Making a blockbuster hit is no easy task for any studio, but the risk can be worth the reward if a project winds up finding a global audience. Sure, Marvel, DC, and Star Wars make it look easy, but the truth is that plenty of expensive films aren’t able to find the same type of success as others.
Jude Law has been a film star for years, but even he is not immune to appearing in a lackluster project that is quickly forgotten about. It’s easy to comb through his body of work and see plenty of successful films, and yet, one of his former projects went on to lose an unreal amount of money.
Let’s look into the Jude Law film that lost $150 million!
King Arthur: Legend Of The Sword Had A Huge Budget
The story of King Arthur is one that has had many names and many incarnations over the years, and the truth is that there has been a mixed degree of success. Sure, people love the Sword in the Stone story, but modern live-action adaptations have proven to be a tough cookie to crack. Nevertheless, director Guy Ritchie gave it his best shot in 2017 with King Arthur: Legend of the Sword.
The film, which starred Charlie Hunnam and Jude Law, looked like it had a lot of potential to rake in some serious coin at the box office, but over time, this film’s huge budget would be a prominent reason why it would lose a ton of cash. According to Box Office Mojo, this project had a $175 million production budget, and this does not even factor in the marketing.
Again, franchises like the MCU and DC are able to use this type of budget with ease, but this is because of their wide reach and massive built-in audience. Other projects, however, are seriously rolling the dice by sinking this much money into a story that hasn’t yielded great results in quite a few years.
The big names involved with this project all had degrees of success in film and television, but as we have seen before, a star-studded cast is no guarantee to turn a project into a success. However, the studio must have been optimistic that King Arthur was going to be a huge winner down the line.
It Underperformed At The Box Office
In May of 2017, King Arthur strolled into theaters looking for a huge payday, but instead, it wound up underperforming and underwhelming all around.
A string of good reviews can be helpful in a film getting a box office boost, but unfortunately for King Arthur, critics were none too pleased with what it brought to the big screen. According to Rotten Tomatoes, the film currently holds a 30% critics rating. To make matters worse, it sits at 69% with audiences, meaning that they didn’t like it either.
The reviews and lack of word-of-mouth certainly played a factor in the poor box office performance that was waiting around the corner for King Arthur, but few could have predicted just how bad things would get.
In total, King Arthur was only able to haul in $148 million at the global box office, failing to even match its production budget. This was an absolute disaster for everyone involved, as just about every aspect of this project would go down in history as a colossal failure. Lots of hard work went into bringing this to life, but despite this, it crashed and burned in the most public of ways.
It’s One Of The Biggest Financial Losses Ever
According to Digital Spy, King Arthur: Legend of the Sword is one of the biggest box office bombs in history, with an estimated loss of around $150 million. This is a staggering amount of money for any studio team to lose, and we cannot imagine the panic that took place behind the scenes.
The site reports that, when adjusted for inflation, this is the second biggest flop in box office history. Not exactly what director Guy Ritchie was hoping for when he secured the talents of Hunnam and Law for his project.
Thankfully, this disastrous project did not destroy their careers. Law and Hunnam have done just fine for themselves, and Ritchie was at the helm for Disney live-action Aladdin, which was able to gross over $1 billion at the box office. This is good news, because most people wouldn’t bounce back from a disaster of this magnitude.
King Arthur: Legend of the Sword is a friendly reminder that big studios with seemingly limitless budgets don’t always stick the landing with their biggest pictures.