10 biggest flops in cinematic history...
 

...and their outcome.

http://entertainment.msn.com/news/ar...px?news=131054

...but what about???
 

"Spies Like Us" ??? Not even an 'honorable mention' on the list! Phooey!

http://tomsquotes.amhosting.net/movies/spies/spies.htm
http://tomsquotes.amhosting.net/movi...es/hanging.jpg

SYNOPSIS:
"Saturday Night Live alumni Dan Aykroyd and Chevy Chase appear on film together for the first time as Austin Milbarge and Emmett Fitz-Hume, respectively, in this hilarious spy/adventure spoof. Austin and Emmett are two dopey businessmen who decide they want to be spies, even though they have no experience in that area. The dumb duo take the CIA's admissions test...and are busted for cheating. Nevertheless, the pair are employed as spies anyway--unaware that the true reason they've been hired is to serve as a smokescreen for a band of real spies who are on an important mission. Soon the Russians are after the nitwits, and a potential world war hangs in the balance"

Wait, what am I saying? This was a great movie! heheheh

- don

Cannot remember the name of the movie but there was a remake of MacBeth done with gangsters. Came out around 1988 or 1989. Truly aweful.

You guys don't like B movies either, I suppose. Does anyone recall "Mystery Science Theater 3000?" I used to watch that for the comments from 'the back benchers' (the robots). They even made a movie once. Did anyone see this movie? :)

Freddy vs Jason will probably make a lot at the box office (even I went to see it), but it was a terrible movie.


Wow, pretty much all them movies on that list didn't make back nearly as much as was spent making them, that would suck.

I don't know the finances of this, but how about LEONARD PART SIX?

I'm embarrassed to say that I actually liked parts of HUDSON HAWK! Don't tell anyone.

I don't understand these... I liked Hudson Hawk, and even laughed at Howard the Duck.

Of course, Ishtar deserves to be there.

Hopefully, they'll be a Mission to Mars 2, directed by someone new. The worst movies? All the new ones. :)

You have to refine what you mean by 'worse.' Absolute junk gets produced all the time (Gigli).

I think one movie critic says in order to be consider on the a 10 Worse List you need a few things:

1. It needs a top notch cast and crew.
2. A script or story that could make a good movie.
3. Promotion that perpetrates the crime.

I think if you want to be lazy like me then all you need to remember for a worse list is Istar.

The link above is going strictly on the profit/loss ratio. Hard to believe that "Cleopatra" never recouped it's money...I've always like it...and no telling how many times it's been on TV.

Am I correct that THE WIZARD OF OZ lost money in it's initial release? I thought I had read that it didn't make money until a re-release, years later. Of course, someone correct me if I'm wrong!

And I agree on how CLEOPATRA could not have made money. It's been on TV as much as those "Oxi-Clean" commericals (the guy with the beard). Unless they are talking domestic box office receipts and not TV/Video $$.

The Wizard of Oz is a bit before my time...we'll need to ask someone who might remember the first release. Nathan? Frank?

1957 maybe. (I was 3.) Wait! After my coffee I'll see what google comes up with!

<<<-- Originally posted by Keith Forman : I don't understand these... I liked Hudson Hawk, and even laughed at Howard the Duck.

Of course, Ishtar deserves to be there. -->>>

I with you Keith, I still watch Hudson Hawk and everybody loves a talking duck...right?

W of OZ was made in '39 - along with GONE WITH THE WIND; MR SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON; DARK VICTORY, GOODBYE MR. CHIPS; STAGECOACH; WUTHERING HEIGHTS; NINOTCHKA.

What a year!

The Blues Brothers flopped when it was first released. When it was re-released three years later it was a big hit.

what about that remake of "swept away"

that stank !!!

The The Wizard of OZ was released when my mother was still a child in Crowel, TX: then a thriving metropolis of 10,000 (today about 2,000).

Anyway, she says the movie was absolutely stunning and remembers it like yesterday. I think the part that she through most dramatic was as Dorthy exits the house onto the Land of OZ and the film switches from B/W to color. Even today I am still impressed cinematography and stage craft. Amazing that a such a classic can be considered a loss.

IMDB states that the budget or WIZARD OF OZ was $2.77 million and earned $3 million on it's initial release. On re-release in 1948-49, it earned $4.5 million.

An interesting piece of trivia: It has been said that the munchkins were paid $50/week for six weeks, while Toto was paid $125/week! More (a lot more) trivia is found here:

http://www.imdb.com/Trivia?0032138

Didn't Charlies Angels Full Throttle cost $180million and take in something like $95 million?

The only reason I was able to sit through that movie in its' entirety was because of Lucy Liu >faints<

Are we talking about artisitic flops -or- financial flops?

- don

SHould be just financial flops.

I nearly went to see Charlies Angels just to see the Ferrari Enzo they have in it. >droool<

As already mentioned, The Wizard of Oz was a hit when it was released and has periodically redoubled its revenue for the studio with the many TV airings, video and DVD releases, merchandising, etc.

Cleopatra as a flop is some sort of bizarre urban legend that just won't die, like blackout baby booms*. The Titanic of the 1960s, it was the most expensive movie of its decade and also one of the most profitable--though it didn't make its money all at once, because it predated the era of the simultaneous nationwide bow: staggered releases were the distribution modality of the day, unlike the now ubiquitous "In theaters everwhere," which helps studios recoup production costs in the very first weekend of release. Fox entered an era of fiscal shortfall in the mid 60s not because Cleopatra's extravagance sunk it, but because of a slew of other bombs they produced around the same time and because their accountant executives had originally conceived Cleopatra as a quickie they could produce cheaply, dusting off a script that had been in development for some years. Though the creative forces who took on the project--notably the bona fide genius Mankiewicz--had more noble aspirations for the film, they were well founded and showed considerable foresight, as Fox made fortunes from the film and continues reap dividends in the same fashion--if not the same magnitude--as MGM does with The Wizard of Oz year after year. The film didn't receive nearly as many negative reviews as it is said to have, but moreover, Cleopatra's feminist theme had an impact on the culture of the Sixties. By any metric, the retelling of the story of the Alexandrian queen who held the world in her hands was and is a hit.

If they ever recover the 10-hour director's cut and master it for DVD, it would make a fun rental if nothing else.

*My jaw went slack each time I witnessed giggly local news anchors slothfully airing this bunk as if it were actual news after the lights came back on last week. Don't they have any sort of budget for fact-checking anymore?

I'm facinated by films with runaway budgets, like T2, LAST ACTION HERO, TRUE LIES, WATERWORLD (aka, Kevin's gate, hee hee), TITANIC (jeez, see a trend here, Mr. Cameron?), but we haven't really had a biggie in a while. I don't think FULL THROTTLE cost more than $125 million plus marketing, but I enjoyed the first one in the theatre. Then I got a headache thinking about it. And now McG is back on SUPERMAN? WB aren't thinking right.

Worst movie ever for? Probably HOWLING 3, TANK GIRL (walked out and it was free--I worked at a movie theatre as a projectionist), PAY IT FORWARD, most of Seagal's movies, or HOBGOBLINS, which I saw on MST3K...It was so bad, even Mike and the 'bots didn't save it. (It was a bad 80s take-off on Gremlins.) The MST3K guys did have a great line, sung as a song: "It's the 80s, do a lot of coke and vote for Ronald Reagan!"

heath