Random Most Infamous Box Office Flop From The Year You Were Born (26 items)

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  (#21) Cutthroat Island

  • Geena Davis, Matthew Modine, Frank Langella, Maury Chaykin, Patrick Malahide, Stan Shaw, Rex Linn, Paul Dillon, Christopher Masterson, Jimmie F. Skaggs, Harris Yulin

  Production Budget: $98 million
  US Box Office Total: $10 million
  What Happened? For a movie that came and went as quickly as it did, Cutthroat Island certainly left quite a lasting legacy. It ended Matthew Modine's career as a bankable leading man, it bankrupted its production studio thanks to a $147 million loss, and it destroyed the pirate genre as a whole. (That is, until Pirates of the Caribbean revived it a decade later.) Massive sets (many of which had to be built multiple times), clashing egos, and a series of behind-the-scenes departures were only the start of the problems for this would-be epic, which despite a huge marketing campaign managed to last just two weeks in theaters.
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  (#17) Hudson Hawk

  • Bruce Willis, Danny Aiello, Andie MacDowell, James Coburn, Richard E. Grant, Sandra Bernhard, Donald Burton, Don Harvey, David Caruso, Andrew Bryniarski, Lorraine Toussaint

  Production Budget: $65 million
  US Box Office Total: $17.2 million
  What Happened? This film about a safecracker and his singing sidekick was over the top in every respect, including its cartoonish slapstick, which never let up. In other words, there were no straight men to give the audiences a breather between zany antics.

  It was an annoying farce from beginning to end. Bruce Willis has since recovered from the debacle of Hudson Hawk and remains an A-list actor, but he has never again tried his hand at scriptwriting.
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  (#6) Heaven's Gate

  • Kris Kristofferson, Christopher Walken, Isabelle Huppert, John Hurt, Jeff Bridges, Sam Waterston

  Production Budget: $44 million
  US Box Office Total: $3.5 million 
  What Happened? For better or worse, director Michael Cimino happened. The film cost quadruple the budget and was a year behind schedule because of Cimino's need for perfection. Cast members had to learn to roller skate; a full western town of the period was built; a vintange steam train was acquired; and the 1200 extras were handpicked by the director himself. 

  By the time the movie premiered, Cimino's name was mud in Hollywood. He had created over a million feet of footage, but was contractually obligated to make a film spanning two to three hours. He got it down to four hours, then cut it down to two and a half hours, but that didn't work either; it didn't catch on with audiences and was univerally panned.  
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  (#24) The Avengers

  • Ralph Fiennes, Uma Thurman, Sean Connery, Patrick Macnee, Jim Broadbent, Fiona Shaw, Eddie Izzard, Eileen Atkins, John Wood, Carmen Ejogo, Keeley Hawes

  Production Budget: $60 million
  US Box Office Total: $23.3 million
  What Happened? You would think a movie that was based of the cool, stylish, and iconic British TV show of the 1960s, featuring a gentleman spy and his fashionable sidekick, would have been a hit, but The Avengers lacked the wit and charm of its predecessor. Less than 90 minutes long, the film seemed incomplete and confusing, and while its special effects wowed audiences, its story did not, and it was named one of the worst films of the year and all time.  
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  (#23) The Postman

  • Kevin Costner, Will Patton, Larenz Tate, Olivia Williams, James Russo, Daniel von Bargen, Tom Petty, Scott Bairstow, Giovanni Ribisi, Roberta Maxwell, Joe Santos, Peggy Lipton, Ron McLarty, Rex Linn, Todd Allen, Brian Anthony Wilson, Shawn Hatosy, Charles Esten, Ryan Hurst

  Production Budget: $80 million
  US Box Office Total: $17.6 million
  What Happened? Kevin Costner made two post-apocalyptic flops in the '90s, Waterworld and The Postman. In the latter, he plays a mailman who helps rebuild society after a devastating conflict by delivering the mail. Roger Ebert described it as "good hearted," but he and other critics thought it was too self-righteous for its own good, with too many hokey scenes to make it work: 

  The movie has a lot of unwise shots resulting in bad laughs, none more ill-advised than one where the Postman, galloping down a country lane, passes a gate where a tow-headed little tyke holds on a letter. Some sixth sense causes the Postman to look back, see the kid, turn around, then gallop back to him, snatching up the letter at full tilt. This touching scene, shot with a zoom lens in slow motion to make it even more fatuous than it needed to be, is later immortalized in a bronze statue, unveiled at the end of the movie. As a civic figure makes a speech in front of the statue, which is still covered by a tarpaulin, a member of the audience whispered, “They've bronzed the Postman!”
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  (#10) The Cotton Club

  • Richard Gere, Gregory Hines, Diane Lane, Lonette McKee, Bob Hoskins, James Remar, Nicolas Cage, Allen Garfield, Fred Gwynne, Gwen Verdon, Lisa Jane Persky, Maurice Hines, Julian Beck, Novella Nelson, Laurence Fishburne, John P. Ryan, Tom Waits, Wynonna Smith, Charles "Honi" Coles, Larry Marshall, Joe Dallesandro, Woody Strode

  Production Budget: $58 million
  US Box Office Total: $25.9 million
  What Happened? The Cotton Club - the story of the Harlem nightclub in its 1920s heyday, featuring Richard Gere and Gregory Hines as the respective patron and entertainer - was a casualty of overzealous studio handiwork. Coppola had authority over the final cut of the film - or so he thought. The studio had other ideas and insisted he cut out much of the storyline involving Black characters.

  As he tells it, they thought it had "too many Black people, too much tap dancing, [was] too long," and wouldn't play well with audiences. That decision caused the film to tank with audiences and critics alike who found it thin on plot and confusing due to the editing. Coppola has since restored it to its former glory, making it an all-around better film. 

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