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Box Office Flops
By Kate Logan | November 17, 2009
By: Paul Harper
Over the years, studios have had bloated budgets and even larger actors to complete major motion pictures that have lost so much money, large families could live off the lost cash in the hills, each member driving Saleen S7s.
Luckily for us “below the line-ers’ in post production, we get paid regardless if the film makes money or not. But we can still all learn a lesson or two from some of the selected list of films that were big deals and even bigger flops at the box office.
The Adventures Of Pluto Nash starring Eddie Murphy, Randy Quaid, Rosario Dawson, Jay Mohr, Pam Grier, and Luis Guzman. This flop is an accurate depiction of the aforementioned situation. Released by Castle Rock & Warner Bros., this film recouped just barely over seven million of the one hundred million spent. Critics have been gracious enough to give it a 6% on Rotten Tomatoes. To top it all, it is a prime topic for case studies of film flops.
BUDGET: 100 Million / REVENUE: $7,103, 973
Basic Instinct 2 is the perfect example that just because the original sold so well, it does not merit a sequel. Sharon Stone was really the only big name actress tagged to this project, and with the help of Michael Caton-Jones, they managed to ruin the legacy of its predecessor. With a 7% rating, this sequel will go down in history as one of the worst of its kind.
BUDGET: 70 Million / REVENUE: $38,629,478
Boondock Saints has turning into something of a cult favorite in certain circles a couple years after its initial box office release, but unfortunately it’s still a box office flop. Willem Dafoe and Sean Patrick Flanery star in a multi-million dollar film that hardly pulled in $30,000 in America. Metacritic scored it at 44% but luckily for the studio who made this movie, DVD sales have pushed them beyond just getting back the money they spent.
BUDGET: 6 Million / REVENUE: $250,000
Gigli was a massive failure for the expectations put on it. It is often called the worst movie of 2003, and Yahoo! Movies rated it number one on their list of Bottom Rated Movies Of All Time. Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez, despite their real life relationship, could not muster up the chemistry to interest anyone in the story they were trying to portray. Al Pacino has probably never made a worse decision in his career.
BUDGET: 54 Million / REVENUE: $6,087,542
The film Glitter may be the reason all musicians and singers should typically stay away from the silver screen. Mariah Carey could very easily be the poster child for this. Glitter received 5 Razzie nominations and Carey won the award for “Worst Actress.” Virgin/EMI even dropped Carey from the due to the terrible reception to the soundtrack of Glitter.
BUDGET: 22 Million / REVENUE: $5,271,666
Idiocracy is actually a favorite among quite a few people I know, with Mike Judge writing, directing AND producing this film featuring Luke Wilson, Maya Rudolph and Dax Shepard in this 2006 film. Despite critics generally giving this film favorable reviews and Rotten Tomatoes giving it a 74%, limited theater release shot Idicoracy down the financial ladder.
BUDGET: 3 Million / REVENUE: $444,000
Disney’s Newsies quite possibly pushed the studio to focus more on animated films vs. live action, as this film featuring Christian Bale, Bill Pullman and Robert Duvall among others lost Disney millions. Even with a score of 29% and extremely harsh reviews, Newsies has become a cult film with devoted followers everywhere.
BUDGET: 15 Million / REVENUE: $2,819,485
Osmosis Jones was an absolute star studded film, featuring the likes of Bill Murray, Chris Rock, Molly Shannon, William Shatner, Laurence Fishburne, David Hyde Pierce, and Brandy Norwood. The exact gross financial gain for this film is largely unknown, but it has been reported that it has lost a considerable amount of money.
BUDGET: 95 Million / REVENUE: Unknown, but we’re guessing it’s not 95 million
Speed Racer lost a substantial amount as well as brought up very strange controversies, namely that of animal abuse of the chimpanzee Chim Chim in the film. Upon the release of the information that a whistleblower on set was bitten and subsequently beat the chimp. The AHA Film Unit rated it “unacceptable” because of this incident, saying that it “tarnishes the work of the rest of production.” Even with Emile Hirsch, Christina Ricci, John Goodman, Matthew Fox and Susan Sarandon, Speed Racer managed to be a blockbuster film that profited no one.
BUDGET: 120 Million / $93,945,766
ZYZZYX Road holds the record for lowest box office gross of all time. Tom Sizemore and Katherine Heigl have only been watched on the screen together by 6 people, two of which being crew from the production. Because of this, Zyzzyx Road has gained an incredible level of notoriety that will probably remain for decades to come.
BUDGET: 2 Million / REVENUE $30
Tune in next week for the bright side - Hollywood’s biggest money makers.
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