The legend of Greek Demi-God Theseus is being made into a film tentatively titled Theseus.
“Wait, didn’t I already see that movie two years ago or this year when it was called Clash/Wrath of the Titans?” No you didn’t that was about PERSEUS.
“Wait, didn’t I already see that movie last winter when it was called Immortals?” You saw Immortals? Thats weird. Well then yea you kinda did I guess.
Those are probably the questions that most people would ask when they hear that Hollywood is prepping a big-budget film highlighting that time Theseus fought a Minotaur.
Originality is officially dead. Let that sink in for a minute. Immortals came out less than 9 months ago, and did OK internationally, but only made 80 million stateside. Not a success by any stretch. The lesson they took away from that film was, do the same thing again, only a little bit different and do it right away. Wrath of the Titans came out 3 months ago and made 83 million stateside. It did a bit better internationally, but didn’t come close to the original reboot (I just said original reboot). The lesson Hollywood took away from that film was, lets keep churning these bad boys out even if this one was a disappointment, no one liked it, and it cost us a lot of money.
This is why I don’t defend Hollywood a lot of the time. There are so many original ideas out there that are genre specific and would be a thousand times better than Theseus. The public has already spoken and they are tired of these Greek legend retreads. If you think back on the last 12 years, we’ve had quite a few greek god, or old timey greek/roman epics and outside of 300, Gladiator, and Clash of the Titans, none of them were really all that viable or popular. So why do they keep getting greenlit? Public domain. I can write a Greek Gods movie tomorrow and not pay a dime to anyone for the rights and the story is pretty much already written.
Laziness and cheapness in the inception of a film, SOMEHOW leads to an incredibly bloated budget, which then leads to a film people might turn out to opening weekend, but ultimately is a creative disaster and leaves us with Sam Worthington’s getting tossed into franchises left and right despite any semblance of charisma.
I didn’t even get to mention that Brett Ratner is getting in on the Greek epic fun with his Hercules story based off the comic Hercules: The Thracian Wars. It’s going to suck cause Brett Ratner is making it, but at least it has The Rock in it.
Don’t forget about the new Percy Jackson movie. I don’t get the obsession with Greek mythology, let’s let some other cultures get their due. I’d love to see some Egyptian, African, or Hindu mythology on the big screen.