Director Ridley Scott has some choice words for millennials as he blames them for The Last Duel bombing at the box office. Set in Medieval France, The Last Duel follows the ritual duel between the knight Jean de Carrouges (Matt Damon) and squire Jacques Le Gris (Adam Driver) to settle the case brought forth by Jean's wife, Marguerite (Jodie Comer), who has accused Le Gris of sexually assaulting her. The story is told from three separate points of view, with Marguerite's as the true account of the events.
The film featured some heavy talent behind it, with Scott in the director's chair and both Matt Damon and Ben Affleck reuniting together as co-stars and co-writers for the first time since their Academy Award-winning Good Will Hunting. The film was originally set for release in December 2020 but was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and finally arrived in theaters on October 15, 2021. Despite the pedigree of the talent behind the scenes and strong positive reviews, the film has been a box office bomb as it opened in fifth place in its opening weekend with $4.8 million and currently has a domestic gross of $10 million against a budget of $100 million.
In a recent appearance on Marc Maron's WTF Podcast (via THR), Scott pins the blame for the film's disastrous box office on millennials. While many were thinking the blame would lay with Disney after they acquired 20th Century Fox and their film slate, Scott said he was happy with how Disney handled the release and they were pleased with the movie. Scott chastizes millennial audiences who he thinks would rather engage with their phones than watch a film. Scott said:
"Disney did a fantastic promotion job. The bosses loved the movie because I was concerned it was not for them. I think what it boils down to — what we’ve got today [are] the audiences who were brought up on these f--king cell phones. The millennian, [who] do not ever want to be taught anything unless you told it on the cell phone. This is a broad stroke, but I think we’re dealing with it right now with Facebook. This is a misdirection that has happened where it’s given the wrong kind of confidence to this latest generation, I think.”
The COVID-19 pandemic certainly did not help The Last Duel's box office chances as older audiences, who would be the prime demographic for the movie, have been the most hesitant to return to the theaters. Recent box office trends have found that superhero films, science fiction, and horror have been the main draws for audiences at the theaters. Opening the film in a crowded October against films like Venom: Let There Be Carnage, No Time To Die, Halloween Kills, and Dune, as opposed to a slower weekend in December during the award season roll-out, was a risky move that helped kill the movie on arrival. However, even before the pandemic, The Last Duel would have been a risky box office player.
Scott's comments on millennials, coupled with his recent remarks about superhero movies speak to a larger frustration with trends in Hollywood. Many of the great legendary filmmakers are having a difficult time getting projects funded and released theatrically. After the box-office disappointment of Silence, Martin Scorsese could not get a studio to fund The Irishman, which led Netflix to step in and allow the director to release his first streaming film. Genres like comedies and romance films which use to be consistent mid-budget productions having migrated from the cineplex to streaming service releases. Audiences have started to become conditioned to view big spectacle movies as theater-worthy, while smaller films or even lavish period pieces like The Last Duel are becoming films audiences are waiting to stream. This mentality is a complicated one that can't easily be solved, and one that will continue to fuel discussion for years to come.
Source: WTF Podcast/THR