Hercules
Short description
Hercules is a demi-god turned mercenary, a warrior of extraordinary strength who long ago gave up on the gods after losing his family. He travels through ancient Greece with a small band of fighters who, like him, have known loss and now find purpose only in battle. Their reputation precedes them: stories of Hercules's twelve labours are sung by poets and repeated across the land, though the truth behind the legend is more complicated and is shaped by those close to him. When the king of Thrace hires the group, they are asked to turn his soldiers into an unbeatable army against a rebel force devastating his kingdom. The mercenaries' skills are tested by a conflict far larger than the paid work they are used to.
Brett Ratner directed the film, the twelfth of thirteen features in his directing career, following Movie 43 and preceding Melania. Evan Spiliotopoulos and Ryan J. Condal wrote the screenplay, with Beau Flynn, Ratner and Barry Levine producing. Dwayne Johnson heads the cast as Hercules, alongside Ian McShane, John Hurt, Rufus Sewell, Aksel Hennie and Ingrid Bolsø Berdal. The production brought together RatPac Entertainment, Paramount, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Flynn Picture Company, with a budget of 100 million dollars and a worldwide box office of 245 million.
Audience scores were middling: on IMDb it holds 6 out of 10 from 171,000 votes, and on TMDB 5.8 out of 10 from 4,442 votes. A film critics' rating of 5.4 out of 10 from 119 reviews places it slightly below both audience measures.
What's left behind the scenes
- Dwayne Johnson trained for eight months to get into the shape required for his role.
- Dwayne Johnson revealed that his beard was made of yak wool.
- Ingrid Bolso Berdal trained in archery with Stephen Ralphs for several months specifically for her role.
- Filming took place in Budapest (Hungary). The Origio Film Studios were used as filming locations.
- It took four hours each filming day to apply all the necessary makeup to Dwayne Johnson.
- Peter Berg was originally set to direct the film, but he stepped down as director, remaining on the project only as a producer.
- Antje Traue was considered for one of the roles.
- The film is based on the graphic novel "Hercules: The Thracian Wars" (2008).
- In the same year, the film "Hercules" (2014) was filmed, telling the story of the hero's origins.
- Despite the fact that Dwayne Johnson had only just recovered from surgery at the start of filming, he insisted on performing his own battle scenes without the help of stunt doubles.
Similar movies
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