Guy Ritchie’s newly announced movie with Henry Cavill and Jake Gyllenhaal might break his recent streak of box office under-performance. While Ritchie’s next movie, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare (also featuring Henry Cavill), isn’t scheduled to release until 2024, his next untitled movie will feature Cavill and Gyllenhall as “two extraction experts tasked with planning an elaborate escape for a high-level female negotiator.”
Despite a few notable big box office hits such as the Sherlock Holmes movies, which averaged over $500 million worldwide, and particularly Aladdin, which earned over $1 billion worldwide, Guy Ritchie’s box office history isn’t as successful as his filmography would suggest. Despite writing and directing classics like Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels; Snatch; and RocknRolla, Ritchie’s movies are all more niche hits with cult audiences. We have yet to see how well The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare will fare at the box office, but his action movie with Henry Cavill and Jake Gyllenhaal could be a big box office draw.
Guy Ritchie’s Action Movie Starring Jake Gyllenhaal & Henry Cavill Can Redeem Their Past Box Office Failures
Ritchie’s past movies with Cavill and Gyllenhaal haven’t been big box office successes. The Man From U.N.C.L.E. with Cavill and Armie Hammer has become a cult favorite, but only made $108.5 million at the box office in 2015. More recently in 2023, Ritchie released The Covenant with Jake Gyllenhaal, and so far that movie has only brought in $15.6 million at the box office. Given his track record with each actor, there’s no guarantee that their next collaboration will be a huge hit, but it has the star power it needs to give him his next big hit, or at least outperform his more recent movies.
How Guy Ritchie’s Untitled Action Movie Can Avoid His Box Office Struggles
Outside of his box office success with the Robert Downey Jr. Sherlock Holmes movies and Disney’s live-action Aladdin, Guy Ritchie is known for violent, witty crime movies with dynamic ensemble casts of mostly British actors. While the movies all have popular actors like Jason Statham, Ray Liotta, Tom Hardy, Gerard Butler, Idris Elba, and Brad Pitt, they’re mostly lower-budget and R-rated, meaning they aren’t particularly engineered for star power. Cavill and Gyllenhaal are both at the height of their star power, so if the movie has a big enough budget and marketing push, it could be Ritchie’s next box office hit.
Granted, Man From U.N.C.L.E and The Covenant both seemingly had many of the right ingredients to make a big splash at the box office, so Cavill and Gyllenhaal certainly don’t guarantee Ritchie’s next movie will be a hit, especially in the current box office climate, but it does give it the kind of mainstream appeal that could make all the difference.
This story originally appeared on Screenrant
