Wrath of the Titans

Plot

Perseus (Sam Worthington), a son of Zeus (Liam Neeson), lives as a fisherman after the death of his wife, Io (portrayed by Gemma Arterton in the previous film), with his young son, Helius (John Bell). Zeus visits Perseus and asks for his help, saying that humans are not praying to the gods and as a result the gods are losing their power and becoming mortal. They can no longer sustain the walls of Tartarus which are crumbling, and the imprisoned Titan Kronos will soon be free. Perseus, valuing his family's safety, refuses to get involved.

Zeus meets his brothers Hades (Ralph Fiennes) and Poseidon (Danny Huston), and his son Ares (Édgar Ramírez) in Tartarus. He asks Hades's help in rebuilding Tartarus's walls, but Hades rejects the offer and attacks Zeus. Ares betrays Zeus, imprisoning him and stealing his thunderbolt. Hades and Ares plan to make a deal with Kronos: in exchange for remaining immortal, they will drain Zeus's divine power to revive Kronos. The walls of Tartarus break, unleashing monsters onto the world.

After killing a Chimera that attacked his village, Perseus travels to meet his father. He instead finds a dying Poseidon who informs him of the circumstances and tells him to find his Demigod son Agenor (Toby Kebbell) who will lead him to Hephaestus, who knows the way into Tartarus. Poseidon then gives Perseus his trident and succumbs to the injuries he sustained when meeting Hades and dissolves into dust. Perseus, Andromeda (Rosamund Pike), and Agenor set out to find Hephaestus on a hidden island. Agenor explains that Hephaestus created three weapons which Zeus, Hades, and Poseidon wield: Zeus's thunderbolt, Hades's pitchfork, and Poseidon's trident, and that these weapons can jointly form the Spear of Trium, the only weapon that can defeat Kronos. After an encounter with 30 ft. Cyclopes, the travelers eventually meet the now mortal Hephaestus (Bill Nighy) and reach the entrance of a labyrinth leading to Tartarus. Hephaestus sacrifices himself during an attack by Ares to enable Perseus, Andromeda, and Agenor to enter the labyrinth.

The group eventually enters Tartarus. Meanwhile, Zeus has been almost entirely drained of power as Kronos awakens. Zeus apologizes to Hades for banishing him to the underworld and asks his forgiveness, as he has forgiven Hades for his actions. Hades decides to help Zeus and stop Kronos in contrast to Ares, who still wants to proceed to the former's revival. Perseus arrives and frees Zeus. Ares wounds Zeus with Hades' pitchfork, allowing Perseus to obtain it before he and the others escape Tartarus with Hades.

Aiming to retrieve Zeus' thunderbolt from Ares in order to defeat Kronos, Perseus challenges him to a duel. Ares accepts. Meanwhile, Andromeda's army is overwhelmed by the Makhai. Hades revives Zeus and together they defeat the creatures. Kronos appears and begins to attack Andromeda's army. Zeus and Hades hold off Kronos while Perseus duels Ares eventually killing him with the thunderbolt. Combining the gods' weapons into the Spear of Trium, Perseus destroys Kronos, traveling to his heart and throwing the spear into it.

Zeus reconciles with Perseus and then dies of his wounds as he dissolves. Hades tells Perseus that now he is powerless and leaves. Perseus kisses Andromeda. Helius tells his father that he wants to return to his life as a fisherman, but Perseus tells him they can't. Perseus encourages Helius to be proud of himself, as his son and the grandson of Zeus. The film ends with Perseus giving his sword to Helius.

Cast

Development

Talks of a sequel to Clash of the Titans began as early as March 2010. Tamer Hassan, who played Ares in the first film, stated at the film's world premiere that, "They want this one to do well so they can go ahead with the sequel, Return of the Gods". In April 2010 it was reported that director Louis Leterrier would not return to direct, but would be an executive producer on the second installment. The report also stated that Sam Worthington was on board and that Greg Berlanti would write the story.

In June 2010, Warner Bros. hired screenwriters David Leslie Johnson and Dan Mazeau to write the screenplay, with Basil Iwanyk returning as the producer. Rather than being converted to 3D, it was announced that the sequel would be filmed in 3D. In August 2010, The Hollywood Reporter reported that Jonathan Liebesman had signed a deal to direct the sequel.

In September 2010, director Jonathan Liebesman confirmed that Sam Worthington, Gemma Arterton, Ralph Fiennes, and Liam Neeson would be returning. However, Arterton did not reprise her role for unknown reasons, leaving her character, Io, dead in the film. In December 2010, Neeson revealed that the film would be titled Wrath of the Titans and that filming was expected to begin next March.

In January 2011, it was reported that Édgar Ramírez and Toby Kebbell were in negotiations to play Ares and Agenor respectively. It was also reported that Bill Nighy was being courted to play Hephaestus. Additionally, Hayley Atwell was on the shortlist of actresses screen testing for the role of Andromeda, played in the previous film by Alexa Davalos who left due to a scheduling conflict. Other actresses being considered for Andromeda included Georgina Haig, Janet Montgomery, Dominique McElligott, and Clémence Poésy.

In February 2011, it was reported that Rosamund Pike was near a deal for the part. Also in February, Liebesman announced that Wrath of the Titans would be converted to 3D rather than shot in 3D as previously reported despite the negative criticism the first Clash of the Titans received for its use of post-conversion 3D. Liebesman explained, "I think what you have to remember is the first film was neither shot nor edited with 3D in mind. It was shot as a 2D movie and edited as a 2D film, and they decided to convert it with six or seven weeks to go until release, which is insane; the technology was not there. That's why we're conceiving it from the start, from the ground up, in 3D, editing in 3D for 3D." Liebesman also stated the reason behind the conversion was because he wants to shoot on film, which will give the film's imagery better texture than he would get shooting digitally.

Principal photography began on March 23, 2011. Filming took place in studios outside London and later shot on location in Surrey, South Wales and in the Canary Islands on the island of Tenerife and Torres del Paine National Park in Chilean Patagonia.

Release

Wrath of the Titans premiered on Monday, March 26, 2012 at the AMC Lincoln Square Theater in New York City.

Critical reception

Rotten Tomatoes, a review aggregator, reports that 26% of 166 surveyed critics gave the film a positive review; the average rating is 4.5/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Its 3D effects are an improvement over its predecessor's, but in nearly every other respect, Wrath of the Titans fails to improve upon the stilted acting, wooden dialogue, and chaos-driven plot of the franchise's first installment". Metacritic assigned the film an average score of 37 out of 100 based on 32 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". In CinemaScore polls conducted during the opening weekend, audiences gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale, slightly better than the first film's "B" grade.

The film earned a Razzie Award nomination for Neeson as Worst Supporting Actor. Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood Reporter called it, "A relentlessly mechanical piece of work that will not or cannot take the imaginative leaps to yield even fleeting moments of awe, wonder or charm". Roger Ebert, who gave the first film three stars, awarded Wrath with only two, remarking "It lacks a comprehensible story, and you won't need your CliffsNotes on the Greek myths. You get an idea of who the major players are, and then they spend a modest amount of time shouting laughable dialogue at one another while being all but forced off the screen by special effects.". Mark Olsen of the Los Angeles Times criticized, "Directed this time out by Jonathan Liebesman, the film lacks inspiration or zest in storytelling, performance or action. This is pure product, a movie desperately without energy or enthusiasm of any kind". However, there have been some positive reviews. Andrew Barker of Variety noted that, "The [Clash of the Titans] franchise has matured ever so slightly with Wrath of the Titans, hewing incrementally more faithfully to its Greek origins and trimming the fat in essential places". Richard Corliss of Time magazine wrote, "Wrath [of the Titans] radiates the straight-forward, straight-faced pleasures of the mytho-muscular epics, like Hercules and Jason and the Argonauts, produced in Europe a half-century ago". Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly commented, "For a movie that's basically all warmed-over pseudo-mythology and special effects, Wrath of the Titans is certainly more fun, in its solemnly junky way, than John Carter. It may also be a little more fun than its cheeseball predecessor, the 2010 remake of Clash of the Titans".

Box office

Wrath of the Titans became a commercial disappointment. It earned a mediocre $83.6 million in North America and $221.6 million internationally for a worldwide total of $305.2 million, less than the $493 million grossed by its predecessor. The film was co-financed by Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures for about $150 million, about $25 million more than it cost to produce the original. It debuted day-and-date in 61 markets worldwide sans Japan and delivered a global opening of $110.3 million.

In the United States and Canada, the film was released in a total of 3,545 theaters with 2,900 3D locations (4,400 3D screens), and 290 IMAX locations. Initially, it was projected open around with $35–40 million. It opened Friday, March 30, 2012 with $1 million from midnight screenings in 1,490 theaters. The film went on to earn an estimated $34.2 million in North America through the weekend, which fell in line with the studio's projection and debuted in second place behind The Hunger Games which was playing its second weekend run. The opening is over half of the original's $61.2 million debut. It played well in IMAX representing $4.7 million of the total weekend's gross. Not surprisingly, the follow-up attracted a large male contingent on its opening weekend with 66%. Roughly 65% of the moviegoers – about 55% of whom were over the age of 25 – saw the film in 3D.

Dan Fellman, Warner Bros. president of domestic distribution, said the comparison between the opening of the first and second film was not fair because the original opened on Good Friday, when more teenagers were out on spring break. He lamented on the film's poor box office performance saying, "we made a decision to open a week before the holiday this time and generate positive word-of-mouth since we had issues with the last one regarding the 3-D conversion, we're gonna get there – we're just gonna get there in a different way." However, despite not opening on a holiday weekend, the film had to the advantage of playing a week before Easter in which the company could avail the spring break, which was staggered over the next two weeks. Howbeit, all these didn't necessarily aided the film's further box office performance. Warner Bros. said they didn't expect the sequel to reach the same level.

Outside North America, the film had a more successful opening but later on dwindled down due to bad word of mouth and eventually was unable to topple the first film's final $332 million international gross. It opened in first place – dethroning The Hunger Games — with $76.1 million from 14,600 screens (9,766 of which were in 3D) in 60 territories. It debuted in first place in 46 markets, notably in nine of the top 12 international territories including Korea ($4.3 million), France ($3.1 million) and Italy ($1.8 million). Its biggest opening territories were Russia and the CIS ($12.8 million, representing 18% of the total weekend foreign take), Mexico ($5.2 millio) and Brazil ($4.1 million). The film was ranked No. 1 in 11 markets across Latin America. Also internationally, it had an IMAX opening of $4 million from 176 screens – or $22,000 per site – with Russia contributing about $55,000 per-screen at 19 IMAX locations.

Cancelled sequel

Following the release of this film, a sequel called Revenge of the Titans was in the pipeline. However, due to Wrath's disappointing critical reception and box-office returns, the project was later shelved; this was confirmed by Sam Worthington in a 2013 interview.

Home media

Wrath of the Titans was released on Blu-ray, 3D Blu-ray, DVD and digital download on June 26, 2012.