Ridley Scott’s historical epic The Last Duel hasn’t fared too hot at the box office, and the director believes millennials are to blame for its poor performance.
Starring Matt Damon, Adam Driver, Jodie Comer, and Ben Affleck, The Last Duel was produced on a budget of $100 million and has so far only grossed $27 million worldwide. The critical response to the film, which Damon and Affleck also co-wrote with Nicole Holofcener, has been positive overall. In an appearance on Marc Maron’s WTF podcast this week, per the Hollywood Reporter, Scott offered up his take on the film’s financial performance.
He admitted that he was initially concerned for the project, a 20th Century production, but ultimately concluded Disney did a “fantastic promotion job” on it. “I think what it boils down to — what we’ve got today [are] the audiences who were brought up on these fucking cell phones. The millennian, [who] do not ever want to be taught anything unless you told it on the cell phone," said Scott. “This is a broad stroke, but I think we’re dealing with it right now with Facebook. This is a misdirection that has happened where it’s given the wrong kind of confidence to this latest generation, I think.”
He added that he’s never had “one regret on any movie I’ve made,” and that he was happy with the project overall. Still, he thinks the millennials might not want to sit through an 153-minute historical epic with dark subject matter, and perhaps he’s right. The comments come ahead of his next film, House of Gucci, which launches just one month after The Last Duel premiered.
Earlier this month, he also garnered some attention after he trashed comic book and superhero films. “Almost always, the best films are driven by the characters, and we’ll come to superheroes after this if you want, because I’ll crush it,” he said in his Deadline interview. “I’ll fucking crush it. They’re fucking boring as shit.”
