A record-breaking historical epic that died a death at the box office cleaves streaming in two

Compared to the raft of Hollywood productions that regularly come armed with production budgets well in excess of $100 million, director Petr Jákl’s historical epic Medieval was a mere drop in the ocean at a cost of roughly $20 million. That being said, it was more than enough to see the story of local folk hero Jan Žižka comfortably rank as the single most expensive Czech film in history, but the box office numbers do not paint a pretty picture as to whether the investment was worth it.

Since releasing last month, Medieval hasn’t even managed to reach $3.5 million at the global box office, and it only scraped together $820,000 from its domestic opening weekend – an alarmingly poor number for a sweeping tale of vengeance and war that debuted on upwards of 1300 screens.

A 36 percent Rotten Tomatoes score certainly didn’t help matters, either, but a 72 percent audience average on the aggregation site points to a much warmer reception from the general public. Medieval may have flopped disastrously on the big screen, then, but it’s continuing to show some signs of life on-demand.

Per FlixPatrol, the inconsistent adventure that boats impressive choreography but very little character development has become a Top 10 success story on iTunes in a number of countries around the world, and it’s been steadily rising up the platform’s global rankings for the better part of a week.

Historical sword-swingers full of blood, brutal scraps, and stunning vistas often tend to enjoy evergreen popularity on the streaming circuit, so the team behind Medieval will be hoping that they become the latest beneficiaries – because things didn’t work out so well in the multiplex.