Napoleon Proves Ridley Scott Still Hasn’t Learned The Lesson Of His 19-Year-Old $218 million Failure

Napoleon Proves Ridley Scott Still Hasn’t Learned The Lesson Of His 19-Year-Old 8 million Failure

Ridley Scott’s Napoleon was a critical and commercial disappointment, yet its relative failure proves that the veteran director has repeated an earlier, 19-year-old mistake. In many ways, Scott’s Napoleon project was always doomed. The vast scope of its subject’s life makes it all but impossible for any movie to adequately tell his story, without leading to a ridiculous runtime. However, even though Napoleon himself presents insurmountable obstacles for any movie, Scott’s effort repeats a previous error from the filmmaker’s career.

While not necessarily a disaster, Scott’s biopic failed to have the financial or cultural impact many expected. Napoleon was met with mixed reviews and made just $221 million against an estimated $130-$200 million budget, highlighting its polarizing content. Considering that the film spans several decades and still fails to provide a full picture of Bonaparte’s life and accomplishments, the reaction was probably inevitable. Nevertheless, Scott’s previous record in the historical epic genre should have provided a valuable lesson for how the 2024 movie might have succeeded.

Napoleon Proves Ridley Scott Still Hasn’t Learned The Lesson Of His 19-Year-Old 8 million Failure

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Kingdom Of Heaven Already Proved Ridley Scott Always Needs A Director’s Cut

Released in 2005, the parallels between Napoleon and Ridley Scott’s Crusader blockbuster Kingdom of Heaven are uncanny. Like Napoleon, Kingdom of Heaven polarized critics, with some lavishing praise on its visuals, design, and scope, while others criticized its rushed story and changes to history. The movie also made an almost identical amount of money at the box office, taking in $218.1 million against an estimated $150 million budget – a financial disappointment. However, after release, Kingdom of Heaven was redeemed by Scott’s own extended cut of the movie – released in late 2005 with dramatic results.

Budget

Box Office

Rotten Tomatoes Score

Kingdom Of Heaven (2005)

$150 million

$218.1 million

40%

Napoleon (2023)

£130-200 million

$221 million

58%

The Kingdom of Heaven director’s cut improved the original film in almost every way. Characters that seemed peripheral sketches in the original were fully fleshed out, while the additional 45 minutes helped to fully bring the world of Medieval Jerusalem to life like never before. Critical reaction was also much improved, with Empire describing the restored footage as “pieces missing from a beautiful but incomplete puzzle,” and others showering the alternate version with praise. When the special edition came out, Scott himself even reflected, “This is the one that should have gone out” (via Empire).

Given that the theatrical Kingdom of Heaven was the result of requested studio cuts and Scott himself recognized that the extended runtime was essential to tell a story on this scale, this experience should have been a blueprint for how Napoleon needed to be approached. Even if it meant compromising his vision, the similarities between the projects prove that Scott’s attitude to historical epics almost always demands more runtime than studios are willing to allow. As a result, it was always going to be the case that Scott needed a director’s cut-style runtime to even attempt to fully tell the movie’s story.

Ahead of Napoleon‘s November 2023 release, Ridley Scott already confirmed that he was working on a “fantastic” 270-minute cut (via IndieWire). This additional project follows the precedent set by Kingdom of Heaven. However, in repeating history, Scott has proven that he hasn’t learned the lessons from Kingdom of Heaven‘s mistakes. Given how superior his earlier director’s cut is to the original, it seems likely that his new Napoleon will also improve the deeply flawed theatrical release. For fans forced to wait, rather than experiencing the full version the first time around, it is a frustrating and avoidable delay.

Ridley Scott’s Other Historical Movies Continue The Kingdom Of Heaven Trend

Interestingly, Ridley Scott’s runtime problem is something that has come up in his career time and time again. While there are some exceptions (such as Gladiator), many of Scott’s forays into historical movie-making are hugely enhanced by later revisions. The director’s cut of Robin Hood, for instance, restores nearly 16 minutes of footage that improves character development and even edits out questionable original scenes. Likewise, upon the release of 2014’s Exodus: Gods And Kings, Scott teased a “four-hour cut” of the movie that the director claimed “worked” just as well as the final polarizing release (via Collider).

Custom image of Napoleon and Josephine in the Ridley Scott movie

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In each case, the evidence is clear that, in order to tell these epic stories as he sees fit, Scott almost always requires more time than a studio is willing to provide. While the merits of adding extra minutes to a more self-contained story like Robin Hood are debatable, there’s no doubt that, given his track record, it was always going to be essential for a project like Napoleon. The fact that the pattern continues to repeat now marks it out as a hallmark of Scott’s movie career, and arguably even part of his creative process.

Napoleon’s Director’s Cut Could Massively Improve The Movie

Arguably the biggest problem with the theatrical, 157-minute Napoleon is that despite its epic runtime, the movie still feels incredibly rushed. Bonaparte’s campaigns in Egypt and Austria are over before they have begun, while seminal events in his rise to power are totally ignored for the sake of efficiency. The result is an incomplete portrait of one of the most intoxicating, complex, and consequential leaders of all time.

A further two hours of footage could prove vital in fully fleshing out Napoleon‘s story. Not only can it provide context to key moments that otherwise feel inexplicable, but Bonaparte himself can become more than the churlish caricature that appears in the current version. As it stands, Joaquin Phoenix’s pseudo-comic performance makes Napoleon’s ascension to Emperor of the French seem extremely unlikely, with no evidence of the charisma and willpower that persuaded millions of his countrymen and women to rally around him. Exploring these qualities, beyond his bizarre quirks, is essential to understanding the real Napoleon – something an extended cut can provide.

Joaquin Phoenix in Napoleon and movie theaters

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Napoleon Probably Couldn’t Be Saved By A Director’s Cut

There’s no doubt that a director’s cut can go a long way toward addressing some of Napoleon‘s biggest flaws. Nevertheless, unlike previous Ridley Scott historical epics, the story of the real Napoleon’s life and accomplishments is simply too vast to be captured by any one movie. As Abel Gance proved in 1927, five-and-a-half hours was only sufficient to cover the first chapter of the emperor’s journey before he even picked the French crown up from the metaphorical gutter. As a result, the issue is not just the theatrical version of the Napoleon movie – it’s that the story was made into a movie at all.

So varied are the different chapters in Napoleon’s story that an extended TV series is probably the only way to paint the full picture. This reality suggests that the intention of Scott’s Napoleon was unsound from the outset – irrespective of the corrections a director’s cut may make. This view is even supported by the film’s writer, David Scarpa, who told IndieWire that the theatrical version “works better” and “gained a lot through editing“. While this might not be strictly true, it does demonstrate that, in the case of Napoleon Bonaparte, no amount of editorial indulgence can likely do justice to the real man.

Sources: IndieWire, Empire, Collider

Napoleon 2023 Movie Poster

Napoleon

R

ScreenRant logo

Director

Ridley Scott

Release Date

November 22, 2023

Cast

Joaquin Phoenix
, Vanessa Kirby
, Ben Miles
, Ludivine Sagnier

Runtime

158 Minutes