As history has shown countless times over, it’s impossible to precision-engineer a cult classic, but The Adventures of Baron Munchausen was destined to find long-lasting life based entirely on the entirely chaotic nature of its entire existence from beginning to end.
Singular filmmaker Terry Gilliam always has a habit of butting heads with studios, which proved to be the case yet again when his fantasy epic went massively over budget, with many reports intimating that it ended up costing twice as much as the original $23.5 million, proving to be a waste of money after it barely cleared $8 million at the box office and ended up hemorrhaging close to $40 million in losses.
And yet, it ended up as – and continues to be – a critical and audience favorite that holds current Rotten Tomatoes scores of 90 and 82 percent from either party, never mind the fact it landed four Academy Award nominations and three BAFTA wins for its trouble, a remarkable development considering how many people actively abhorred their time working on it.
Sarah Polley dubbed her experience “traumatic,” while even Gilliam’s old Monty Python cohort Eric Idle called the director’s process “f*cking madness,” and Robin Williams wasn’t credited for his cameo because the funnyman’s team told the production that “we don’t want you pimping his ass for your film.”
Oliver Reed, Jonathan Pryce, Uma Thurman, and Sting are among the other big names to feature, with the entirely unique experience in excess in the midst of riding a new wave of momentum on streaming, after FlixPatrol named it as one of the week’s biggest new additions to Rakuten.