There are four icons I would imagine loom large in the imagination of anyone raised in England, and Guy Ritchie is currently hard at work bringing the second of them to the screen, following his work on the two “Sherlock Holmes” films he made for Warner Bros.
King Arthur and the legend of Camelot are obviously known around the world, but they are innately English. You would have to grow up in a country with an active monarchy in order to truly understand the fantasy of being plucked from obscurity to rule the country. Like everything these days, this is being pictured as part of a much larger franchise. The film is called “Knights Of The Roundtable: King Arthur,” which would suggest that they can make as many films as there are seats at the table if they want to, and I'm sure they'd want to.
As with any icon, there are certain images and items that are part of that iconography, and just in case anyone wondered what Guy Ritchie's “I'm living a childhood dream!” smile looks like, this is it:
Not THE sword, but A sword. #KORT pic.twitter.com/LMR4EX5GVu
– Guy Ritchie (@realguyritchie) April 6, 2015
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Since we have no idea what part of the story this particular film covers, or how they're using this to set up the other movies, I'm not sure what we'll actually see here. And I'm not sure what distinction Ritchie's making about the swords, because that thing is definitely stuck in a stone.
Still, this is little more than a tease for a movie that we're not going see in theaters until July 22, 2016. Charlie Hunnam, Jude Law, Djimon Hounsou, Eric Bana, and Astrid Berges-Frisbey are all set to star, and they are currently in production.