King Arthur: Legend of the Sword bombs at the US box office

The latest big screen take on the British legend looks set to be less than legendary at the box office.

Director Guy Ritchie’s ‘King Arthur: Legend of the Sword,’ starring ‘Pacific Rim’ actor Charlie Hunnam in the title role, has massively under-performed on its opening weekend at the US box office.

The Warner Bros production has a budget reported to be in the region of $175 million (roughly £136 million), but Variety reports that, as of Sunday, the film has taken only $14.7 million (approx £11 million) from the 3,702 North American theatres in which it opened this past Friday.

Disappointing news for sure, but not necessarily a huge surprise after the critical drubbing ‘King Arthur: Legend of the Sword’ has received, and widespread predictions that it was set to flop.

Even so, ‘King Arthur’ is the third biggest hit of the weekend at the US box office. ‘Snatched,’ the new comedy with Amy Schumer and Goldie Hawn (which has also crashed and burned with the critics), came in at second with a haul of $17.5 million.

However, both films fell short by a huge margin to Marvel’s ‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2,’ the number one US box office hit for the second weekend in a row, which made over $63 million from US theatres this weekend, bringing its current global haul to just over $630 million.

Not great news for Guy Ritchie, as ‘King Arthur’ looks likely to be his second flop in a row. His last film, 2015’s ‘The Man From UNCLE,’ made only $110 million worldwide off the back of $75 million budget.

Still, the director should be on to a winner with his next feature, as he’ll soon be starting work on a live-action remake of Disney’s ‘Aladdin.’

Let’s see if ‘King Arthur: Legend of the Sword’ fares better with UK audiences, when it opens over here this coming Friday, 19 May.

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