Keanu Reeves’ 47 Ronin clashed with major films like Leonardo DiCaprio’s The Wolf of Wall Street, released on the same day in 2013.
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Leonardo DiCaprio is a renowned name in the Hollywood industry. The actor shot to superstardom after featuring in the romantic adventure film Titanic. With more than three decades of career, DiCaprio has become the highest-paying actor today in the world of cinema.
Leonardo DiCaprio in a still from Titanic
It’s not possible for any actor to win over when the DiCaprio movie is competing. That’s what happened when Keanu Reeves’ action flick, 47 Ronin, was released with DiCaprio’s Wolf of the Wall Street. It’s the same day for both movies’ release. And it became a reason behind 47 Ronin’s box office failure.
Leonardo DiCaprio’s Film Was Responsible For Keanu Reeves’ 47 Ronin Box Office Flop
Keanu Reeves in 47 Ronin and Leonardo DiCaprio in Wolf of the Wall Street
Keanu Reeves’ starrer 47 Ronin had a budget of $175 million. This budget is quite high for a film that isn’t related to any franchise at that time. That is one of the reasons the film only fetched $151 million dollars at the box office. The movie had high production costs, so in order to recover that, it should have earned twice the amount.
47 Ronin was released on Christmas Day in 2013. It faced one-on-one competition with several other big films (due to the holiday season) that starred some of the biggest industry stars like Leonardo DiCaprio.
Martin Scorsese’s drama The Wolf of the Wilf Street was also released the same day. The film was a huge success and worked well on screens because of its strong screenplay and Scorsese’s wicked direction.
Also read: “It’s kind of a gangster movie”: Martin Scorsese Claims Leonardo DiCaprio’s Demand Changed ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ to a Wildly Different Movie That Sent Director Back to His Roots
Other Big Franchise were Also Responsible For 47 Ronin‘s Failure
A still from 47 Ronin
Another factor was – at that time, many big franchises including MCU as a whole and The Lord of the Rings with Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit trilogy, were going actively big. So, 47 Ronin was at a big risk.
Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues was released the week before 47 Ronin. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug was popular for fantasy, while Disney’s Frozen continued its unexpected success in its second month.
These major movies from giant franchises were both critically and commercially successful. And despite being in a busy period, they competed at the box office.
Even though 47 Ronin stood out among these films, it attempted to attract the same broad audience, which ultimately affected its long-term performance. It might have fared better if it had gone forward with its unique qualities rather than aiming for broad appeal.
