Ridley Scott: "Fucking cellphones" are to blame for my movie's box office failure

[Leo Enticknap]

And we have a winner for the "old git's rant of the day" award in the Daily Wail:

Ridley Scott blames millennials and their 'f***ing cell phones' for The Last Duel bombing at the box office

Ridley Scott blames millennials for his film The Last Duel bombing at the box office.

The acclaimed director, 83, complained about young people's attention spans have been whittled away by technology while talking to Marc Maron for his WTF podcast.

Offering an explanation for why the Matt Damon/Ben Affleck-fronted film only earned $27million off a $100million budget, Scott said: 'I think what it boils down to — what we've got today [are] the audiences who were brought up on these f**king cell phones.'

'The millennian do not ever want to be taught anything unless you are told it on the cell phone,' Scott added, per Variety.

'This is a broad stroke, but I think we're dealing with it right now with Facebook,' he said, not specifying an exact issue.

'There is a misdirection that has happened where it's given the wrong kind of confidence to this latest generation, I think,' Scott went on.

Maron said he was surprised that the period action piece didn't resonate with younger people, to which Ridley remarked: 'I agree with you.'

'Particularly with Matt Damon, Ben Affleck and Adam Driver and this new girl called Jodie Comer,' he said.

'That's the call you make. That's the call that Fox made. 'We all thought it was a terrific script, and we made it.'

He added: 'You can't win all the time. As far as I'm concerned, I've never had one regret on any movie I've ever made. Nothing.

'I learned very early on to be your own critic. The only thing you should really have an opinion on is what you just did. Walk away. Make sure you're happy. And don't look back. That's me.'

Luckily Scott doesn't have to wait long to see if he has another hit.

Ridley's next project House Of Gucci starring Lady Gaga comes out November 24th 2021.

He might be surprised that it didn't "resonate with younger people," but I'm not: from my experience of working in theaters (which admittedly was last as a theater employee 21 years ago), I'm certainly not: an historical melodrama set in the Fourteenth Century would be unlikely to attract anyone under 50, and not many under 60 then, and likely now. When you add to that the fact that this demographic are precisely the group that are staying away from theaters because of covid fears, I'm not convinced that cellphones have much to do with this. If they are eroding viewers' attention spans, then these superhero/comic book flicks, some of which approach three hours, seem to be immune from this syndrome.

[Jon Dent]

Not only is the movie not interesting to the largest theatergoing demographic, but it's marketing was pretty poor as well.

[Bobby Henderson]

Good grief. Phones are a pretty lame scapegoat to blame for a movie's failure at the box office. If the customer is already in the theater it's not going to make any difference if he/she is distracted by a phone. They already bought a ticket. I'm saying this as someone that can't stand how obsessive so many people have become with their phones.

I really hate when people use their cellphones at inappropriate times. It's extremely annoying when they pull that crap behind the wheel of a vehicle. It's an almost daily occurrence that I have to blast my pickup truck horn at a car in front of me that hasn't notice the damned light turned green several seconds ago. I had to do that during my lunch break earlier today.

Mobile phone use in theaters is as bad as ever. If I was able to design a commercial theater, I'd put "chicken wire" or other features into the walls where no one would get a phone signal inside an auditorium. That would eliminate the disruptive phone ring tones and displays lighting up like a flash light.

He might be surprised that it didn't "resonate with younger people," but I'm not: from my experience of working in theaters (which admittedly was last as a theater employee 21 years ago), I'm certainly not: an historical melodrama set in the Fourteenth Century would be unlikely to attract anyone under 50, and not many under 60 then, and likely now.

It's still possible for historical "old world" dramas, with characters swinging swords instead of slinging guns, to be hits at the box office. Movies like Braveheart or Troy are probably badly dated examples by now. I think the key ingredient in those movies is that they have enough exciting moments.

I didn't make an effort to see The Last Duel, despite its "fresh" 85% score at Rotten Tomatoes. What was my reason? The Last Duel looked depressing as hell. Maybe even boring.

The marketing for this movie looked really dark and dreary. How many Americans are in the mood for that kind of shit? How many people want to pay for a feel bad experience in light of current events? Over the past couple years we've had way more than the usual amount of depressing crap to deal with in our reality. Why would anyone want to pay to see more of it at the theater?

The Last Duel scored well with professional movie critics. But I think movie critics, particularly the most respected ones, have a much higher tolerance or appreciation of movies with dreary, bleak settings. They don't mind tragic, un-happy endings. "Mainstream" audiences just want to be happy for awhile. If a movie looks like it won't deliver on that many movie-goers will pass on it.

If I remember correctly The Shawshank Redemption was only a modest hit at the box office in 1994. The movie became a bigger hit on home video via positive word of mouth. The movie is emotionally soul-crushing, but the pay-off at the end makes it all worth it. Plus the movie had enough of its own memorable scenes throughout. It was depressing yet entertaining.

Maybe viewers will give The Last Duel a second chance on their TV screens at home.

[Mike Blakesley]

I don't think young people's attention span can be blamed.... the young folks seem to be able to make sense out of the convoluted storylines in superhero movies and keep track of multiple universes all at the same time, while remembering a character from 12 movies ago who appeared in one scene, etc.

I do remember our booker predicting that "The Last Duel" would be a flop -- before it came out , he told me it was unlikely we'd play it.

It just didn't resonate, that's all. Ridley Scott either made a bad movie, or a good movie with bad marketing, or both.

[Frank Cox]

I thought it was a really excellent movie, and so did everyone who came to see it. Unfortunately that "everyone" turned out to be less than 20 people. In total. For the entire week.

Sigh....

[Marcel Birgelen]

I guess in 2021, you can't just slap a few big budget names on a movie and expect an automatic handout.

The movie itself isn't bad actually, but it also didn't resonate with me at first. I guess this is the typical kind of movie that would need to grow an audience and it probably will, over the years, on some streaming platforms.

So, maybe it's somewhat of a shame that movies exit the cinema within a glimpse of an eye, giving few people even the opportunity to see this in a cinema.

[Leo Enticknap]

It's still possible for historical "old world" dramas, with characters swinging swords instead of slinging guns, to be hits at the box office. Movies like Braveheart or Troy are probably badly dated examples by now. I think the key ingredient in those movies is that they have enough exciting moments.

Agreed that you get the odd breakout one. An even more dated example would be Olivier's Henry V, which, despite being very arthousy, was enormously popular and had a domestic theatrical run of over a year (at a time when even A pictures were usually gone from theaters within 2-3 weeks): a likely reason is that audiences immediately saw the analogy between the Battle of Agincourt and the D-Day landings. But costume dramas are always a tough sell, apart from to one very specific demographic.

[Bobby Henderson]

I really liked Kenneth Branagh's 1989 version of Henry V. I don't know how much money it made at the box office, but it is one of the more entertaining adaptations of Shakespeare put to film.

I think the success of Game of Thrones on HBO encouraged some of the more recent costume dramas to be made. When HBO offered up the first teases of Game of Thrones I was pretty skeptical. To me HBO was more synonymous with complex dramas like Six Feet Under, The Wire and (of course) The Sopranos. A costume fantasy series seemed like such a random choice as a new tent pole for the premium cable network. It turned out to be one of the biggest hits ever for HBO. It's too bad the last season of Game of Thrones kind of sucked.