Fantasy is littered with obscure and cult productions, often born in the wake of the success of Conan the Barbarian. Among the works that have managed to remain memorable is Ridley Scott’s film “Legend”, a bitter failure upon its release in 1985.
Lili, a young and pretty princess, is coveted by both Jack, a young man close to nature, and Darkness, a true incarnation of evil, who dreams only of plunging the world into eternal night by killing the two protective unicorns. With the help of the elf Gump and his acolytes Screwball and Tom Brown, Jack embarks on a desperate quest to put an end to the demon’s actions and prevent Lili from transforming into a perverse creature…
After having made three huge films in a row (The Duellists, Alien and Blade Runner… Yes, really!), Ridley Scott attempted a foray into fantasy in 1985 with Legend, which was a terrible commercial failure for the filmmaker. The majority of the film’s revenues were made in the United States, with barely 15.5 million dollars collected, while internationally, it had not even brought in more than 1.33 million dollars. For a production budget of 25 million, that hurts…
A slap in the face that was all the more painful for him since he had been developing the story since the end of filming his first film, the dazzling Duellists. In a self-proclaimed homage to Jean Cocteau’s Beauty and the Beast, Scott here multiplies the references such as the tales of the Brothers Grimm, those of Perrault, Celtic and medieval legends, with a zest of Walt Disney.
The film has certainly aged a little; and Tom Cruise’s performance is crushed by that of Tim Curry, in the guise of the film’s big baddie: the impressive demon Darkness, who probably has the most imposing horns in the history of cinema. A cult character, and one of the best performances for this brilliant actor.
Universal Pictures
Largely revalued upwards since its release by the film community, Legend also experienced a second youth with the release in 2002 of a Director’s Cut version of 114 minutes, close to the European version and its 93 minutes, and in any case much superior to the operating version chosen for American theaters and its meager 89 minutes.
A Director’s Cut version that Scott himself thought was lost forever, before it was miraculously found in 2000 in the form of a so-called “zero original” copy. That is to say, the first photochemical copy of a film, whose image calibration is considered definitive. The zero copy is used to check that there are no problems with the quality and restitution of the image, respect for the editing and special effects.
