Reign of Fire is a 2002 post-apocalyptic science fantasy film directed by Rob Bowman and starring Matthew McConaughey, Christian Bale, Izabella Scorupco and Gerard Butler with the screenplay written by Matt Greenberg, Gregg Chabot, and Kevin Peterka.

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.

A group of heavily armed Americans led by Denton Van Zan then arrive in an armored convoy, including a tank and a utility helicopter.

Quinn is initially skeptical and suspects they are marauders, but Van Zan convinces him to let them stay when he reveals the dragons' main weakness: poor vision during twilight.

After killing hundreds of dragons, Alex discovered they were all female; she postulates that they reproduce quickly because the species relies on a single male to fertilize all the eggs en masse.

Van Zan, Alex, and some of the castle's men then depart for London, but true to Quinn's warnings, their caravan is attacked by the male dragon.

The plan initially works, but the dragon detonates the first explosive bolt early with its fire breath and Van Zan is swallowed whole.

The dragon's digital effects posed a problem for animators: "In recent years there have been several movies starring creatures with scaled surfaces.

The site's consensus states: "Reign of Fire gains some altitude with its pyrotechnic action and a smolderingly campy Matthew McConaughey, but the feature's wings are clipped by a derivative script and visual effects that fizzle out.

[10] Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade B on scale of A to F.[11] Joe Leydon of Variety said of the film, "An uncommonly exciting and satisfying post-apocalyptic popcorn flick, director Rob Bowman deftly combines an uncommonly satisfying mix of medieval fantasy, high-tech military action and Mad Max-style misadventure.

"[12] Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a B grade, saying "the season could do with more grinning, spinning, un-self-important, happy-to-be-B throwback movies like this one.

"[14] Roger Ebert gave the film one star out of four, describing it as "a vast enterprise marshaled in the service of such a minute idea", adding that "the movie makes no sense on its own terms, let alone ours.

"[15] Reign of Fire was third at the US box-office receipts during its opening weekend (12 July 2002), taking in $15,632,281, behind Road to Perdition and Men in Black II.

[17][18] In 2002, Kuju Entertainment released the video game adaptation Reign of Fire for PlayStation 2, Xbox and GameCube, which received mixed reviews much like the film it was based on.