The catastrophic box office performance of Ridley Scott's The Last Duel is so sad. Yet it is thought provoking, imaginatively told, extremely well acted and its attention to period detail and the sets are truly staggering. Matt Damon, Adam Driver and Jodie Comer are superb and it is a movie for the #MeToo era, the story of a remarkable women. Why has it been such a disaster? Will that mean an end to historical films, at least foreseeably? Between 1965 when The Greatest Story Ever told flopped and Gladiator in 2000, there were no swords and sandals epics.
Filmmaking / Directing : Why did the superb The Last Duel fail so badly despite good notices? End of the historical epic? by Richard Fitzwilliams
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I think there were a number of factors. First, the audience for The Last Duel skews heavily towards the 35 and over demographic, which has been reluctant to return to movie theatres. I think it's going to be more difficult to coax older people to theatres. Due to personal circumstances, I haven't seen a film in the theatre for years - but I've got a 65" TV and a pretty decent Dolby Atmos soundbar (plus access to drinks and snacks that don't cost a kidney), so I don't feel like I'm missing out.
Even people who have more freedom than I could easily put together a setup like mine that while it might not fully replicate the experience of the theatre could be considered 'good enough' - especially given the lengths theatres go to put people off (uncomfortable seating, overpriced refreshments, expensive ticket prices, other people...).
Back to The Last Duel. Some of the promotional materials, rather than present the movie as for the MeToo era, made it look more like a woman being fridged to justify two blokes having fisticuffs (and indeed, some women have apparently been warning others NOT to see it because of sexual assault scenes, although I've not seen it myself to comment). The trailer that did focus more on the female lead, quite honestly, looked poor - dull, lifeless, not particularly well-edited, and some of the snippets they used made Damon look like he was hamming it up.
And then there is the fact that I could feasibly believe many people just missed it. If I'm leaning heavily into Netflix or Prime Video in a month, then it's only the IMDb App on my phone that's keeping me aware of new releases - and half the time they get wiped aside when I clear notifications. I didn't notice a particularly prominent social media campaign. I haven't seen much talk of the film on Twitter. The word of mouth just didn't seem to be there, whereas Halloween Kills trended multiple times (a film that also found success with the younger demographics that are going to theatres).
I suppose it also can't be ignored that putting it up against No Time to Die, Halloween Kills, Dune and a new Venom movie wasn't the brightest idea.
I think it was bad timing and the pandemic still is having an effect.
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Honestly, I think it really comes down to poor timing and a general lack of good marketing. As John Austin, said above, many people are still not going to the theatre to see most movies. Unless they are a big tentpole release, like Spider-Man: No Way Home or another film like it, we probably won't see big numbers in theatres until the virus numbers have dropped down by a bit. I don't think this will spell the end of the historical film genre, but we might see it move to Netflix or other streaming services... at least for now.
Marketing was another big issue. When I first saw the trailer, nothing screamed out to me, that I needed to see this. In fact, I first thought it was another promo for the equally excellent, "The Green Knight" versus being an entirely different film.
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This review might nail it: "...plays like a medieval #MeToo story... something about it rings deliberately hollow. It hardly matters which man wins, the movie seems to be saying, in a world where women are destined to lose." - possibly it's an insincere effort to pander to what studio execs think is the trendy mindset of the moment. Odd, since Ridley Scott is usually more artistically certain than popular-panderer.
https://www.npr.org/2021/10/15/1045633461/the-last-duel-movie-review
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Shadow What the movie is actually saying is that it was possible and pays tribute to an amazing woman, but the story was certainly unique, Its terrific, actually but its a byword for disaster, luckily Scott's got the House of Gucci opening soon. Joshua Actually if you see it, Jodie Comer is excellent and the third part-you supposedly see each part form the point of view of one of the characters--this is flawed but very unusual- is written by a woman but I can see why the trailer would show this. Martin I hope you are right. It would be a shame as the cinema can create such exciting recreations of past eras-and of course, terrible ones too. Yes I agree, Yes, the point you all make is true, the marketing here was terrible too. Dire. It almost vanished straight away.
John-yes it is very violent and there are two graphic scenes of rape as well as numerous battle sequences. I think this might well put at least some people off. The film's flaw is that in the segment seen from the point of view of the rapist, he is supposedly deluded, and obsessed, but since it is so violent and he is painted as civilized, in opposition to Matt Damon's rough hewn husband, this is totally impossible. The film's feminist message.slips up here, but overall, it worked for me. Its stunning to watch.