By Drew Dietsch
| Published
Hey everyone, has drawn Dietsch again here for the giant Freakin robot, and this time, I can talk about something that I have never been able to highlight: dragons!
Since I read The Hobbit And looked at the animated adaptation of 1977 (always my favorite version of Smauug), I was in love with these fantastic fantastic creatures.
So much, I even looked Theft of dragonswhere John Ritter uses logic to defeat a sorcerer from Maleficent Dragon with several heads expressed by Darth Father.
And my generation was ready to obtain dragon fever thanks to successful production Dragonheart be such a success.
But before the dragon market was monopolized by HBO, there was another dragon film for which I was excited in my youth.
And it seemed that it could be the best serious representation of the dragons of all time in a major film to this point.
But this film was far from the success of Dragonheart And remains at best a cult favorite.
We are going to pass through the ashes to find out why Reign of fire failed.
Like many stories with high original concept, Reign of fire existed as a script for years before making its way in production.
The concept of key history is that the dragons were hidden under the ground and released at the start of the film.
This leads to the mass slaughter of humans to the point of a post-apocalyptic society.
The main story implies a survivor community Hiding dragons. When an wandering warrior enters this community, they end up being led to fight against ardent monsters.
So here is an initial theory and certainly with a low impact on the reasons why the public was not queuing for Reign of fireBut that’s a point, I think, explains how the sale of an audience on an idea can be more nuanced than it initially seems.
Take a look at Reign of fire Posters.
You see dragons burning the London landscape, as obvious by Big Ben and the Palais de Westminster.
It is sold a dragonpocalypse film similar to something like Independence day. “Come see dragons (instead of alien) Destroy the world! »»
But if you look at the real images of Reign of fire Looking at what they used for the trailer, this idea does not seem to be what the film really represents.
Instead of Roland Emmerich as chaotic joy, Reign of fire It seems to be a very straight and serious vision of dragons against humans.
And that’s what the film is.
It is not a film on dragons destroying the world. Reign of fire is actually a film about a world already destroyed by dragons. This is where most of the plot takes place.
It probably did not seem attractive for certain viewers from the start who wanted to see a dragonpocalypse film which looked more like a ride in the event of a thrill in the event of a disaster.
You know, Tornado But with dragons. And it’s not Reign of fire.
As he was in front of the cameras, Reign of fire had X-Files Director Rob Bowman at the helm.
Bowman had not only been a star director for many key episodes of X-Files Television series, but was also a director of the first feature film in the franchise.
And a bit like he did with X-FilesBowman wanted to found a supernatural story in a sense of realism.
In this spirit, Reign of fire ends up seeming damn good if your artistic goal is to create a grungy and desperate world that has almost been erased.
Unfortunately, with a concept as large and daring as “the dragons are real and exist in a modern setting”, there was also the public who simply was not going to buy this concept.
Understand, I think this is more linked to the global feeling of the time than any lasting problem with Reign of fire.
Pop culture had just experienced a fantastic renewal with the first Harry Potter film and the first Rings Film, both historical successes and films that would gain their place as gender classics.
Reign of fire Released only a few months after these films and sold public on a modern, granular vision and based on a classic fantastic idea.
He was trying to do it at a time when the classic fantastic elements of Harry Potter And The Lord of the Rings were adopted by a large audience and finding their house in pop culture.
Fundamentally, it was the right time to involve people on board Reign of fireArtistic Take. Today, this is probably an idea that could work thanks to a post-match landscape of Thrones allowing less fanciful riffs on fantasy.
It didn’t help it Reign of fire lacked star power for the time.
Matthew McConaughey obtains the best invoicing, but his American warrior is at best a support character. And although he certainly had cache, he was not a banble star in 2002.
Christian Bale was even less remarkable for the time. Although he has definitely had an escape role in American psychoHe had not yet put on the course and the hood and to become a familiar name.
Look, I like Knots Just like you, but Christian Bale was not a name that brought the family to the journey this weekend in 2002.
The same goes for Gerard ButlerWho at the time can have recognized, I don’t know, Dracula 2000 If something?
So we have a dragonpocalypse film where we do not see the Dragonpocalypse occurring, a vision of dirtying dragons at a time when classical fantasy is a peak of pop culture, and a distribution that has not yet made its biggest brands in the world of theater.
Add to that Reign of fire Release during the second week of a long -awaited suite, Black men IIAs well as very mixed criticisms and you have a recipe for an effect film of $ 60 million which opened its doors in third place with $ 15.6 million.
Reign of fire could hardly beat the opening weekend of the Halloween Film where Busta Rhymes uses Kung-Fu on Michael Myers.
At least he lost the number two place in a big comic strip film, Road to perditionOne of my five best favorite films by Tom Hanks.
Now, if you want my opinion on Reign of fire As a film, you can get the long version in the Episode of the Genvision Film Club We did where we put it against Dragonheart.
But while I can applaud the effects of the dragon in Reign of fireThe real film is simply correct. It is not incredible or terrible and it makes it a little less interesting as a whole.
However, I would say that Reign of fire is the kind of film that deserves another blow, either by a restart, or a suite / prequel.
I mean, Dragonheart I have four suites! Four suites! And I couldn’t tell you one thing about them! Except that they probably have dragons in them. Maybe one of the suites has two dragons? Maybe these dragons are friendly dragons or maybe they are not friends of friends. I don’t know and I will never know.
But I know that the idea of doing The terminator But with the dragons destroying humanity instead of robot skeletons, seems pretty cool.
Reign of fire Promise a film that would do this but which has not completely delivered. There is still time to make this promise.
And as it stands, Reign of fire is the kind of film that deserves cult.
It is an ambitious and unique idea that was not quite correct for the time. This does not help that real production had to face an epidemic of illness, which led to the reduction or rewriting of certain scenes.
So I have a certain sympathy for Reign of fire Also unjustly compromised.
With all other intellectual properties under the sun that put itself through the unsubscribe of the content, why not give Reign of fire Another test? It cannot be worse than the latter Game of Thrones season!
Do you want to help produce more dives in the failures of the movie of yesteryear? Join the channel as a member and you can guide the future of our videos.
Make sure you love, comment and subscribe or we will be burned by the algorithm.
