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indy100
Sinead Butler

Ridley Scott blames millennials after ‘The Last Duel’ tanks at box office and people have thoughts

Ridley Scott’s epic historical drama The Last Duel has been tanking at the box office, despite the film receiving positive reviews from critics - and Scott has a bone to pick with millennials over its poor commercial performance.

During an episode of Marc Maron’s WTF podcast released on Monday (22nd), he and the Oscar-nominated director discussed the two big films of his being released this year, The Last Duel, which was released last month and House of Gucci , which is to be released in a matter of days (November 26th).

Despite The Last Duel including a star-studded cast of Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Jodie Comer and Adam Driver and a budget of $100m, the film only made $27m worldwide when it was exclusively released in cinemas in late October.

Scott admitted his concern that 20th Century Fox would not promote the film, but he was not disappointed and told Maron: “Disney did a fantastic promotion job.” He added: “The bosses loved the movie. … I was concerned it was not for them.”

So, what (or who) exactly is to blame?

Well, the 83-year-old director had one demographic in mind, and certainly didn’t pull any punches as he berated millennials (and their cellphones).

“I think what it boils down to — what we’ve got today [are] the audiences who were brought up on these fucking cellphones. The millennian [sic] do not ever want to be taught anything unless you’re told it on a cellphone,” Scott said.

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“This is a broad stroke, but I think we’re dealing with it right now with Facebook,” Scott added. “This is a misdirection that has happened where it’s given the wrong kind of confidence to this latest generation, I think.”

Of course, millennials themselves had plenty to say about Scott’s comments and took to Twitter (much to Scott’s disdain probably) to share their thoughts.

Many saw the funny side to getting the blame from Scott and joked about how they will watch his films on the cellphones rather than at the cinema.

Others thought that Scott was acting like a “peak boomer” and weren’t impressed with him blaming millennials.

Some were confused with Scott accusing millennials of being the problem, and said that millennials are the last generation who are still interested in going to the cinema.

Another also pointed out that millennials one of the poorest generations, being worse off than their predecessors so many be can’t afford a trip to the cinema - especially if alternatives like streaming services are cheaper.

Though there were those out there who defended Scott’s comments and said an older person ranting about the younger generation is nothing new.

As Scott’s film House of Gucci is to be released in a few days time, there are plenty of people who believed that most of those interested in the film are in fact millennials, but only time will tell...

Elsewhere, some people are more concerned that Scott doesn’t realise which age groups fall under the millennial generation as they are born between 1981-1996 (so are between the ages of 25-40), and highlighted that some of cast are millennials themselves.

The Last Duel is in cinemas now and House of Gucci will be released in cinemas on November 26.

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