The idea that a $100m epic from Scott and Damon would be unable to compel more than a couple of showings per day in a multiplex seems inconceivable, but given the competition, that was, in many places, the case. Then there’s the inescapable fact that No Time to Die arrived in cinemas just two weeks earlier and was still monopolising screens everywhere Dune came out one week later. It was also released the same week as the latest instalment in the slasher franchise Halloween Kills and the Venom sequel.
Ridley Scott: ‘Cinemas should not be allowed to go away’Īdded to that, The Last Duel was rated “18” by the BBFC (“R” in the US) – something that tends to put a ceiling on any movie’s commercial viability.No Time to Pee – why today’s blockbusters are just too long.
The Last Duel review: Not quite Jodie Comer’s star turn, but a perfectly engrossing slice of historical intrigue.What’s more, millennials have also been some of the loudest champions of The Last Duel on social media – if anything, they are exactly who this #MeToo-inflected film resonated most strongly with. Millennial s are no longer your hipster nephew they’re your cheugy aunt. The youngest millennials are nearly in their late twenties. There are plenty of holes to pick in this slightly incoherent notion not least that “millennial” is not the byword for young, tech-addled poseur it used to be. The millennian do not ever want to be taught anything unless you’re told it on a cellphone.” “I think what it boils down to,” he said, “what we’ve got today, the audiences who were brought up on these f***ing cellphones. Instead, Scott pinned the blame squarely on millennials. Speaking to Marc Maron on the WTF podcast this week, Scott stridently backed the studio, averring that Disney “did a fantastic promotion job”, and that “the bosses loved the movie”, despite his concerns that it was “not for them”. ( The Last Duel was greenlit by Fox before the studio merged with Disney in 2019 some claimed that the film’s adult subject matter would have been at odds with the Disney brand.) Too few people were informed of what the film was about, people claimed – or that it even existed at all. Those who championed the film have scrutinised the failure on social media, with many suggesting that Disney’s marketing campaign was at fault.