, Disney has no great stake in the performance of The Last Duel, a feeling that can be summed up by the general lack of marketing for the film. One of the real questions here is whether the film is going to be given the chance to do so. Whilst it’s worth recognising that it is very early in the film’s lifespan to declare it a flop (and we certainly aren’t going to be stating that here), it is fair to say that the film certainly hasn’t found its audience yet. ![]() At the time of writing, The Last Duel has grossed under $5m in the US and has made just $9m worldwide. Try three issues of Film Stories magazine – for just £4.99: right here!Īs we reported earlier this week, Ridley Scott’s lavish historical drama is currently the odd film out, with audiences snubbing the movie in favour of the alternatives mentioned above. ![]() What’s more, it’s attracted that audience in droves, hoovering up a very impressive $160m in the US alone, contributing towards a current total of $283m, with plenty of territories yet to screen the film. Let There Be Carnage is raking in the cash too, with its PG-13 rating in the US (it’s been certified as a 15 here in the UK) meaning that the film – like its predecessor – is available to a wide audience in the US. There’s a theory doing the rounds at the moment that horror is booming because it’s the only film genre where audiences can escape to a reality that makes our seem palatable, and if the packed screening I found himself in on Saturday night was anything to go by, it might just hold water.īoth films have done brisk business so far with Kills in particular exceeding expectations. There have been some big films out these last couple of weeks: the greatly-anticipated release of No Time To Die, along with Halloween Kills, the obligatory comic book movie in the form of Venom: Let There Be Carnage and Ridley Scott’s historical drama, The Last Duel.Įach of these films is a heavy-hitter in its own right: Bond is simply Bond, whilst Halloween Kills is the second instalment in a popular and modern reprisal of the beloved horror franchise, not to mention that it is also has that powerful seasonal pull. After all, people have finite amounts of time and money, and though we’d love to support every project we feel some degree of interest in, it simply isn’t possible. As is often the case when several big cinematic releases crowd the schedule, there will always be a casualty.
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