Variety is reporting that the King Arthur franchise, starting with the recently released King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, has met it’s demise, not by marauding countrymen in the hills of Britain but by indifferent audiences. Raking in only $14 million dollars domestically and $29 million dollars internationally, with a budget of $175 million dollars, not taking into account marketing costs, you have yourselves a bomb of colossal proportions.

Whether the film is good or not to me is irrelevant. There are plenty of movies that fail miserably at the box office only to find a life after death in the home video market. If the audiences that saw this in theaters really enjoys what they saw, word of mouth can help this movie find the audience it didn’t find in it’s initial run. 

The problem I have with this movie is the fact that it was preparing itself for a full fledged franchise without the benefits of people actually liking the first film. Movie companies are trying to copy the formula Marvel put in place with their cinematic universe, not taking into account that Marvel knew full well that if the first movie in their slate, Iron Man, failed, there would be no movie universe to explore. What would it have gained Marvel to start production on Thor, Captain American: The First Avenger, Iron Man 2, and The Avengers before they found out if audiences were really interested in the world they created? Iron Man worked because it could stand on its own as a film as well as being the seed that blossomed into the film series we know today. I don’t doubt that preliminary ideas were in the drawing stages for further films. It doesn’t cost millions to have a story treatment created. Yet it could cost millionsif you’re so far ahead in the production process for the other films in your proposed franchise that the first film fails to find that audience.

So what do you think? Are you surprised that King Arthur: Legend of the Sword failed? If you saw the movie, what were people missing out on? Did the filmmakers try to cram too much into this movie? Sound off in the comments section below.

Don’t forget to share this post on your Facebook wall and with your Twitter followers! Just hit the buttons on the top of this page. 

SOURCE: Variety