Biggest box office bomb?

Richard Dower

Howard The Duck?... Bonfire Of The Vanities?...Gigli?....Hudson Hawk.....was are the standout box office bombs that made squat and were universally panned?

Duggy747

Hmm, well according to The Guinness Book Of Records (I think it still is anyways) Cutthroat Island (1995) with Geena Davis has had the biggest loss of any movie to date.

That movie was hyped beyond belief and lost soooooo much money. I thought it was pretty crap, anyways

Galvasean

Cleopatra (1963) is often labelled one of the worst returns on investment. It cost $44million to make and only made $48 million domestically.

tricky D

Also Heaven's Gate kinda killed Michael Cimino's career and put a nail or two into United Artists' coffin

Ste05

Galvasean wrote: »

Cleopatra (1963) is often labelled one of the worst returns on investment. It cost $44million to make and only made $48 million domestically.

Any film that returns a profit, is surely seen as a success for a studio?? Maybe not as successful as they would have liked, but a profit nonetheless.

Just off the top of my head, but would Waterworld be up there??

mike65

Heavens Gate prolly did the greatest amount of damage to a studio and several careers.

Sergei Bondarchuks Waterloo (1970) another megaflop. $38.3million out about 2 million in. That was one of the last films that literally had a cast of thousands.

mike65

Ste05 wrote: »

Any film that returns a profit, is surely seen as a success for a studio?? Maybe not as successful as they would have liked, but a profit nonetheless.

Just off the top of my head, but would Waterworld be up there??

Waterworld was actually a near break-even "success" for 20th Century Fox. Made over $250 million worldwide.

indough

Ste05 wrote: »

Any film that returns a profit, is surely seen as a success for a studio?? Maybe not as successful as they would have liked, but a profit nonetheless.

Just off the top of my head, but would Waterworld be up there??

not really because they couldve been spending that time and money on making something more profitable

jaykhunter

I thought Waterworld bombed, but according to Box Office Mojo, it cost $175 million but brought in $284 million worldwide.

Final Fantasy : The Spirits Within cost $137 million to make but only brought in $85 million worldwide.

...i'll have to look up more later

razorblunt

indough wrote: »

not really because they couldve been spending that time and money on making something more profitable

Opportunity cost my friend, I'd rather have the money the film made in my pocket than the money they supposedly would have made on something else.

mike65

Wiki list is interesting but full of holes. I've never even heard of a few of the titles which I guess shows how big a flop they were - Speed Racer, A Sound of Thunder, Treasure Planet

indough

razorblunt wrote: »

Opportunity cost my friend, I'd rather have the money the film made in my pocket than the money they supposedly would have made on something else.

well successful studios tend to think differently funnily enough

irish_bob

cutthroat island is the biggest bomb of all time

Niska

The Adventures of Pluto Nash? Cost 100m+, worldwide Gross of 7m.

Of course the Box Office grosses don't take into account DVD and other post launch incomes.

sprinkles

Anything by Uwe Boll. As was mentioned on a recent thread about him he has had some of the biggest flops in history - check out the metacritic score for Alone in the dark

or even worse... Postal - Budget - $18,000,000, Gross revenue - $146,741

ziedth

i seem to remember enjoying cutthroat island as a young lad. I'm sure its awful though

What about battlefield earth? That got slated and i'm sure cost a fortune with the cast involved.

JP Liz

Battlefield Earth

funkyjebus

Top ten is listed out here:

http://entertainment.msn.com/news/article.aspx?news=131054

For some reason my stupid work PC won't let me go to page 2 for teh top 5. Anyone care to list them out for a poor fella like me?:(

S.M.B.

10. "Howard the Duck" (1986, Universal)
Budget: $37 million
U.S. Box Office: $16 million

9. "Hudson Hawk" (1991, Columbia TriStar)
Budget: $60 million-plus
U.S. Box Office: $17.2 million

8. "Ishtar" (1987, Columbia)
Budget: $55 million
U.S. Box Office: $12.7 million

7. "Inchon" (1981)/"Battlefield Earth" (2000, Warner Bros. Pictures)
Budget: $50 million/$73 million
U.S. Box Office: $1.9 million/$21.5 million

6. "Cleopatra" (1963, 20th Century Fox)
Budget: $44 million ($259 million today)
U.S. Box Office: $26 million ($153 million today)

5. "Heaven's Gate" (1980, United Artists)
Budget: $44 million
U.S. Box Office: $3 million

4. "The Postman" (1997, Warner Bros.)
Budget: $80 million to $100 million
U.S. Box Office: $17.6 million

3. "Town & Country" (2001, New Line)
Budget: $85 million to $90 million
U.S. Box Office: $6.7 million

2. "Cutthroat Island" (1995, MGM/Carolco)
Budget: $100 million-plus
U.S. Box Office: $9.9 million

1. "The Adventures of Pluto Nash" (2002, Warner Bros.)
Budget: $90 million to $100 million
U.S. Box Office: $4.4 million

ziedth

jesus, that is very interesting. I totally forgot about the postman! I cant believe battlefield earth isn't even on it. Cleopatra made decent enough money in the long run though still lost serious money

S.M.B.

ziedth wrote: »

jesus, that is very interesting. I totally forgot about the postman! I cant believe battlefield earth isn't even on it. Cleopatra made decent enough money in the long run though still lost serious money

It's tied for 7th place.

jaykhunter

Checked out the Adventures of Pluto Nash there on IMDB. The first review there really talks up the film. Do you ever get the feeling that people involved with the movie or relatives/friends those people go online and talk up their own movies? I'm always weary when I see a film that has a low score, get talked up pretty highly in the user review...:o

funkyjebus

jaykhunter wrote: »

Checked out the Adventures of Pluto Nash there on IMDB. The first review there really talks up the film. Do you ever get the feeling that people involved with the movie or relatives/friends those people go online and talk up their own movies? I'm always weary when I see a film that has a low score, get talked up pretty highly in the user review...:o

Personally I have put this person down as stupid and that they clearly don't know what they are talking about before I went down teh conspiracy road!!

The worst a movie can be and still possibly get talked up is a 6. With a score like that the user might have a point. Anything below 6 and they are stupid or lying.;)

ziedth

S.M.B. wrote: »

It's tied for 7th place.

Ooops, my bad.

unreggd

Ecks Vs Sever, thought that was one of the worst

Somethin like a 90million budget, but made pennies

krudler

Speed Racer: $120m budget, $43m box office, pity as its pretty underrated, get past the annoying kid and chimp and you have a visually amazing movie with a decent family based story

monkeyfudge

sprinkles wrote: »

Anything by Uwe Boll. As was mentioned on a recent thread about him he has had some of the biggest flops in history - check out the metacritic score for Alone in the dark

or even worse... Postal - Budget - $18,000,000, Gross revenue - $146,741

He uses some tax break or grant system in Germany to make money off woeful films. It's how he gets to keep making them.

As for Battlefield Earth... apparently very little of that $73 million made it to what you see on the screen.

monkeyfudge

monkeyfudge wrote: »

He uses some tax break or grant system in Germany to make money off woeful films. It's how he gets to keep making them.

As for Battlefield Earth... apparently very little of that $73 million made it to what you see on the screen.

Only about 38 million of the budget for Battlefield Earth made it on screen, the company were conning investors and inflating their budgets so that rather than financing half the film they were in fact investing very little money. Of the 38 or so million about 21 went on actors with Travolta getting 10. When DVD is taken into account the film is not the major financial flop that it's often seen as.

Watching A Sound of Thunder, from the same company you could well believe that someone came in and plugged out the computers while they were still rendering the effects.

Hank_Jones

The animated film Delgo had a production budget of $40 million and took in a total of $694,782.

That has to be some sort of record.

http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=delgo.htm

LittleBook

jaykhunter wrote: »

Do you ever get the feeling that people involved with the movie or relatives/friends those people go online and talk up their own movies?

I have no doubt in my mind that that's exactly what happens, and not just on IMDb.

jaykhunter

krudler wrote: »

Speed Racer [...]get past the annoying kid and chimp

:pac::pac::pac: LOL! Speedracer doesn't interest me but I would've thought the Wachowski's would've done a decent job...probably should've been an animation instead tho...or a CG film (to make more money)

krudler

jaykhunter wrote: »

:pac::pac::pac: LOL! Speedracer doesn't interest me but I would've thought the Wachowski's would've done a decent job...probably should've been an animation instead tho...or a CG film (to make more money)

As much as i hate the phrase its the closest thing to a live action cartoon you'll ever see, its stunning looking all the way through, and the final race was the most exciting thing i saw in the cinema last year

faceman

Most Hollywood films make their money back by the time they have a worldwide DVD release. from the media perspective, its considered a "bomb" if it does poorly in the US. But doing poorly doesnt necessarily mean loss making.

Richard Dower

I thought the CGI in Speed Racer was crap, some to the worst green screen and compositing i've seen in years!