Released in 2004 and a new adaptation of the legend of King Arthur signed by the director of “Training Day”, “King Arthur” required very large resources. For a big failure at the box office…
Films adapting the famous legend of King Arthur aren’t exactly rarities. From the Knights of the Round Table, a classic evocation of the myth, through Merlin the Enchanter the musical Camelot, the fabulous Excalibur, or even the aging Arthur played by Sean Connery who must face Prince Méléangant in Lancelot, the First Knight, we can no longer count the variations around this indestructible myth.
Some people even broke their teeth there. Like Guy Ritchie with King Arthur: The Legend of Excalibur. The very painful failure of his film, released in 2017, was such that the five sequels (!) that were considered were all canceled.
In 2004, it was Antoine Fuqua who tried his luck. The director of the powerful Training Day signed King Arthur. The filmmaker was armed with unwavering faith in his subject. “King Arthur is, like Training Day, directly realistic: you can really feel, touch the violence and death. You feel the cold and the despair. It’s apocalyptic. […] Arthur represents hope, a real one. It’s exciting to discover that this hero we all grew up with actually existed!”
Guaranteed to hit the mark with the spectators, or almost, who will discover that it is “a real man. They will discover the man behind the legend, a man who sacrificed himself to become a leader and won his title of King. Arthur has a sense of justice, that of responsibility, it is which drives him to step up and try to make the world a fairer place.”. So much for the profession of faith.
With a budget of 120 million dollars, a team of 250 workers built for nearly five months a wall 950 m long, and in some places 10 m high, supposed to represent a portion of the famous emperor’s wall Roman Hadrian. The setting which was made in a field in County Kildare in Ireland is the largest in the country’s history.
Buena Vista International
Driven by the most realistic approach possible, Antoine Fuqua surrounded himself with specialists of the period, while entrusting the writing of the script to David Franzoni, who had written that of Ridley Scott’s Gladiator.
But things started to go off the rails. A portion of the wall, the centerpiece of the film, has collapsed. “The wall had to be real. I had a battle scene at the end and I wanted people to fight on the walls” Fuqua commented.
Who also pointed out the interference of the Disney company in production. “I started making the film I wanted before Disney put their two cents in. They said don’t show too much blood. But when you want a realistic, raw, dark film that traces the dark years of history, when men fight and blood spurts, it’s difficult.”
The film will gross just over $200 million at the international box office. A real sanction therefore. But the work is not without interest. It is also available on the Disney+ platform.