Barry Lyndon sights on Thackeray's 1844 "satirical picaresque about the fortune-hunting of an Irish rogue," "Barry Lyndon", the setting of which allowed Kubrick to take advantage of the copious period research he had done for the now-aborted "Napoleon". At the time, Kubrick merely announced that his next film would star Ryan O'Neal (deemed "a seemingly un-Kubricky choice of leading man") and Marisa Berenson, a former "Vogue" and "Time" magazine cover model, and be shot largely in Ireland. So heightened was the secrecy surrounding the film that "Even Berenson, when Kubrick first approached her, was told only that it was to be an
Barry Lyndon at a three-hour slide show for art-history majors." This "air of disappointment" factored into Kubrick's decision for his next film – Stephen King's "The Shining" – a project that would not only please him artistically, but also be more likely to succeed financially. In recent years, the film has gained a more positive reaction. it holds a 94% "Certified Fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 64 reviews, nine of which are from the site's "top critics." Roger Ebert added the film to his 'Great Movies' list on 9 September 2009, writing, "Stanley Kubrick's 'Barry Lyndon,' received indifferently in 1975,