Reevaluting the Biggest Flops of the Past Few Years

A more accurate list of the biggest flops of the past five years has been released by Forbes. As part of the decade-in-review mania that swept the world wide webernets, The Hollywood Reporter came up with a collection of failures that was far too easy to question, so we did just that. The Forbes list considers how much films cost versus how much of that budget a film earned back. Logically, that's a good way to look at it, because some movies that don't make a lot also don't cost a lot, even if they're loaded with stars and you would presume they'd have a bigger sticker price. I remember particularly that Bill O'Reilly, during one of his many battles with George Clooney, insisted that people didn't see Good Night, and Good Luck as part of a rant about how Clooney's politics turned off the mainstream, even though it made over seven times its budget worldwide in fairly limited release, and over ten times its cost with DVD sales. That's a hit, plain and simple. Topping the list from the past half-decade, according to Forbes, is All the King's Men, a remake of the Oscar-winning political drama that starred Sean Penn and Kate Winslet. "The film earned just $9 million at the box office worldwide on a budget of $55 million," writes Dorothy Pomerantz. "To put it another way, it failed to earn back 84% of its budget." Youch. Below is the list of the 15 biggest flops from the past five years, using a formula that does not factor in marketing costs, TV residuals, and DVD sales and rentals. So we're looking strictly at money spent for a theatrical release weighed against theatrical earnings. The amount of money each film failed to recoup is added in parentheses. 1 - All the King's Men (84%)
2 - The Express (75%)
3 - Stay (73%)
4 - Grindhouse (63%)
5 - Imagine That (58%)
6 - The Fountain (54%)
7 - The Invasion (50%)
8 - The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (50%)
9 - Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (40%)
10- The Love Guru (34%)
11- School for Scoundrels (31%)
12- Land of the Lost (70%)
13- Meet Dave (17%)
14- Aeon Flux (16%)
15- The Producers (16%)

Comments

[Orinn]

Grind house is the only one I was sad to see on the list but I realize I am mostly alone in this sorrow.

[SEAN]

see, Ive always wanted to see All the Kings Men b/c it flopped & it had major major stars in the film, so I'm not sure what happened...
- I need to see it sometime to make my own opinion

I mean I really doubt the material was that horrible otherwise why would these reputable great actors sign on?? Perhaps they didnt know how to market it??

The Assasination of Jesse James ... sad to see on the list, it had rave reviews I believe

[knives]

Che had to have lost more than 17% of its budget. I think it made 40 mil on 60.

[D]

This list still isn't quite right either since it is still requiring "big stars" (an indefinable term). By basically any objective measure Delgo is the biggest flop of the decade. It made $694,782 off of a $40,000,000 budget which works out to a whopping 98+% loss.

[Get The Big Picture]

Yeah, I don't get the "big star" thing, either; I can't see how it makes much of a difference unless you're saying it allows for a film to be bigger just by the presence of the actors. That may be true, but how do you measure that?

[Jeremy]

Depressing to see The Fountain on there. Such a fantastic movie in my opinion

[Lengthy Johnson]

The Fountain and The Assassination of Jesse James are two of my favourite movies of recent years (top 100, like).

Jesse James has stunning cinematography and a truly hypnotic narrative. Ace performance by Pitt and the best performance ever by Casey Affleck.

However I think Hugh Jackman was miscast in The Fountain, he doesn't have the range for that role and ends up playing angry most of the time, which is tiresome.

Also, I thought that All the King's Men was a really decent movie with a lot of different themes being given a serious treatment. I realy admired Sean Penn in his early days but now he's just annoying. He's also annoying in the All King's Men, but he's supposed to be so it's sort of alright.

I have a feeling that films like that would have been more successful ten or fifteen years ago. I think it's the focus on dumb special effects movies that kills drama at the box office.

[Get The Big Picture]

The problem with The Fountain, at least as far as selling tickets, wasn't the casting, but Jackman and Weisz were both replacements. In fact, the film fell apart for a while and Aronofsky had to start over, which is part of the reason the budget was $40 million. If it had gone through with Pitt and Blanchett, it would have been a little cheaper, but it was still way too obtuse to make a lot of money.

Jesse James was the first Blu-ray disc I bought, precisely because it's one of the most visually beautiful movies I've ever seen. That Roger Deakins sure can shoot a scene.