Badmovies.org Forum

Sometimes, movies just bomb at the box office, getting no where near what it cost to make the movie in the first place.  Of all the movie disasters at the box office, what do you think was the worst?

For me, it is without a doubt, A Troll in Central Park.  The movie was pretty bad, but man, did it's preformance in theaters was just a tragedy.  The movie cost over 20 million dollars to make, but how much did it get?  Just above 70,000 dollars.  Holy crap is that horrible!

Zyzzyx Road has suffered the most at the box office. It cost around $1.2 million, but only made $30. The director must have been crying for months after that.

Cutthroat Island ($110 Million budget in 1995, $10 million US gross), in and Heaven's gate ($44 million budget in 1980, $3.5 million US gross) helped to sink their respective companies (Carolco and United Artists).

Considering inflation, those where huge budgets, and losses.

Ishtar, with a price tag of $55-million (for a comedy in 1987) and a North American box office return of $14.5-million. Costs that ballooned out of control, a director in way over her head, fighting between Warren Beatty and Elaine May, copious amounts of film shot with take after take after take, the resulting delays in the film's release, and all the negative publicity made it an all-around disaster.

Too bad, though. I actually liked the movie when I finally saw it on TV. But its reputation precedes it for most people, myself included.

Not quite on the monumental scale of some mentioned, but Shakes the Clown cost $1.4 million to make and only made $115,000 at the box office. It also pretty much ended Bobcat Goldthwaite's acting career. Too bad it didn't do the same for Adam Sandler.  :twirl:

the cost was $2 million, gained back $30, but a crew member and his girlfriend got their money back, so it was only $20. Not a bad movie, though :lookingup:

The adventures of Pluto Nash- had a $100 million budget, gained back $7.1 million.

* Roman Polanski's PIRATES

* RAISE THE TITANIC

Waterworld.

That one managed to squeak by with a modest profit, thanks to the foreign market, and it did all right on home video.

That reminds me, I really need to track down a copy of Heaven's Gate.

Motherhood, with Uma Thurman, reportedly made only $23.

Battlefield Earth

I hear "Grind House" wasn't so hot.

And I was royally p**sED when I saw a yahoo article putting it in the same category as "Pluto Nash".

I'm impressed by how horrible Delgo did for it's openning.
http://movies.yahoo.com/feature/delgo-worst-opening-ever.html

No idea if he got any better after that. 

Surely it has to be Danny Dyer's latest 'Pimp' which took roughly £205 in it's opening weekend. http://uk.movies.yahoo.com/blog/article/18878/danny-dyers-latest-film-pimp-bombs-at-cinema.html This is great news if you hate Danny Dyer as much as I do.

Wikipedia has a list of box office bombs. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_biggest_box_office_bombs)

On the list, one that I happened to enjoy was WINDTALKERS(2002), which cost 115 million and only made about 78 million at the box office.  No idea what it made on video, though, which is how I saw it.

Really, my opinion is that the box office is a false measure of a film's success these days.  We used to go to a TON of movies, but are FAR more selective nowadays about what we see at the theatre (for a host of reasons, such as the children, time constraints and general malaise of the release pool).  Pre-video?  Yep, the BO is a valid metric.  Now, with Netflix and Blockbuster?  No way.

I generally have to REALLY want to see a movie on the big screen to justify the expense and 'hassle' of seeing it and thus contributing the box office.  The exception is children's movies, which we go to often on Saturdays when we just want to.

That list at least accounts for worldwide revenue. A lot of the time, you just hear about the domestic box office, because it makes a better story. Overseas ticket sales can save a picture's bottom line. I read a biography of Arnold Schwarzenegger a couple of years ago that explained how he'd never had an actual bomb, in spite of making a few disappointing movies, due to a more global view of self-promotion. The Last Action Hero, for example, earned a mere $50,000,000 at home, but took in another $87,000,000 overseas. And video certainly brought its earnings up even further.

But I suppose that's the way Hollywood (and the corporate world in general) thinks. It's not enough to turn a profit. Unless you make a s**tload of money right off the bat, it's a failure.

Well, keep in mind the studios end up taking about 60% of the gross, and the film's $85 million budget.  But yeah, once you take TV licensing, VHS, DVD, LD, and rentals, I'm sure it earned money within just two or three years. 

Another actor who is similar in that regard is Steven Seagal, who is apparently still quite popular in a number of countries - evidently, many of his "direct to DVD" movies actually have gotten small theatrical releases overseas because of this.

Hudson Hawk is another gigantic disaster.  $65 million budget, pulled in about $17 million.  I like it though.  Pretty funny and silly at times.

I also liked Hudson Hawk. I think a lot of people just didn't get it.

I got Hudson Hawk, but I don't like it in the slightest.

Alright, I like this exchange.

***A villain gets decapitated.***
Hudson Hawk: "I guess he won't be attending that hat convention in July!"

"Heaven's Gate" is the modern standard - Ruined the career of Michael Cimino, who is a talented and creative director -

The Elizabeth Taylor/Richard Burton "Cleopatara" is/was a known entity in this category - I don't have the monetary figures for either of these films, but they are both notorious in this regard.

peter johnson/denny "i always make a profit!" crane

According to wiki...

Heaven's Gate cost $40-million and made $3,484,331  at he box office.

Cleoptra cost $44 million and made $26 million.  It's the only film ever to be the highest grossing film of the year yet to run at a loss.

The 1967 DR. DOLITTLE did little in box office returns compared to its estimated budget of 18 million, making only half of that.

That's my next review for Andrew, btw. I loved the film and always watch it if I get seriously depressed ~ it's a very good film.  :thumbup:

(http://124.38.187.147/home/spaceman/movie/026HA/hudsonhawk/butter.jpg)

"WANT ME TO RAPE 'EM!?"

I loathed Hudson Hawk. Bruce willis was just so tacky and awful.

I can't help but think of Freddy Got Fingered which was so bad Drew Barrymore left tom Green or that's how it happened in my mind

THE ROCKETEER tanked pretty bad, under $10 million its opening weekend, with a $40 million budget. 

Though it has cult status now, THE THING had a pretty dismal theatrical run as well (Something like $3 million opening on a $15 million budget).  Of course, it opened against E.T., so it was pretty much screwed from the getgo.

Not sure of the exact numbers, but I think THE BOONDOCK SAINTS was one of the very first movies where rental revenues exceeded box office take.

Add me to the list of "Die Hard" Hudson Hawk fans! :teddyr:   I saw that movie when it came out and in all the years since then I've only met one other person who liked it.

  I  think John Wayne's version of the Alamo not only tanked but put him in serious financial trouble, since he put plenty of his own money into it.

You cant forget the disaster that was Gigli. A budget of 74 million and made about 7 million back.

 :buggedout: :buggedout: :buggedout: +  :bouncegiggle: :bouncegiggle: :teddyr:

OMG, nobody mentioned Showgirls :buggedout:

I think it only opened in one cinema here and took in about £80.
I think thats all it made in the UK.

And this is why most movies that hit the box-office these days are remakes, adaptations and sequels to already successful or well-known franchises. I mean, the idea itself already has a fanbase, so there's at least some guaranteed tickets right there on top of all the people who'll go to see it because the trailers got them interested or they just heard about the franchise and are curious.

Today's corporate thinking. Returns without risk. Better to make a crap film that will earn a predictable return than take a chance on something new that might turn out better or worse than expected.

I think if they were really smart, they'd just start making lower budget films again.  They could afford to make more mistakes, and they'd be able to figure out better what new ideas audiences like.  Everyone would win.

We could be seeing the effects of changes in film distribution of the past 20 years or so. The low-budget films that once set the trends for the industry have been essentially shut out. Used to be that theatres were full of indie films, obtaining a wide theatrical release along with the big studio pictures. Not so today. The multiplexes have become a corporate old boys' club, with smaller companies relegated to quiet direct-to-video release. Direct-to-video, meanwhile, carries a stigma of being not good enough for theatres, which also goes back to the first decade of home video, when more indie films were seen in theatres, and a higher proportion of crap was going straight to video.

Home video itself might be to blame. The moviegoing public is less likely to invest the time and money in seeing a movie theatrically unless it's a big-budget spectacle. Even for those, many people will wait for the DVD. The smaller filmmakers get a much better bang for their buck by going directly there, and marketing their movies to video store chains and specialty cable channels, which makes them money, but doesn't quite get them into the public consciousness the way a well-publicized theatrical run does.

Plus, you have a sort of reversal of influence. While the big studios once copied the successes of little guys like Roger Corman, a big chunk of the low-budget, direct-to-video industry is devoted to knocking off big-budget movies to cash in on their hype. Meanwhile, the public largely perceives the term "independent film" to be synonymous with "artsy-fartsy" instead of meaning something in the vein of Corman, Band or Golan-Globus. Those of us who were kids when those guys were in theatres didn't see any difference between them and the big studios, so those who do not have a particular interest in the movie industry simply don't see something like Chuck Norris movies being independent films. Mind you, it seems to be mainly with the artsy-fartsy films that independence gets a huge emphasis. Independent studios that make genre pictures generally want to look bigger than they are, especially when they aren't getting released alongside the big studios.

So basically, that whole system in which the low-budget filmmakers test ideas, take risks and break ground for the rest of the industry has become FUBAR, and we are seeing the result. Not so much related to box-office flops as why low-budet films and originality have disappeared from theatres. I suppose it relates in that financial risks prevent Hollywood from filling in the gaps.

I think you rather beautifully summed that up Andy.  I might add I'm not suggesting truly small movies, I was thinking more features like District 9.  Movies in the 20-30 million range (IIRC, the kind of films people like Golan/Globus make are usually the equivalent of 5-10 million a picture in todays dollars, though some are much bigger).  Small by Hollywood standards, but still generally too big for straight-to-video. 

For comparisons sake, look at Grown Ups.  A movie about a bunch of men behaving like kids and finding themselves or some **** like that out in the woods and at a water park. 

It cost $80 million dollars.

Reminds me of this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rubxM0BLMA&feature=related

FIGHT THE POWER!  EAT THE RICH!  KILL WHITEY! 

... wait.  No.  Let's skip that last one. 

FIGHT THE POWER!  EAT THE RICH!  KILL WHITEY! 

... wait.  No.  Let's skip that last one. 
[/quote]

Shall I fetch the torches and pitchforks? I don't know about the rest of you, but I sure could go for some angry mobbin'.

The Good German (2006) also did pretty terrible.  About $32,000,000 to make and a little under $6,000,000 return.  Not a terrible film but I can see how it did poorly. 

Also to The Gravekeeper, I'll join your mob.  Misc. Torch Carrier #7.

A real shame as it was for a long time the best pirate movie ever. It is perhaps only 2nd best today but come on ! It is a masterpiece in the (sub)-genre. It only became a financial disaster because it has a brilliant and funny ending instead of a trivial and boring happy ending.
That pirate movie with Geena Davis - made Carolco bankrupt - deserved it but Polanski's Pirates ?