Proving for the umpteenth time that Hollywood loves few things more than jumping on a hot bandwagon, the success of Ridley Scott’s Academy Award-winning Gladiator led to a slew of blockbuster historical epics coming down the pipeline. Only one of them managed to earn more money at the box office, though, and it was Troy.
Wolfgang Petersen’s stirring spectacular succeeded where The Last Samurai, Alexander, King Arthur, The Alamo, Robin Hood, Kingdom of Heaven, Pompeii, and countless others failed by eclipsing the $460 million haul accrued by Russell Crowe’s Maximus, even if the profit margins weren’t exactly huge given that the $185 million Troy was one of the most expensive movies ever made at the time.
A 53 percent Rotten Tomatoes rating was thoroughly mediocre, with opinion split on whether or not Troy was a top-tier sword-and-sandals adventure, or another example of A-list talent assembling to deliver style over substance. 18 years later and it would appear that we’re no closer to reaching a consensus, at least based on the debate happening over on Reddit.
To be fair, the Director’s Cut of Troy that adds an extra 30 minutes of plot, character beats, action, and blood is markedly superior to the theatrical release, but that wasn’t the version sent out to the public for mass consumption. It’s definitely one of the better examples of the genre’s early-2000s boom, but it isn’t quite a classic on the same level as Gladiator.
Either way, at least it’s managing to stir up conversation close to two decades on, something that can’t be said about the majority of its peers.
