

Upon release, it received generally mixed reviews from critics and audiences and was a box office disappointment, grossing far less than expected, only $82 million on a $60 million budget. The film was released by Touchstone Pictures on 12 July 2002.

With the fate of mankind at stake, two surviving parties, led by Quinn Abercromby (Bale) and Denton Van Zan (McConaughey), find that they must work together to hunt down and destroy the beasts in a desperate attempt to take back the world. The film is set in England in the year 2020, twenty years after London tunneling project workers inadvertently awakened dragons from centuries of slumber and the creatures have subsequently replaced humans as the dominant species on Earth. The film also features Izabella Scorupco and Gerard Butler. Reign of Fire is a 2002 post-apocalyptic science fantasy film directed by Rob Bowman and starring Matthew McConaughey and Christian Bale, with the screenplay written by Matt Greenberg, Gregg Chabot, and Kevin Peterka.
