King Arthur Turns Out To Be A Royal Flop

King Arthur is shaping up to be one of the all-time biggest Hollywood flops in history. Hundreds of years from now, people will still remember the grand tale of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. The myth shall live forever. And the tale of the King Arthur movie with Charlie Hunnam is going to endure, too.

And endure is the right word. Endure means “suffer”. A great many people’s careers are in hot water due to the movie being a flop. For some involved with the production, pulling Excalibur out of a stone is going to be easier than lifting Thor’s hammer than finding another job.

When a $175 million film only pulls in $14 million at the box office its opening weekend, the legend of the flop is going to be remembered for decades. King Arthur is going to be mentioned alongside Heaven’s Gate and Ishtar as a mega-bomb.

And the failure would be a whole lot worse if it wasn’t for all the ticket-buying men out there. Okay, there were that many men who bought tickets for King Arthur but the audience greatly comprised of guys.

Charlie Hunnam gained fame in the gritty, violent FX television series “Sons of Anarchy”. The program also comprised of a very large following of male viewers. Likely, these viewers chose to follow Hunnam into his first major starring role on screen.

At the core, the tale of King Arthur is an action-adventure film. Action-adventure has a tendency to draw in men to theaters. The most successful action-adventure film franchises such as James Bond movies and The Fast and Furious features are able to expand beyond a male-centric audience.

Yes, King Arthur was intended to be a franchise. Likely inspired by Star Wars and the Marvel Cinematic Universe, a King Arthur trilogy was planned. Had the trilogy proved to be a smashing success, spinoffs were sure to be in the pipeline. A new film based on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is an intriguing concept. Unfortunately, the franchise and all spinoffs are surely canceled.

Terminator: Genesys earned $400 million at the worldwide box office and saw its sequels scrapped along with an intriguing television show. King Arthur won’t earn a fraction of what the Terminator reboot made.

King Arthur is the first major failure of summer 2017. A worse failure is possible this year, but the odds are King Arthur will hold the dubious mantle.