Please don't judge failures by box office gross. There is a LOT of good movies on that wiki list. Promoters fail, timing fail, audiences fail but there are still good movies in spite of budget-box office money.
Biggest Film Flops
- Thread starter the_wildcard
- Start date
Please don't judge failures by box office gross. There is a LOT of good movies on that wiki list. Promoters fail, timing fail, audiences fail but there are still good movies in spite of budget-box office money.
Planet of the Apes was a moderate box office success and was incredibly boring, while Mars Attacks! was more of a box office bomb yet far more entertaining.
The are some fantastic movies on that wiki list- Zodiac, Stardust, Long Kiss Goodnight, Dark City...
Popularity is no guarantee of quality, and vice-versa, or how would those High School Musical movies keep making money?
Popularity is no guarantee of quality, and vice-versa, or how would those High School Musical movies keep making money?
Watched a few scenes of Howard the Duck and quickly changed the channel.
Still prefer Lynch´s Dune over all the other incarnations.
Don´t think Hudson Hawk was that bad but don´t remember any details about it anymore.
Watched Soldier twice but that pretty much fulfilled my quota.
Enjoyed Wild Wild West, especially the scenes with the neck magnets and the rotating pool table. But it´s pretty much the train wreck effect.
Suffered through about two minutes of Battlefield Earth while browsing through the channels.
Watched Planet of the Apes twice but even giving it a second chance didn´t make that movie any better.
Tried Speed Racer once but only for the effects since it was obvious long before that that the rest wasn´t worth the time.
Occasionally watched Waterworld when there wasn´t anything better on TV.
What about real crap like Plan 9 or just about every Uwe Boll movie?
Still prefer Lynch´s Dune over all the other incarnations.
Don´t think Hudson Hawk was that bad but don´t remember any details about it anymore.
Watched Soldier twice but that pretty much fulfilled my quota.
Enjoyed Wild Wild West, especially the scenes with the neck magnets and the rotating pool table. But it´s pretty much the train wreck effect.
Suffered through about two minutes of Battlefield Earth while browsing through the channels.
Watched Planet of the Apes twice but even giving it a second chance didn´t make that movie any better.
Tried Speed Racer once but only for the effects since it was obvious long before that that the rest wasn´t worth the time.
Occasionally watched Waterworld when there wasn´t anything better on TV.
What about real crap like Plan 9 or just about every Uwe Boll movie?
I think you're confusing a 'bomb' with a 'turkey'.
Dune - like
Battlefield Earth - bad
Wild Wild West - bad
Battlefield Earth - bad
Wild Wild West - bad
I liked Soldier. The rest sucked.
I actually liked Wild Wild West when it came out. Of course I was 11 at the time. I just thought the giant metal spider was really cool. I would have sat through a lot worse just to see something like that.
The only movie that was *actually* a box office bomb that I saw in theaters is Mars Attacks, which is an awesome movie regardless of how much money it did or did not make. I'm not surprised it didn't make a lot though. It's a very odd sort of humor, even for a Tim Burton movie.
The only movie that was *actually* a box office bomb that I saw in theaters is Mars Attacks, which is an awesome movie regardless of how much money it did or did not make. I'm not surprised it didn't make a lot though. It's a very odd sort of humor, even for a Tim Burton movie.
Holy crap! A few of those I had no clue were box office failures - like Ali. I mean, Wil Smith films tend to do great, even when they are utter crap!
I was speculating the other day that you could probably slap his face onto any movie poster and guarantee a huge hit! Movie makers obviously believe this as well, since nearly all of his films have him and only him on the poster, standing there, looking bored.
Case in point:
There was a period in the late 1990s when Warner Bros. came out with a succession of box office flops that, IMO, were only worth watching because of the sexy lead actress' wardrobe.
1997-- Uma Thurman in Batman & Robin
1998-- Uma Thurman in The Avengers
1999-- Salma Hayek in Wild Wild West
I love Dune. The 1984 movie version is far superior to the anemic 2000 Sci-Fi Channel miniseries. It's a movie with an epic scope and a decent Middle East allegory. Plus it's packed with great acting performances from Kyle MacLachlan, Patrick Stewart, Dean Stockwell, and Sting's iconic scenery-chewing bellow, "I will kill him!!!!!"
Despite what the Yahoo columnist says, Ishtar is a terrible movie. It's got the kind of awfulness that you can really only get through deliberate effort. It's no wonder that no one has let Elaine May anywhere near a film camera since. The fatal flaw of the film is that, although Warren Beatty & Dustin Hoffman are great actors, neither of them are strong enough comedians to salvage the material. It's a movie that might have worked if it had starred more skilled comedians like, say, Steve Martin & Bill Murray, who could have elevated the material beyond the lame script.
I've never seen Hudson Hawk but my friends are big fans of it.
Wild Wild West is kinda stupid but it was also kinda fun. Will Smith & Kevin Kline make it bearable.
Battlefield Earth is not a great movie but I don't think it's that bad either. It's certainly not on the same shitty level as The Avengers, Batman & Robin, The Saint, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, or The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008).
The problem with Planet of the Apes was that, the instant the other humans started talking, they completely lost the allegory (not to mention the anti-war message) that made the original so powerful in the first place. At that point, it didn't matter how much great production design Tim Burton crammed into this piece of crap.
And while I haven't seen Speed Racer, I would like to come to the defense of the Wachowski Brothers. Firstly, I think they get a bum rap for The Matrix Revolutions, a far more intelligent movie than others give it credit for. Also, I must commend their work on V for Vendetta (a soaring testament to the ability of the human spirit to overcome tyranny) and Bound (for giving us some of the hottest lesbian sex scenes in cinema history).
Despite what the Yahoo columnist says, Ishtar is a terrible movie. It's got the kind of awfulness that you can really only get through deliberate effort. It's no wonder that no one has let Elaine May anywhere near a film camera since. The fatal flaw of the film is that, although Warren Beatty & Dustin Hoffman are great actors, neither of them are strong enough comedians to salvage the material. It's a movie that might have worked if it had starred more skilled comedians like, say, Steve Martin & Bill Murray, who could have elevated the material beyond the lame script.
I've never seen Hudson Hawk but my friends are big fans of it.
Wild Wild West is kinda stupid but it was also kinda fun. Will Smith & Kevin Kline make it bearable.
Battlefield Earth is not a great movie but I don't think it's that bad either. It's certainly not on the same shitty level as The Avengers, Batman & Robin, The Saint, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, or The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008).
The problem with Planet of the Apes was that, the instant the other humans started talking, they completely lost the allegory (not to mention the anti-war message) that made the original so powerful in the first place. At that point, it didn't matter how much great production design Tim Burton crammed into this piece of crap.
And while I haven't seen Speed Racer, I would like to come to the defense of the Wachowski Brothers. Firstly, I think they get a bum rap for The Matrix Revolutions, a far more intelligent movie than others give it credit for. Also, I must commend their work on V for Vendetta (a soaring testament to the ability of the human spirit to overcome tyranny) and Bound (for giving us some of the hottest lesbian sex scenes in cinema history
).
Frankly, I think the only movies of hers that get any decent critical acclaim are Gattica & Pulp Fiction. (That's a shame, because I also thought she was good in My Super Ex-girlfriend & Paycheck. And while Batman & Robin was a shitty movie, she & John Glover seemed to be the only ones who realized that the only way to survive it was to camp up their roles to the extreme. They tried.)
Yes, although Carolco Pictures was practically a Ponzi scheme whose continued existence was predicated entirely on pre-selling foreign distribution rights to the NEXT picture. It was a house of cards due to collapse some time. Cutthroat Island just ended up being the right stiff breeze at the right time.
The only thing that kept Mario Kassar out of the poorhouse was that he was able to have Carolco declare bankruptcy, abandon the company, and then sell himself the rights to the studio's only viable property, the Terminator franchise. Hell, even the logo of his new company, C2, looks reminiscent of the old Carolco logo.
Yep, another "Studio Killer," along with Cutthroat Island and One from the Heart. Plus an honorable mention for Cleopatra, which almost bankrupted 20th Century Fox and did cripple its ability to produce any other movies at the time (including shutting down production on Marilyn Monroe's last, unfinished picture).
Elaine May was crazy. She spent over a decade editing her previous movie, Mikey & Nicky and when the studio demanded she give them an edit to release in theaters, she responded by hiding reels of the film in her garage.
I don't know about the others but the main reason why Michael Douglas turned it down was because they wouldn't re-write the script to beef up the male lead.
And if Dune is going to be on this list, what about other financial flops that have turned out to be more critical darlings, like Blade Runner & Brazil? And if financial successes like Planet of the Apes are on the list, why not the much more painful 1998 American remake of Godzilla?
There is an Uma rule. If she wears a skin tight body suit, the movie will be terrible.
