A cult fantasy gem failed to get a sequel because of the 20-year-old bombshell
History is littered with wonderful films that absolutely deserved the sequels they ultimately never got, but even though it’s been a full 16 years since the whimsical fantasy first hit theaters, Stardust It still hurts, like he was one of many who got away.
It wasn’t exactly a flop, but director Matthew Vaughn’s adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s novel only managed to gross $137 million at the box office, on a budget that was reportedly hovering around the $90 million mark, which is the profit margin too small for Paramount to take the plunge on a second chapter.
Fortunately, Stardust is becoming more and more popular every year and has fully established itself as a cult favorite of a generation, but Vaughn revealed this Collider that one of the main reasons he wasn’t particularly happy with the marketing was the studio’s insistence on portraying the blockbuster as something it wasn’t and was never intended to be.
“Hear, Stardustwas again a bittersweet time for me because when Paramount released it they kept trying to make it look like this Lord of the rings and I would say, “That’s not it.” Lord of the rings” and the question was “What is this?” and I chose “Princess Bride” and they are like “Princess Bride tanked up.” And I was like, “Yeah, it got bad because it was marketed badly, and then it became one of the greatest DVDs of all time, so let’s just do it, let’s embrace it.”
And they wouldn’t listen to me. Then in England they did whatever you wanted and we called it the fairy tale that doesn’t behave. And it was my highest-grossing film at the time. As far as the economics go, I have to deal with the fact that there are new people at Paramount now, but the story was fun.”
Try to sell Stardust As something else based entirely on a flop released 20 years earlier is Hollywood thinking at its finest, but it’s cruelly ironic that Vaughn’s long-running hit did exactly what The Princess Bride did 20 years earlier has; The film was not shown enough in cinemas, missed a sequel and then consolidated its popularity with audiences for years to come.
