Battle for attention

Are you NOT entertained? That question, bellowed by Russell Crowe in 2000’s Oscar-winning “Gladiator,” is one that Hollywood is asking moviegoers after a series of historical epics fell on their own swords last year. “Troy,” “Alexander,” “King Arthur” and “The Alamo” all were expensive battle pictures – each costing $90 million or more to produce – and all casualties of middling ticket sales. Can the warriors of yesteryear still connect with today’s popcorn crowd?

That’s a question that could be answered by “Kingdom of Heaven,” director Ridley Scott’s drama about 12th-century knights fighting during the Crusades.

Forget damsels; when this movie rides into theaters Friday, it could single-handedly save a genre in distress.

“The problem’s not epics, there’s a problem with people who don’t know how to do epics properly,” says William Monahan, screenwriter of “Kingdom of Heaven.”

“If you’re not filling seats at a showing of an adequately advertised motion picture, the audience hasn’t failed you; you’ve failed the audience,” he says.

“Kingdom of Heaven” is crucial because studios are in a holding pattern after last year’s underwhelming epics, says Brandon Gray of BoxOfficeMojo.com. While they made money overseas, American moviegoers didn’t turn out.

“It’s giving Hollywood pause,” Gray says. “These pictures are extraordinarily expensive and tend not to be domestic blockbusters.”

If “Kingdom of Heaven” performs strongly, studio interest in epics could be reinvigorated thanks to Scott – who started its most recent renaissance five years ago by directing “Gladiator” to a best-picture Oscar and $188 million in tickets sold.

Scott’s latest tale of swordsmanship and honor stars Orlando Bloom as a Christian knight who rises from the lower classes and finds himself torn between the safety of a royal lover (played by Eva Green) and almost certain death waging war in the Holy Lands.

The director says he hopes his film restores a sense of romance missing from recent epics.

“Audiences are less intrigued, honestly, by battle,” Scott says. “They’re more intrigued by human relations. If you’re making a film about the trappings of the period, and you’re forgetting that human relationships are the most engaging part of the storytelling process, then you’re in trouble.”

Scott says the reason “Gladiator” connected with men and women was the Russell Crowe character’s journey to reunite with his slain wife and son in the afterlife.

The key to his success with such a wide-ranging story as “Kingdom of Heaven” is keeping that sense of intimacy, Scott says, this time embodied by the star-crossed lovers played by Bloom and Green.

Green’s character, Princess Sybilla, “is of another level, another class,” says Scott. “He’s offered the world and everything else and feels he has to turn (her) away. It’s a hard relationship for him because she comes from the direction of her own Christianity, and he’s a man who is still in question of his faith.”

20th Century Fox, which also has a lot of money riding on “Kingdom,” sees the romantic subplot as a major selling point to women and couples, who may be less attracted to the elements of politics, religion and war.

“People didn’t see ‘Doctor Zhivago’ because it was about the Russian revolution. They saw it because it was about characters they related to, and they wanted them to be together and wanted them to survive,” says Jim Gianopulos, co-chairman of Fox Filmed Entertainment.

Other successful epics are a testament to that approach. Mel Gibson’s “Braveheart,” another Oscar-winning battle picture, emphasized the romantic relationships that drove the William Wallace character to rebellion.

Even the blockbuster “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy – more a fantastical epic than a historical one – recognized the importance of tempering war with love. Director Peter Jackson added scenes with Liv Tyler’s elvin princess, exploring her forbidden romance with human warrior Aragorn in ways the J.R.R. Tolkien books never did.

Contrast that with “Troy,” which minimized the character of Helen, the legendary beauty who launched a thousand ships, to a bit part.

“King Arthur” excised most of the fabled love triangle among Guinevere, Lancelot and Arthur. “The Alamo” had few female characters, and “Alexander’s” bride wanted to kill him while his male lover was dealt with timidly.

Hollywood may be learning the romantic lesson with its upcoming epics, which are mostly being fought in the name of love:

“ “Tristan & Isolde” (release date undetermined), starring James Franco and Sophia Myles, is the medieval legend of forbidden love between a warrior and a princess that threatens the peace between England and Ireland. It’s a folk tale in the tradition of Romeo and Juliet, or Lancelot and Guinevere, according to Scott, who is producing.

“You have two people who are on two separate sides where the relationship is impossible, yet they come together and try to make it work and it ends in tragedy,” he says.

“ “Casanova,” set for 2006, is a lighter drama with Heath Ledger swashbuckling as the notorious romantic from 18th-century Venice.

Disney, which is releasing the film, describes it as a “Shakespeare in Love”-type romp through the life of the character, who was at various points a soldier, prisoner, musician, spy, preacher and womanizer.

“ “The New World,” which opens Nov. 9, is director Terrence Malick’s drama set in 1607, with Colin Farrell as explorer John Smith, whose alliance with the native Pocahontas saves the first permanent English settlement in America.

Producer Sarah Green says the film uses that story to explore how intimacy between two people can change the course of nations.

If the intimacy factor helps the new wave of epics reconnect with audiences, it could embolden studios to greenlight more battle pictures, according to box-office analyst Gray.

“There will always be an audience for movies that glorify love along with glorifying war,” he says. “Romance against an epic scale makes the love seem larger than life, and that’s the appeal.”