The tales of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table exist in the public domain, and seeing as anybody can take a crack at reinventing the mythology if they want, Hollywood is never going to give up on attempting to put new spins on the stories that everyone knows so well. Admittedly, the track record has been mixed to say the least over the last decade or so, but that’s not going to dissuade creatives or executives from trying it all over again.
Antoine Fuqua’s 2004 King Arthur was a gritty revisionist tale that did decent enough business at the box office but didn’t fare too well with critics, a recurring theme when it comes to modern day stabs at Arthurian lore. Guy Ritchie’s King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, meanwhile, flopped spectacularly and Michael Bay’s Transformers: The Last Knight underperformed by the standards of the franchise, while both were roundly panned.
Elsewhere, Joe Cornish’s The King Who Would Be King sank without a trace despite strong reviews, and on the episodic front, the BBC’s Merlin ran for five seasons, while Netflix have yet to confirm whether of not Cursed has been renewed. Of course, another filmmaker who revealed themselves to be developing a King Arthur project was Zack Snyder, with insider Daniel Richtman now claiming that Netflix want to make it a reality after his Army of the Dead performed well for the streamer.
Snyder first mentioned the film a few months back, and the most recent update on his ‘faithful’ translation of the Medieval lore was that he was writing it with an eye to having it set during the Gold Rush of 1848 to 1855. So, there are no prizes for guessing where Excalibur will end up being found should the movie come to fruition.
Published: May 27, 2021 11:27 am