to large groups of people. Producer Klaas de Jong also mentioned he got hundreds of angry mails from Christians who did not agree with their depiction of historical events. Release Box office The film premiered on 23 June 2018, in an open air screening on the Wilhelminasquare in Leeuwarden, as part of the celebrations around the European Capital of Culture, a week later, on 28 June, it was released in cinemas nationwide. After its first month it only earned €332,785 back from its 8 million euro budget, making it the biggest box office bomb in the country's history. The producers of the film claimed this was because the warm weather and World Cup kept the public outside of cinemas. The film was released in 4DX in two Pathé-cinemas in Amsterdam and Rotterdam, making it the first Dutch film released in 4DX. Seven weeks after its release it was already moved to video on demand-platform Pathé Thuis. This was at the time the shortest window between a theatre release and home release for a big Dutch production, which normally takes a period of three months. The film was also later edited into a four-part television miniseries, where they showed unused footage of the film. Critical response The film received overwhelmingly negative reviews from the major Dutch newspapers. The Algemeen Dagblad said that everything in this movie takes too long, “the fight scenes, the introductions of the characters and the explanatory dialogue slow down the movie”. De Volkskrant gave it two stars, praising the fight scenes but finding the screenplay clearly lacking in logic and tension. NRC Handelsblad said the movie was weighed down by a very top-heavy screenplay and an over reliance on drama. Trouw praised actor Gijs Naber but complained about the awful dialogue which was clearly written from a 21st-century perspective. De Telegraaf while praising the ambition of the movies said that it takes too long and is overly reliant on close-ups and slow motion-scenes. They also praised Jonathan Banks in his role and remarked that it looked as if actor Jack Wouterse was in a completely different movie. Het Parool praised the fact that director Roel Reine put his own signature on the film and that the troubled production was barely noticeable. However they do mention that it is sometimes noticeable that they did not have enough extras in some of the fight scenes. Historical inaccuracies In an