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Bombs, Disasters and Flops: The Most Notable Examples Part 13 |
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Bombs, Disasters and Flops: The Most Notable Examples Part 13 |
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Note: The box-office figures for domestic grosses and non-USA grosses are fairly accurate, but must be taken as estimates only. |
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Greatest Box-Office Bombs, Disasters and Flops of All-Time
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| Film Title, Director, Studio, Budget Information, Description | |
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Swept Away (2002) Director/scripter Guy Ritchie's film was an inferior, off-the-track remake of Best Director-nominated writer/director Lina Wertmüller's satirical and thought-provoking Swept Away... by an Unusual Destiny in the Blue Sea of August (1974, It.) as a plain erotic-comedy and sentimental romantic idyll -- starring his miscast, athleticized, black-bikinied wife Madonna in a misguided attempt at dramatic acting, as she had already demonstrated in Shanghai Surprise (1986) with then-husband Sean Penn, Who's That Girl? (1987), Body of Evidence (1993) and The Next Best Thing (2000). The misguided film turned out to be a nice-to-look at film (with cinematography by Alex Barber), but it showcased bad jokes, unintentional campiness, a music-video fantasy segment on the beach (with Madonna in a gown lip-synching to Della Reese singing "Come On-A My House" with full orchestra backing), an improbable love relationship, and an inane, inarticulate and diluted script with an altered contrived ending, based upon the original screenplay. Ritchie's and Madonna's efforts were a combined financial, commercial, career, and creative failure. The film was nominated for seven Razzie Awards, including Worst Actor (Giannini) and Worst Screenplay (Ritchie), and it won five: Worst Actress (Madonna, tied with Britney Spears for Crossroads (2002)), Worst Director, Worst Picture, Worst Remake or Sequel, and Worst Screen Couple (Madonna and Giannini). It was also nominated in 2005 as the Worst 'Drama' of the Razzie's 25 years of awards, and lost to Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000 (2000). The poorly-paced film was about Amber Leighton (Madonna), the haughty rich-bitch wife (similar to real-life?) of an apathetic pharmaceutical-company business magnate named Anthony (Bruce Greenwood), on a chartered yacht between Greece and Italy with handsomely bearded deck-hand crew member Guiseppe (Adriano Giannini, aptly the son of Giancarlo Giannini who was in the original Swept Away, in his first English-language film). Perturbed by the less than luxurious conditions on-board, Amber overenthusiastically berated and abused Guiseppe with degrading nicknames such as "Nature Boy," "Guido," and "Pee-pee." The wives of other privileged passengers included pill-popping boozer Marina (Jeanne Tripplehorn) and the dumb Debi (Elizabeth Banks). Due to a faulty dinghy raft during a cave excursion, both Amber and Guiseppe were 'swept away' to a deserted island with a white sandy beach, where their power-roles were quickly reversed in life-or-death survival, and the starving and shrill Amber -- remarkably and unbelievably -- became submissive to Guiseppe's "master" dominance - and actually enjoyed being tamed and experiencing unlikely love in paradise. Later, she was reluctant to return to her wealthy, upper-class life style. |
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Treasure Planet (2002) Disney Pictures' attempted to provide an animated futuristic version of Robert Louis Stevenson's classic 1883 literary novel Treasure Island -- also Disney's first all-live action feature film in 1950 with Bobby Driscoll and Robert Newton. This expensive film was targeted at family audiences (but would mostly appeal to tween boys, the reverse of the market targeted with its earlier effort Lilo & Stitch (2002)). Unfortunately for Disney, it was a very costly failure, although it was a landmark film -- it was the first film to debut in both the conventional and IMAX formats on the same day. The animated feature ambitiously brought together 3-D CGI with hand-drawn 2-D animation, and used oil paintings as backdrops - processes that took scores of animators/artists and four and a half-years to complete. The dazzling, colorful film cost $140 million to make but earned only $40 million domestically, pushing the studio division's operating income down 7 percent. The downturn would be that there would be further cutbacks among all studios in hand-drawn animated films. The project had been the focus of in-house corporate conflicts dating back to 1985 over whether it should be completed or not. This impressive and stunning animation, similar in scope to another failed Disney effort Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001), drastically altered the traditional pirate-themed elements from the original, with added space-wars components, including space creatures (a malfunctioning talkative robot named B.E.N (voice of Martin Short), and a shape-shifting character named Morph (voice of Dane Davis)). Its coming-of-age story about filial bonding, bravery and sacrifice, with great affinity to animator Don Bluth's PG-rated Titan A.E. (2000), told about a troubled, pony-tailed, earring-wearing teen with an attitude named Jim Hawkins (voice of Joseph Gordon-Levitt of TV's Third Rock from the Sun) who dreamed about a legendary planet called "Treasure Planet" where treasure had been reportedly hidden by dreaded ancient space pirate Captain Nathaniel Flint. With a 3-D holographic treasure map or star-chart issuing from a hand-held orb in his possession, and a space vessel hired by goofy, canine-like family doctor/astrophysicist Doctor Delbert Doppler (voice of David Hyde Pierce from TV's Frasier), the two commenced an intergalactic quest-journey. On board the majestic space galleon RLS Legacy were stern but slinky feline named Captain Amelia (voice of Emma Thompson), the squinty-eyed, traitorous and menacing spider-like Scroopf (voice of Michael Wincott), a dangerously crafy, mutinous but charming cyborg and galley master named John Silver (voice of Brian Murray) with an ingenious Swiss Army Knife-like arm. Action sequences included escape from an exploding planet on a turbo-propelled skateboard. |
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Windtalkers (2002) Hong Kong action film director John Woo's (noted for Broken Arrow (1996), Face/Off (1997), and the big-budget Mission: Impossible 2 (2000)) dramatic WWII epic told about Marines whose duty was to protect Navajo Indian 'codetalkers' during combat (actually recruited by the US Naval Signal Corps to use their Native American language for coded transmissions to confuse Japanese intelligence eavesdroppers). However, the real truth was that the Marines were instructed to protect not only the 'code-talker' but the unbreakable 'code' itself - even if it meant killing the codetalkers if they were to fall into enemy hands. Of course, the codetalkers were also subjected to racism and bigotry while serving their country. The R-rated film starred Nicolas Cage in a central role as devoted Catholic, Italian-American Sergeant Joe Enders, an enigmatic, emotionally-traumatized and gung-ho soldier who was assigned to a combat unit to invade Saipan in June of 1944 -- which would ultimately become one of the bloodiest and most chaotic battles of the conflict. This recreated battle sequence was operatically choreographed and stylistically photographed by Woo (and cinematographer Jeffrey Kimball) in a prolonged section of the film with loud explosions, bloody carnage, and frenetic camera movements. Enders' orders were to guard (or "babysit") one of the "codetalkers"- a young, cheerfully-smiling father/husband named Private Ben Yahzee (Adam Beach), while Sgt. Ox Henderson (Christian Slater) was paired with fellow Navajo Private Charles Whitehorse (Roger Willie). There were many one-dimensional stereotypical characters in this film, including obnoxious, prejudiced red-haired redneck Corporal Charles "Chick" Rogers (Noah Emmerich), and other by-the-book, sketchily-manufactured supporting cast members. This was Woo's first English-language film that went beyond a formulaic action format, but it mostly fell flat with derivative Hollywoodish war-film cliches and lack of complete character development. Its violent and spectacular, thrill-to-kill depictions of hand-to-hand combat and battle carnage (similar in part to the first half-hour of Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan (1998)) were typical Woo fare (without some of his signature shots), but overwhelmed the film's other themes and turned off some potential viewing audiences. The far-fetched film was received only luke-warmly, in part for its underdeveloped, mediocre and unsubtle script (and mishandling of the racism and cultural message by scripters John Rice and Joe Bateer) and lack of emotional intensity and depth regarding its real themes. All it turned out to be was another big-budget action/war film with a major white actor and secondary minority characters - it should have been more centered on the story of the Navajos themselves rather than on Cage's inner heroic turmoil. Originally, the film was scheduled for a fall 2001 release, but the 9/11 tragedy postponed its release until the following year. |
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From Justin to Kelly (2003) This predictably lame film, shot in only a two week period, was universally hailed as one of the worst films ever made, although it was nominated for three Teen Choice Awards: Choice Movie (Female) Breakout Star (Kelly Clarkson), Choice Movie (Male) Breakout Star (Justin Guarini), and Choice Movie Chemistry. More characteristically, the film received eight Razzie Awards nominations: Worst Actor (Justin Guarini), Worst Actress (Clarkson), Worst Director, Worst Excuse for an Actual Movie, Worst Picture, Worst Remake or Sequel (Where the Boys Are (1960) and Where the Boys Are '84 (1984)), Worst Screen Couple, and Worst Screenplay. It won the Governor's Award for Distinguished Underachievement in Cinematography (Travis Payne) and in 2005 won the Razzie Award for Worst 'Musical' in the Razzie's 25-year history, defeating Can't Stop the Music (1980), Xanadu (1980), Rhinestone (1984), Spice World (1997) and Glitter (2001). It was like watching an unhip and unslick but updated version of the 60s Beach Blanket films starring Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello. This exploitative spin-off Fox film (from the same studio that produced the hit TV show American Idol) starred Kelly Clarkson and Justin Guarini, the winner and runner-up respectively from the first season (aired during the summer of 2002). It was executive-produced by promoter Simon Fuller with a superficial script by his brother Kim Fuller, mostly designed to promote the show and its stars - and sales of CDs. Some theatres balked about its early summer release when they heard that Fox planned to release the DVD only six weeks after its theatrical opening, forcing the studio to delay its DVD release for a few months instead. The studio decided to forgo any advance press screenings at the same time that Clarkson told interviewers that critics wouldn't like the film, but that teenybopper fans would. The overhyped musical romance about love-at-first-sight at the beach (signaled by a choreographed musical number) was doomed from the start with its manufactured stars as a wholesome couple (Kelly Clarkson as a frumpy-looking Kelly from Texas, and Justin Guarini as "party animal" Justin who never even removes his shirt, but hosts and judges a whipped cream bikini contest!) and squeaky clean plot about Miami spring break -- without wild drinking, nudity, profanity or even a kiss between them in the first hour - fulfilled later by a brief fountainside smooch. To provide a bit of tension to the plot, their courtship was sabotaged by Kelly's girlfriend via cell-phone text-messaging. Unflattering lighting and makeup added to the awful mix of tedious and unconvincing dialogue, making the 'reality feature film' The Real Cancun (2003) from the producers of MTV's The Real World look like a masterpiece. |
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Gigli (2003) Writer/director Martin Brest's infamous dark romantic comedy with an unpronounceable title (pronounced Jee-lee, rhyming with "really"), has been declared one of the worst stinkers ever made. During their own real-life, tabloid-fueled courtship (adding to the intensity of the film's criticism that has become naturally fashionable) when they were called "Bennifer," Ben Affleck played the role of dim mobster hitman Larry Gigli assigned to kidnap a mentally-damaged, Baywatch-obsessed man from an institution, and Jennifer Lopez took the role of lesbian-leaning (or bisexual) assassin and no-nonsense rival mobster Ricki assigned to oversee his work. There were many reasons for its failure: its over two-hour length and slow pacing, shallow plot with insincere emotions, an inept and disjointed script, miscast performers, its confused and inconsistent tone, and a tiresome chatty struggle to convince the heroine to become heterosexual (similar to Affleck's role in Chasing Amy (1997)). Due to a horrible box-office drop-off in attendance in just three weeks, the film was entirely withdrawn from theatres. Bad critical press and universally-negative word-of-mouth quickly sank the film. The film was nominated for nine Razzie Awards, including Worst Supporting Actor (Al Pacino), Worst Supporting Actor (Christopher Walken), and Worst Supporting Actress (Lainie Kazan), with six wins: Worst Actor (Ben Affleck), Worst Actress (Jennifer Lopez), Worst Director, Worst Picture, Worst Screen Couple, and Worst Screenplay. It also set the record by being the first film in the history of the Razzie Awards to "sweep" all the top categories. It also won the Razzie Award for the Worst 'Comedy' in the 25-year history of the Razzies. During production, script rewrites added a coarse romantic subplot, contributing to the overall strangeness of the film's dialogue that included over 120 instances of the 4-letter F word. One of the film's most notorious sequences was the 3-minute debate in which the two compared the relative merits and attractiveness of the male and female sex organs, while Ricki did yoga exercises in blue spandex shorts in his apartment. She instructed him on how the male organ was overvalued: "The penis is like some sort of bizarre sea slug or a really long toe"; she offered her description of the real power in the world: "There is no place, nowhere, that has been the object of more ambitions, more battles than the sweet, sacred mystery between a woman's legs that I am proud to call my pussy" matched later only by Affleck's: "I'm the bull, you're the cow...Got that?" And when Ricki invited Larry to have oral sex with her when she inevitably changed her sexual preference and seduced him, she hinted animalistically: "It's turkey time...Gobble, gobble." |
Intro | Part
1 | Part 2 | Part
3 | Part 4 | Part
5 | Part 6 | Part
7 | Part 8 | Part
9 | Part 10 |
Part
11 | Part 12 | Part
13 | Part 14 | Part
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Created in 1996-2008 © by Tim Dirks. All rights reserved.
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Introduction to Greatest Box-Office Bombs, Disasters and Flops: Films have the potential to skyrocket the profits of a studio, or to send it into ruins and bankruptcy. Sometimes an actor’s or director's career suffers, sometimes not. Films that cost more to make than they take in revenue (both domestic and worldwide) are considered box-office catastrophes or bombs. Movie audiences often love to relish the fact that some films, such as Gigli (2003) or Heaven's Gate (1980), turn out to be monumental flops, and are fascinated by the details of why certain directors/actors and their films fail.