Birth of the Dragon, the latest film from WWE Studios and BH Tilt hits theaters across the country this weekend, but things are already looking bleak for this fictional Bruce Lee tale.
The movie enters its opening weekend with a 27% consensus rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with the average review only holding at around 4.3 out of 10. It’s not fairing much better on Metacritic, with a score of 38% indicating “generally unfavorable reviews”. Those numbers are expected to drop as more reviews come in, as the film wasn’t widely available for pre-screening events.
Birth of the Dragon stars Hong Kong actor Philip Ng as iconic martial artist Bruce Lee, in a story based on a controversial fight with Wong Jack Man that’s been shrouded in some mystery for over 50 years. It was directed by Geroge Nolfi, who has had some success with 2011 Matt Damon thriller The Adjustment Bureau, and wrote the screenplay for Damon’s The Bourne Ultimatum.
Scout Tafoya of Roger Ebert gave the film a thumbs down, calling it “a preposterous screenwriting-for-dummies exercise directed with all the flare of a mid-‘90s tourism video” and criticized the depiction of Bruce Lee as a “secondary character in a lazy and boringly familiar star-crossed romance?” BoxOfficeMojo.com reports that Dragon brought in $200,000 on Thursday night for its midnight preview, but estimates it will only bring in around $2.75 million at the box office this weekend due to more than 50 million people projected to rush theaters for the Mayweather-McGregor fight.
You can check out the final trailer above. If it’s any consolation from WWE Studios, it looks like the critically panned production company had nothing to do with this film’s development or production, and was only responsible for distribution. It is their first project since the 2014 release of Oculus to get a wide release in theaters without the use of a single WWE Superstar or legend.
