The Patriot Budget : $110 million
Box Office: $215 million
$215 million is a good showing, particularly for an R-Rated film in 2000. But on a $110 million budget, the profits are limited.
There is just so much work and expenses required to make a Revolutionary War look authentic. Hence, you don’t see too many films about the Revolutionary War
I am not american but I like the history about the revolutionary wars in the american continent. I appreciate the staging of this movie.
shareRight. The visuals, clothing, atmosphere in this movie was well-done: but there was a huge financial cost for the filmmakers. Hence, you don’t see many movies that try to portray the Revolutionary War period.
sharePlus it's hard to make the British the villains. They are our allies now and have been for a long time.
share100% agreed ATG6.
It's also telling that the director behind this is a German, and he had a completely fabricated scene of British redcoats burning a building with people inside, as a 'tactic', when it was the Nazis (i.e. Roland Emmerich's fellow countrymen) who *actually* used such brute war 'strategies'.
I wonder if CGI would bring the costs down now or just add to them. I'm not a fan of CGI but it would save them on location scenes and extras for the battle scenes.
shareDepends on the director. Like maybe a Steven Spielberg or even someone like James Cameron if he ever got off his Avatar obsession.
shareThey don't make films about this particular war because it's the basis behind American Patriotism, and Hollyweird hates American Patriotism. They think it's a form of fascism to love your country and to be loyal to it.
shareDon't be silly.
If there's one thing that US conservatives and US leftists can ever agree on, it's bashing the British. Cons love to do so because they think us Europeans are all terrible 'socialists', and it gives them a chance to bellyache over their superiority/exceptionalism, and libs love to do so because the Brits (and to some extent the Germans) are the *only* 'acceptable' non-American 'baddies', and it makes them feel better about their own country's sordid past to focus on *British* imperialism.
Maybe they just figure that in today's market, in which international BO figures matter as much, if not more, than the US BO, few people will want to watch films that bash foreigners (i.e. us non-Yanks). Look at a film like The Alamo. That film was a huge flop, because, apart from Americans, who's going to pay to see such a film at the cinema?
Don't be silly.
Conservatives, in general, admire the British, and appreciate them as allies. Leftists, on the other hand, now condemn Churchill as a racist warmonger.
I didn’t go see this one because I saw it as a blatant Braveheart knock off.
shareIt's funny you say that because just a couple of days ago I saw someone call The Patriot "Braveheart for America." I had never before really connected the films in my mind, even though they both star Mel.
In any case, you missed out. It's an awesome movie and was a great theatrical experience. I hope that you finally got around to seeing it.
Almost all period pieces have to recoup high budgets. Takes a lot of work to simulate the past.
I was up in Troy NY when they were filming The Age of Innocence. The producers were tearing up whole sections of streets and replacing them with cobblestones. Can you Imagine that cost?
Limited international appeal.
shareIt's mostly definitely this. Aside from random history buffs, nobody outside the domestic box office really cares.
shareMovies about Vietnam and Iraq have done well internationally
shareRecent events and more "relatable" wars.
To understand the American Civil War, you have to know about American History.
The first time I saw The Good, the bad and the ugly I had no clue who those men fighting were or what they were fighting for.
The box office for the film frankly is pretty surprising.
In 2000 Mel was on fire and Roland Emmerich had made Independence Day just four years earlier. Furthermore, Ledger was hot up-and-comer, having just done 10 Things I Hate About You.
I'm surprised it didn't make twice as much as it did. Oh well. The movie is still awesome anyway.