“Knight’s Heart”: sequel to the film with Heath Ledger was rejected by Netflix’s ‘algorithm’ – News

“A Knight’s Heart” was one of the films that helped put Heath Ledger on the Hollywood map.

Released in 2001, it was a comedy and adventure film set in the 14th century about William Thatcher, a squire with dreams of becoming a knight who forged a new identity to enter a tournament and prove his worth.

Still with Paul Bettany, Alan Tudyk, Mark Addy, Rufus Sewell and Shannyn Sossamon, it was an unpretentious film without major historical concerns that caused a sensation by even hearing the theme “We Will Rock You”, by Queen, at one point.

According to director Brian Helgeland, there were two attempts to make a sequel that fell by the wayside.

The first idea was to transport the same characters to a story about pirates and treasure hunting, but it was rejected by the Sony studio, he said in an interview with Inverse (via IndieWire).

After the death of Heath Ledger in 2008 and at a time when Netflix was beginning to establish itself as an original film studio, Paul Bettany described to the director the idea that came out of a dinner he had with Alan Tudyk: a teenage daughter of William Thatcher who also wanted to enter a tournament, but couldn’t because she was a woman.

“She met the group, who agreed to teach her, but had to hide who she was. They cut her hair short and spoke with a deep voice, etc.,” Helgeland recalls.

“I pitched this to Sony because they have the rights and it seemed like they were interested in doing it with Netflix, releasing it as a Netflix movie. What I realized is that Netflix tested this sequel idea through its algorithms, which indicated that it would not be successful”, he summarized.

It should be noted that, as far as we know, the platform does not (yet) have an algorithm through which it can pass film ideas to see if they are compatible with its subscribers, unlike the suggestions it makes based on consumption habits.

The reference to “algorithms” was the way chosen by the director to describe the studio’s decision process or, in this case, rejection, where, as in others, many objective (such as market studies) and subjective (instinct) factors come into play.