Guy Ritchie doesn’t quite have the same “style over everything” reputation of someone like Zack Snyder, but nobody could really accuse of him of making movies that are “classic” or “straightforward.” His Sherlock Holmes movies reshaped the detective into a guy who is so smart that he’s a punching genius, his Man From U.N.C.L.E. had so many unnecessary flashbacks and cutaways that charting out its timeline would make you look like Charlie Kelly trying to track down Pepe Siliva, and now his King Arthur: Legend Of The Sword puts the legendary king in a Macklemore coat and adds giant elephant monsters to the action. That movie is anything but classic and straightforward, but apparently Ritchie actually thought he was setting out to make something a bit more traditional than what he ended up with.
According to star Charlie Hunnam, who spoke with Entertainment Weekly about King Arthur, filming the movie was “challenging” at first because “there was an uncertainty about the tone.” He said they always wanted to make a movie that rejected the more regal and buttoned-down tone of most stories about King Arthur, but Ritchie initially set out to “make something that was outside of his wheelhouse” by doing a film that was “more classic, straightforward, and somewhat somber.” Presumably, that plan went out the window the instant Ritchie showed up on set and realized how much he missed having some crazy rock ‘n’ roll shit to play with.