Keanu Reeves’ Biggest Career Fiasco With 16% Tomatometer Somehow Inspired Netflix For a Sequel

Summary:

• Keanu Reeves ’ filmography counts numerous examples of movies that did well with both viewers and critics, but the actor nonetheless has one big flop as well.
• The 2013 movie was supposed to become a hit, but instead turned out to be a disaster — and even this wasn’t a significant obstacle for Netflix to later on develop the film’s sequel.
• Though the streaming brought some drastic changes to the initial plot, the sequel also ended up being a failure with 22% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Keanu Reeves’ acting career features quite many examples of commercially and critically successful movies — remembering The Matrix and John Wick will be enough here.

Despite that, nobody is safeguarded against signing up for projects that turned out to be disasters though seemed promising at first — and Keanu Reeves isn’t an exception either.

Back in 2013, Keanu Reeves starred in 47 Ronin that was supposed to become a box office hit. The plot is based on a Japanese ancient legend that tells about 47 samurais who swore to avenge their master’s passing even though, doing this, they would be doomed to death themselves.

With all the high expectations from the film concerning its compelling plot and a big movie star in the leading role, those expectations were totally crushed when 47 Ronin managed to gross only $151 million worldwide with the initial budget of $175 million.

The critics were also merciless towards the film – eventually, it ended up with a miserable 16% on Rotten Tomatoes.

47 Ronin’s disastrous performance upon its release could’ve stayed forgotten if it hadn’t been for Netflix that, to everyone’s surprise and doubt, had decided to come up with a sequel.

The streaming giant probably counted on saving the first movie’s reputation given Netflix’s numerous projects that became a great success with the critics as well — but in fact the streaming made the whole situation even worse.

47 Ronin’s sequel called Blade of the 47 Ronin was released in 2022, almost 10 years since the original movie came out, and brought the viewers to the modern world where the samurais have to carry on their missions alongside all the newest technologies.

Despite a change of strategy that put the whole storyline into another dimension, Blade of the 47 Ronin didn’t impress anyone either and got a slightly better score of 22% on Rotten Tomatoes.

And though Netflix has obviously enriched the whole storyline and showed some never-seen-before perspectives for its development, the sequel serves as a solid proof of the fact that some stories should be gone for good without being brought to the light again.