Ridley Scott blames millennials and their damn cell phones for making The Last Duel a flop

Ridley Scott is certainly getting around today while promoting House Of Gucci. He talked to The A.V. Club, he told the BBC’s Today that he has a Blade Runner show in the works alongside his Alien show, and on Marc Maron’s WTF show he dug into The Last Duel (his other 2021 movie) and why he thinks it flopped at the box office.

Scott’s take is not that Disney dropped the ball after taking over The Last Duel when it bought out 20th Century Fox, which is something he told Maron he was “concerned” about, but that too many moviegoers these days were “brought up on these fucking cell phones.” Yes, if you had “Ridley Scott thinks The Last Duel flopped because of millennials,” you may pick up your prize at the door. Congratulations.

To be fair, Scott says his argument is a “broad stroke” (and it is), but he thinks young people “do not ever want to be taught anything” unless it’s done “on the cell phone.” Being a period drama, then, The Last Duel and its timely themes just couldn’t connect with perpetually disinterested millennials and their cell phones. Maybe if Scott had released the film as a Quibi it would’ve gotten more attention?

There is one thing about Scott’s theory that is really compelling, though: The Hollywood Reporter quotes him as saying “millennian” and not “millennial,” which sounds way cooler. A millennial is a self-absorbed, unemployable leech living in basements and throwing money away on pricey avocado toasts. A millennian sounds like someone journeying into the great unknown of the future, carrying the burdens that have been forced onto them by their forefathers—the ones who burned the planet, tanked the economy, and keep begging for opportunities to kneel down in front of fascists.

Anyway, millennials and millennians alike should prove Scott wrong and check out The Last Duel. It’s apparently underrated.