Although it is not so representative of the career of Russell Crowe like ‘Gladiator’, ‘Master and Commander’ It is one of the New Zealand actor’s best received films. The interpreter himself has recently revealed Why this acclaimed film never had a sequelarguing the reason for this: according to Crowe, the reason why there was never a second part Despite being an adaptation of a saga of more than twenty novels, it is due to the poor box office collection it had in the United States.
‘Master and Commander’ did not have good box office figures in the United States and this is the reason why there was never a second part according to Russell Crowe
As part of a video interview for GQ, Russell Crowe has answered several questions about his long career in film. One of the most interesting questions he has answered has been The reason ‘Master and Commander’ never had a sequel despite being an adaptation of three novels from a saga of twenty books. You can see his response around the minute 9:25 of the video:
Crowe responds as follows: “We should have made more than one movie. It’s something that makes me laugh. Even though we received 10 Oscar nominations and performed well at the box office around the world, it simply didn’t perform well enough in the United States.. At that time, The figures in the US had a lot of weight in these types of decisions. So we missed our boat, so to speak.”.
The actor also reveals an interesting fact about the release date of ‘Master and Commander’ and its relationship with the first ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ film: “We finished filming before ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ began filming, but our post-production team had a lot of problems and it took a long time. So our movie was released after ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’and Trying to get audiences to watch a serious movie about ships after one on the same subject with comedic elements was difficult.”. This way, Crowe justifies this failure at the box office in the United States with the fact that ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ was released in June 2003, while ‘Master and Commander’ was released in November. of that same year.
The situation regarding collection in the US is similar to that of ‘Waterworld’ by Kevin Costner; Its poor reception at the box office in the United States made its managers consider it an absolute failure despite the fact that it later managed to be profitable. thanks to the global market, domestic formats and the benefits of free-to-air broadcasting rights.
What was ‘Master and Commander’ about? Was it a good movie?
‘Master and Commander: On the Other Side of the World’ was a 2003 film directed by Peter Weir and starring Russell Crowe and Paul Bettany. It was about a epic drama set during the Napoleonic Wars. It was from an adaptation of three of Patrick O’Brian’s novelsand its plot told us the exploits of the captain Jack Aubrey of the British Royal Navy (Crowe) against several French ships and warships.
This tape was a moderate box office success; managed to raise 211 million dollars starting from a budget of 150 million. It was also a critical and popular success; Rotten Tomatoes rates it with 85% critics and 80% audiences, and on IMDb it has a score of 7.5/10. These evaluations place it as one of the best films in Russell Crowe’s filmography.
This feature film too received multiple awardsincluding the BAFTA for Best Director. Received ten Oscar nominations, being the second film with the most nominations just behind ‘The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King’ with eleven. ‘Master and Commander’ won two Oscars: Best Sound Editing and Best Photography.
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In June 2021, the development of a prequel developed by 20th Century Studios was announced.that It will be based on the first novel by Patrick O’Brianalthough it does not have Crowe’s participation.
