Just wait until you see these bad boys if you thought The Dark Tower was a fiasco, grossing only $113 million on a $60 million production budget (yes, that counts as a significant flop).
While a film’s production budget may appear to have been recouped in worldwide box office receipts, marketing charges and “Hollywood accounting techniques” contribute to the total cost of production.
Here are the films that not only flopped but also wrecked enterprises and careers in certain situations.
- Mars Needs Moms: Disney should have known better than to go back to Mars and use computer-generated visuals, but they did. The house of Mouse adapted the Berkeley Breathed picture book of the same name with the mother of all production budgets a year before the disastrous John Carter (more on that later) (well, certainly very pricey anyway). The reviews weren’t terrific (but not as bad as Emoji Movie), and its opening weekend was one of the worst for a countrywide release.
- Monster Trucks: The film business has a problem with children. The majority of the films on this list are failed children’s films, and this one, based solely on a pun, is representative of the genre. Monster Trucks, released in 2016, was supposed to kick off a new Paramount franchise, however the film’s shoddy premise flopped after barely breaking $10 million at the box office.
- John Carter: The film’s pedigree — a strong ensemble (albeit its protagonist, Taylor Kitsch, was arguably out of his depth), Oscar-winning director Andrew Stanton (Wall-E, Finding Nemo) behind the helm, and legendary source material (from Edgar Rice Burroughs) – couldn’t save it from critical acclaim and low attendance. Disney opted to do something else with their science-fiction fix after the Mars-based series failed to materialise. They owned Star Wars at the end of the year.
- Sinbad: Legend of The Seven Seas- Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas received a positive response. In fact, it received some positive feedback, but after the massive ripples caused by Pixar’s Finding Nemo, which had just been released a few months before, audiences were uninterested in old-fashioned cartoons. As a result, Dreamworks Animation was on the verge of disappearing. The studio abandoned traditional hand-drawn films in favour of computer-generated animation; their next release was Shrek 2, followed by the Madagascar franchise.
- King Arthur: Legend of the Sword- Guy Ritchie’s turkey had a shockingly high budget, and was probably best recognised for containing a dismal appearance from former footballer David Beckham. Warner Bros. wanted to establish a new Arthurian tale franchise with actor Charlie Hunnam in the lead, but this was not to be their sword in the stone. In the United States, King Arthur: Legend of the Sword debuted to a meagre $15 million and a dreadful 28 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. Perhaps they should enlist Beckham’s help in bending those numbers.