GladiatorThe breakout success of spawned a series of sword-and-sandal films like 300, King ArthurAnd Alexander. That of Wolfgang Petersen Troy also revived a genre that peaked during the golden age of cinema.
Netflix is in the process of deleting Troy from its streaming library on December 1. Wolfgang Peterson’s 2004 war epic was also Brad Pitt’s entry into the swords-and-sandals genre, which gained popularity after Gladiatorat the box office. Released at the height of the trend, Troy was a modest success, earning $497 million on a budget of $185 million. The film featured a powerhouse cast featuring Pitt and Eric Bana; Orlando Bloom, Sean Bean, Brian Cox, Brendan Gleeson, Peter O’Toole, Rose Byrne and Diane Kruger also joined the ensemble. A free adaptation of Homer The Iliad, Troy depicts the quarrel of Achilles and Hector against the backdrop of the Trojan War.
Related
Troy condensed The Iliadreducing his ten-year war to weeks of campaigns and skirmishes. The film also lacked the involvement of the Greek gods, which was prevalent in Homer’s epic. TroyThe climax of is the duel of Achilles (Pitt) and Hector (Bana)which faithfully adapted the source material. In an interview with Film noirBana confirmed that they were as invested in the fight scenes as they were in the one-liners. “We fought each other a bit but that’s half the fun.” he said in 2004. “You’re just a guy holding a sword and you can hack a group of stuntmen and they can hack you. Ultimately, there will be some collateral damage. The adrenaline pumps and it’s a lot of fun. You don’t care about being hurt.“
Eric Bana really fought with Brad Pitt in Troy’s duel scene
Pitt confirmed that they performed their own stunts in a separate interview. “The physical part is very visual and obvious from the start, but in reality, that’s what we do.” He would have gone all out with Bana during their characters’ duel, and they would have exchanged real blows while training. Pitt was injured while filming this scene. “The wear and tear on the sand and the fight scenes, that was the end of it,” he explained. “All we had to do was shoot the fight scene with Hector and Achilles, and that’s when my Achilles tendon messed up… I twisted the Achilles tendon. How is that ironic? What’s weird?”
Related
10 Best Brad Pitt Performances, Ranked
Brad Pitt is one of the greatest actors of the modern era, and he has a long list of impressive performances to back up that claim.
Achilles is one of Pitt’s most iconic roles, but the actor admitted he regrets being cast in the role. Troy. “I was disappointed” he said The New York Times in 2019. “When you’re trying to figure things out in your career, you get a lot of advice. People tell you you should do this, and people say you should do that. There was this movie definition that I never got around to making a Coen brothers film called Towards the White Sea. We had the opportunity to go there, then the site was closed. Then another interesting opportunity presented itself, and instead I was convinced, “No, you need to do this other thing. You can devote yourself to your artistic project later. I ended up following that advice.”
A director’s cut of Troy was released in 2007 with nearly 30 minutes of additional footage and extended battle scenes.
Troy is streaming on Netflix until December 1st.
Source: Netflix
An adaptation of Homer’s great epic, the film follows the assault on Troy by united Greek forces and recounts the fate of the men involved.
- Director
- Wolfgang Petersen
- Release date
- May 14, 2004
- Cast
- Brad Pitt, Eric Bana, Orlando Bloom, Julian Glover, Brian Cox, Nathan Jones, Adoni Maropis, Jacob Smith
- Writers
- Homer, David Benioff
- Runtime
- 163 minutes