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

• 

  (#1) At Long Last Love

  • Burt Reynolds, Cybill Shepherd, Madeline Kahn, Eileen Brennan, M. Emmet Walsh, John Hillerman, Mildred Natwick, Quinn K. Redeker

  Production Budget: $6 million
  US Box Office Total: $1.5 million
  What Happened? Director Peter Bogdanovich's At Long Last Love was so widely panned, he took out an ad in the Hollywood Reporter apologizing for making it in the first place. The movie was a homage to the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers musicals of the 1930s, but terribly miscast in non-singing, non-dancing Burt Reynolds and Cybill Shepherd. The stilted dialogue didn't help much either. 

  In a 2013 interview with the Hollywood Reporter, Bogdanovich admitted he and the producers of the film "were convinced it was gonna be this out-of-the box hit" and blames its failure on technical issues: 

  The biggest problem when you're making a musical is evaluating the right balance between the song and the dialogue, and we never had the chance. On Broadway, you do 60 performances before you open; you need the audience feedback. We had two previews, one out of focus, and it was mixed badly so you couldn't hear it. I made some cuts and didn't preview that, and it opened. It was a disaster. Roger Ebert liked it anyway, and the critic from Newsweek. But if you don't have the right construction, it's not gonna work.
• 

  (#2) 1900

  • Robert De Niro, Gérard Depardieu, Dominique Sanda, Donald Sutherland, Burt Lancaster, Stefania Sandrelli

  Production Budget: $9 million 
  US Box Office Total: $3.3 million
  What Happened? In 1976, Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci made 1900 (Novecento), the story of two friends born in the first year of the 20th century in Italy and the changes they face over 75 years. The film has legendary actors attached, including Burt Lancaster, Donald Sutherland, Gerard Depardieu, and Robert De Niro, but the production was a mess from the get-go. Bertolucci and De Niro didn't get along - De Niro was a method actor who believed in collaboration, and Bertolucci was used to barking out orders.

  Bertolucci also insisted they shoot the actors out of sequence as old men, which De Niro was opposed to. The latter recalled, "We shot the old stuff on the first day and I realized there that was a mistake - it just would not work; nobody was into it. But I went along with it, I remember that, and it just did not work."

  With a storyline that was greatly pro-communist during the Cold War and a runtime of more than five hours, it was cut into two parts during its inital release. While it was acclaimed for its cinematography, no one came back to see the second half, and it tanked. 
• 

  (#3) Sorcerer

  • Roy Scheider, Bruno Cremer, Francisco Rabal, Amidou, Ramon Bieri, Peter Capell, Karl John, Friedrich von Ledebur, Chico Martinez, Joe Spinell, Rosario Almontes

  Production Budget: $21 million
  US Box Office Total: $6 million
  What Happened? Sorcerer is a retelling of the 1953 film Wages of Fear with pretty much the same premise: four men suffering various misfortunes find the only work they can get on an oil-drilling operation in South America. When that job ends due to an industrial mishap, they are given the opportunity to get out of financial straits by transporting incendiary devices over hundreds of miles of rocky terrain in two beat-up trucks.

  In two words, what doomed Sorcerer was Star Wars - the two films were released at the same time. Furthermore, its title led audiences to believe it was a horror film ("Sorcerer" is the name of one of the trucks). Today, it's revered as a lost masterpiece of the modern film era by cinephiles and its director, William Friedkin, who said:  

  [Star Wars] changed the zeitgeist. I’d say 80% of American films today are all offshoots of it... None of us could see the tsunami of Star Wars - it happened rather quickly. The studio had high hopes for Sorcerer... To me, it’s the only film of mine that I would not change a frame of.
• 

  (#4) Sextette

  • Alice Cooper, Ringo Starr, Keith Moon, Mae West, Timothy Dalton, Tony Curtis, Regis Philbin, Dom DeLuise, Walter Pidgeon, George Hamilton, George Raft, Ian Abercrombie, Van McCoy, James Bacon, Ric Drasin, Jim Morris, Gil Stratton, Jorge Moreno, Ben Astar, Rona Barrett, Richard Peel, Cal Bartlett, June Fairchild, Peter Liapis, Harold Fong, Keith Allison, William Beckley, Rollin Moriyama, Patrick Sullivan Burke, Klair Bybee, George E. Carey, Roger Callard, Ed Beheler, Jay B. Larson, Rick Leonard, Bonnie L. DeSouza, Denny Gable, Jill Freeman, John Austin, Jason Cooper, Kal Szkalak, Ed Ness, Harry Weiss, Jim Tarleton, Derek Murcott, Brent Williams, Brian Abadie, Reg Lewis

  Production Budget: $7-8 million
  US Box Office Total: $50,000
  What Happened? Casting Mae West as a woman with a high libido and a much younger husband was a tough sell for filmmakers who wanted it to be more camp, but it played cruelly to audiences. West, who was a sex symbol in the 1930s, had become a parody of herself at 85, and she was not in on the joke. The musical numbers were terrible, and the movie - which also features Timothy Dalton, Alice Cooper, and Keith Moon of The Who - fell flat with audiences. Today, it's a sad relic of '70s excess. 
• 

  (#5) Meteor

  • Sean Connery, Natalie Wood, Karl Malden, Brian Keith, Martin Landau, Trevor Howard, Joseph Campanella, Roger Robinson, Richard Dysart, Henry Fonda

  Production Budget: $16 million
  US Box Office Total: $8.4 million
  What Happened? The 1970s was the decade of the disaster film - Airport, Towering Inferno, and Earthquake were all huge hits. But Meteor, a special effects-laden disaster film with a star-studded cast, put both studio American International Pictures out of business and a nail in the coffin of the genre.  

  What should have been one of the biggest films of the year was a boring, addled mess, which isn't good for a movie about a meteor set to wipe out everything in its path. It did, however, spawn Armageddon and Deep Impact, both of which took many of its plot points from this movie. 
• 

  (#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.  
• 

  (#7) Honky Tonk Freeway

  • Beau Bridges, Beverly D'Angelo, William Devane, David Rasche, Paul Jabara, Howard Hesseman, Teri Garr, Jenn Thompson, Peter Billingsley, Daniel Stern, Sandra McCabe, Celia Weston, Deborah Rush, Geraldine Page, George Dzundza

  Production Budget: $24 million
  US Box Office Total: $2 million
  What Happened? Another film with plenty of star power and a legendary director in John Schlesinger (Midnight Cowboy), Honky Tonk Freeway tells the story of the fictional town of Ticlaw, FL, wherein an adjacent freeway and subsequent tourist dollars bypass the place. With its all-star cast, pyrotechnics, and stunts like jumping the I-75 overpass, it should have been a hit, but the characters and story were too cliched and fragmented for viewers, who never quite made a connection with it. 
• 

  (#8) One from the Heart

  • Frederic Forrest, Teri Garr, Nastassja Kinski, Raul Julia, Lainie Kazan, Harry Dean Stanton, Allen Garfield, Jeff Hamlin, Italia Coppola, Carmine Coppola

  Production Budget: $26 million
  US Box Office Total: $637,000
  What Happened? Francis Ford Coppola wanted to do something a little more lighthearted after Apocalypse Now and went with One from the Heart. This story of a couple's breakup is told with song, dance, plenty of stunning scenery, and a Tom Waits-heavy soundtrack, but it was far too light on plot, and the leads - Teri Garr and Frederic Forrest - didn't have much in the way of chemistry. Much like Apocalypse Now, One from the Heart went way over budget and angered many a studio head. No one saw it, and Coppola's reputation never really recovered.  
• 

  (#9) Krull

  • Ken Marshall, Lysette Anthony, Freddie Jones, Francesca Annis, Alun Armstrong, David Battley, Bernard Bresslaw, Liam Neeson, Dicken Ashworth, Todd Carty, Robbie Coltrane, John Welsh, Graham McGrath, Tony Church, Bernard Archard, Belinda Mayne, Clare McIntyre, Bronco McLoughlin, Andy Bradford, Gerard Naprous, Bill Weston

  Production Budget: $40-50 million
  US Box Office Total: $16.5 million
  What Happened? Krull had all the elements of Star Wars - a princess in jeopardy, otherworldly creatures, an evil villain - but none of its charm. By 1983, Return of the Jedi had come out and the genre had peaked, even for the most devoted sci-fi fans. Couple that with Krull being a bit too derivative for its own good, as well as filled with cheesy effects and monsters - it was a disaster in the making. 
• 

  (#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. 
• 

  (#11) Revolution

  • Al Pacino, Annie Lennox, Donald Sutherland, Nastassja Kinski, Robbie Coltrane, Joan Plowright, Graham Greene, Richard O'Brien, Steven Berkoff, Dave King, Sid Owen, Dexter Fletcher, John Wells, Frank Windsor

  Production Budget: $28 million
  US Box Office Total: About $350,000
  What Happened? A weak script and lack of chemistry between the main actors doomed Revolution. It also appeared the movie could have been set at any period in time, as there was no real story about the actual event. As the American Revolution was eight years long, the filmmakers clumsily cobbled major events together with no rhyme or reason other than to give it texture, but that didn't work with viewers. Al Pacino, who was panned for his overly melodramatic acting and unconvincing accent, stopping acting in films for four years after its release. 
• 

  (#12) Shanghai Surprise

  • Sean Penn, Madonna, Paul Freeman, Richard Griffiths, Philip Sayer, Clyde Kusatsu, Lim Kay Tong, Sonserai Lee, Victor Wong, Professor Toru Tanaka, Michael Aldridge, Sarah Lam, George She, Philip Tan, George Harrison

  Production Budget: $17 million
  US Box Office Total: $2.3 million
  What Happened? Madonna was at the peak of her pop power in 1986 and had just experienced rave reviews for her role in Desperately Seeking Susan. She was on her way to a lucrative film career, but that was put on hold with Shanghai Surprise. The movie teamed Madge (who played a missionary) with her then-hubby, Sean Penn (as a syndicate), who was already a hot property in Hollywood.

  The movie wasn't good, and Madonna wasn't good in it. Coupled with more Asian stereotypes than anyone could shake a stick at, the movie was a disaster with critics and audiences alike. Madonna didn't break the acting curse until the 1990s when she won acclaim for her roles in Dick Tracy and Evita. 
• 

  (#13) Ishtar

  • Warren Beatty, Dustin Hoffman, Isabelle Adjani, Charles Grodin, Jack Weston, Tess Harper, Carol Kane, Aharon Ipalé, Fuad Hageb, David Margulies, Rose Arrick, Julie Garfield, Cristine Rose, Bob Girolami, Abe Kroll

  Production Budget: $51 million
  US Box Office Total: $14 million
  What Happened? Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman starred in Ishtar, a comedy about two songwriters who go to Morocco and end up as unwitting pawns in international intrigue. The movie was a Hollywood joke in the late '80s for not being as funny as it should have been and the miscasting of its two stars. 

  The film, directed by Elaine May, was also beset by political tensions during filming, and she frequently butted heads with cinematographer Vittorio Storaro. It was DOA before it even came out due to the reputation of the filmmaker and the production's excess. May never directed another movie again, saying of the experience, "If all of the people who hate Ishtar had seen it, I would be a rich woman today."
• 

  (#14) The Adventures of Baron Munchausen

  • John Neville, Eric Idle, Sarah Polley, Oliver Reed, Charles McKeown, Winston Dennis, Jack Purvis, Valentina Cortese, Jonathan Pryce, Bill Paterson, Peter Jeffrey, Uma Thurman, Alison Steadman, Sting, Robin Williams

  Production Budget: $46.63 million
  US Box Office Total: $8.1 million
  What Happened? Director Terry Gilliam's colorful, eye-popping film of the exaggerated stories of Karl Friedrich von Munchausen is one of the few films on this list that got good reviews from critics when it came out, yet didn't connect with audiences. From the time the film began production until it was released, studio heads changed hands, and the movie only saw a limited release, which was the final blow for recouping its overblown budget.

  Nevertheless, it was a favorite of those who saw and reviewed it. It was also nominated for four Oscars, including costume design, visual effects, makeup, and art direction. 
• 

  (#15) Old Gringo

  • Jane Fonda, Gregory Peck, Jimmy Smits, Paul Williams, Pedro Armendáriz, Jr., Josefina Echánove, Jenny Gago, Jim Metzler, Pedro Damián, Patricio Contreras, Anne Pitoniak, Salvador Sánchez, Stanley Grover, Abel Woolrich, Maya Zapata, Sergio Calderón, Roberto Sosa, Alicia del Lago, Evangelina Sosa, Guillermo Rios, Amelia Zapata, René Pereyra, Carlos Cardán, Víctor Carpinteiro, John Williams, Mark Kelty, John Sabol, Fernando Moya, María Luisa Coronel, Gabriela Roel, Juan Antonio Llanes, Laurel Lyle, María Victoria Mondragón, Richardson Morse, Arturo Rodríguez Doring, José Juan Rodriguez, Hector Rivera, Steven Spencer, José Olivares, Stewart Smith, José Jorge Zepeda, Mario Arevalo, Martin Palomares, Samuel Valadez De La Torre, Roberto Ortiz

  Production Budget: $25-35 million
  US Box Office Total: $3.5 million
  What Happened? The miscast and confusing film Old Gringo takes place during the Mexican Revolution. Jane Fonda co-produced the movie and, therefore, got the most screen time, but she was the least riveting character in the film, and critics panned her dialogue. 
• 

  (#16) The Bonfire of the Vanities

  • Tom Hanks, Bruce Willis, Melanie Griffith, Kim Cattrall, Saul Rubinek, Morgan Freeman, F. Murray Abraham, John Hancock, Kevin Dunn, Clifton James, Louis Giambalvo, Barton Heyman, Norman Parker, Donald Moffat, Alan King, Beth Broderick, Kurt Fuller, Adam LeFevre, Richard Libertini, Andre Gregory, Rita Wilson

  Production Budget: $47 million
  US Box Office Total: $15-16 million
  What Happened? Tom Hanks has proven himself to be an actor of serious merit over the past 30 years, but at the time of The Bonfire of the Vanities, he just wasn't there yet. His charming, lighthearted persona didn't work for his portrayal of a Wall Street hotshot whose affair leads to his downfall. What was supposed to be an intelligent, satirical swing at Tom Wolfe's depiction of New York society at the time was a farce in the hands of Brian De Palma. One reviewer even said it was "about as socially incisive as a Police Academy entry."
• 

  (#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.
• 

  (#18) Hero

  • Dustin Hoffman, Geena Davis, Andy Garcia, Joan Cusack, Kevin J. O'Connor, Maury Chaykin, Stephen Tobolowsky, Christian Clemenson, Tom Arnold, James Madio, Chevy Chase, Fisher Stevens

  Production Budget: $42 million
  US Box Office Total: $19.5 million
  What Happened? Hero is about a man (Dustin Hoffman) who's down on his luck, yet manages to save lives after a plane wreck, one of whom is a news reporter played by Geena Davis. A homeless man (Andy Garcia) hears the story and takes credit for the heroism. According to Roger Ebert, it wasn't the acting that doomed it as much as the lumbering, hollow plot that audiences didn't warm up to:  

  Characters take forever to arrive at obvious conclusions, while Hoffman meanwhile tries to tell his story, but can never quite get it out. He keeps being interrupted or shouted down. These scenes ring false. It's better if the screenplay is clever enough to make its point without forcing the characters to be agonizingly stupid.
• 

  (#19) Super Mario Bros.

  • Bob Hoskins, John Leguizamo, Dennis Hopper, Samantha Mathis, Fisher Stevens, Richard Edson, Fiona Shaw, Dana Kaminski, Mojo Nixon, Gianni Russo, Francesca Roberts, Lance Henriksen, Sylvia Harman, Desiree Marie Velez

  Production Budget: $48 million 
  US Box Office Total: $20.1 million
  What Happened? While video games turned movies are old hat in the 21st century, this was a relatively new trope at the time Super Mario Bros. was released. While it was chock-full of fun, innovative special effects and artistry, there was no story, and the limited narrative left audiences scratching their heads. It also lacked tonal similarity to the game that it was based on. According to one reviewer, "A baby hatches out of an egg? I apparently missed that entire part when I played a Mario game."

  There were also too many cooks in kitchen at the time of shooting with too many ideas on what the direction of the movie should be, and the money ran out before the film could be realized with a coherent story. 
• 

  (#20) North

  • Elijah Wood, Jon Lovitz, Matthew McCurley, Alan Arkin, Richard Belzer, Abe Vigoda, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Jason Alexander, Kathy Bates, Graham Greene, Reba McEntire, Dan Aykroyd, Kelly McGillis, Alexander Godunov, Faith Ford, John Ritter, Lauren Tom, Keone Young, Robert Costanzo

  Production Budget: $40 million
  US Box Office Total: $7.2 million
  What Happened? Roger Ebert (and other critics) had no kind words for the saccharine disaster that was North, the Rob Reiner-directed movie about a boy who divorces himself from his parents in search of better guardians:

  North is one of the most unpleasant, contrived, artificial, cloying experiences I've had at the movies. To call it manipulative would be inaccurate; it has an ambition to manipulate, but fails... [The guardians] are all seen as broad, desperate comic caricatures. They are not funny. They are not touching. There is no truth in them. They don't even work as parodies. There is an idiocy here that seems almost intentional, as if the filmmakers plotted to leave anything of interest or entertainment value out of these episodes.

  I hated this movie... Hated every simpering stupid vacant audience-insulting moment of it. Hated the sensibility that thought anyone would like it. Hated the implied insult to the audience by its belief that anyone would be entertained by it.

  Audiences agreed, and the film tanked.
• 

  (#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.
• 

  (#22) Mary Reilly

  • Julia Roberts, John Malkovich, George Cole, Michael Gambon, Kathy Staff, Glenn Close, Michael Sheen, Bronagh Gallagher, Linda Bassett, Henry Goodman, Ciarán Hinds, Sasha Hanau

  Production Budget: $47 million 
  US Box Office Total: $5.7 million 
  What Happened? The story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (John Malkovich) as seen through the eyes of his maid Mary (Julia Roberts) was made less like a horror thriller and more like a romantic love triangle between Mary and the doctor's opposing personalities. It could have been suspenseful had the plot not taken forever to be carried out. Audiences and critics were bored, and by the looks of things, so were the actors. 
• 

  (#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!”
• 

  (#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.  
• 

  (#25) The 13th Warrior

  • Antonio Banderas, Diane Venora, Dennis Storhøi, Omar Sharif, Anders T. Andersen, Richard Bremmer, Tony Curran, Mischa Hausserman, Neil Maffin, Asbjørn "Bear" Riis, Clive Russell, Daniel Southern, Oliver Sveinall, Sven Wollter, Albie Woodington, John DeSantis, Vladimir Kulich, Erick Avari, Maria Bonnevie, Richard Ooms, Dylan Gray Woodley, Bjorn Ove Pedersen, Scott Elam, Ghoncheh Tazmini, Joe Bulatti, Mina E. Mina, Mona Storhoi, Turid Balke, Suzanne Bertish, Susan Willis

  Production Budget: $100-160 million
  US Box Office Total: $32.7 million
  What Happened? Ahmed ibn Fahdlan was a real-life Arab poet. In the movie, he travels north to Viking-inhabited lands as an ambassador and teams up with Norsemen to fight the "Eaters of the Dead," cannibalistic creatures that are half human and half beast.

  The movie had promise but was frequently delayed by poor test screenings and endless changes to rectify them. When it came out, it was a mess and failed at the box office. It was recut a year later and rereleased, but any interest in it had waned, and it never made its money back. 
• 

  (#26) Battlefield Earth

  • John Travolta, Barry Pepper, Forest Whitaker, Kim Coates, Sabine Karsenti, Richard Tyson, Marie-Josée Croze, Kelly Preston, Michael Byrne, Jim Meskimen, Christian Tessier

  Production Budget: $73-103 million
  US Box Office Total: $21.5 million
  What Happened? Set in the year 3000, alien captors called Psychlos come to Earth, plundering its minerals and wiping out humanity in the process. John Travolta's pet project, written by Scientology leader L. Ron Hubbard, was a mess on every front - with a poor plot, bad special effects, uncool costuming, and a paper-thin storyline. As Roger Ebert said, "Battlefield Earth is like taking a bus trip with someone who has needed a bath for a long time. It's not merely bad; it's unpleasant in a hostile way."

New Random Displays    Display All By Ranking