Box office: 3 movies so bad they sunk their studios

It’s a regular occurrence that Hollywood maims or even kills movies with the help of producers who don’t really appreciate the work. There are some great movies in this sad picture. For example, Michael Cimino’s cursed masterpiece Heaven’s Gate , a financial disaster that plagued the filmmaker’s career, even if he was able to briefly get back in the saddle with The Year of the Dragon .

The western Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, who was destroyed by then-MGM head James Aubrey, is more stubborn than ever before Sam Peckinpah. Who will finally let go: “These emotional eunuchs at MGM took all the personality out of my film just by trying to keep the footage in their editing. It didn’t work.”

And how can we not cite, among other examples, the serious butchery that producer Arnon Milchan did on the American version of Sergio Leone’s film The Vow, the fabulous Once Upon a Time in America? The result, critically and commercially, was a disaster. Not only did the film cut itself in half, but it also took everything back into chronological order, completely distorting the work, because that was also its strength. Understandably, Leone was deeply depressed.

Against this background, sometimes studios conduct work that does not hesitate to invest astronomical sums in the always risky enterprise, on the entire chain of creation, from the birth of an idea or concept. Until the film is shown in front of the audience.

The hundreds of millions of dollars spent by the studios on marketing costs will not say otherwise. Because success, despite these sometimes pharaonic sums, is not always there. Especially if we consider, for example, that for a work that cost 100 million dollars to produce, the break-even margin should be at least 2 to 2.5 times the equivalent of the production budget.

With that in mind, here are three examples of movies that did so well at the box office that they ended up defeating the studios that made them. If you happen to be interested enough in the topic, the door remains open to other examples, as there is no shortage of them.

Hero items

After the conquest of the West, the stars… the fabric of heroes gives a mythic, legendary dimension to the last great conquest and those who participated in it. The masterful epic written by Philip Kaufman was crowned with 4 Oscars in 1984 and carried by his stalwarts Ed Harris (John Glenn), Sam Shepard (Chuck Yeager), Scott Glenn (Alan Shepard), Dennis Quaid (Gordon Cooper), Fred. Ward (Gus Grissom) and Jeff Goldblum.

rich in numerous archival images, The fabric of heroes Immerses the viewer in both a scientific and an ideological struggle, faced with scientific miracles and human tragedies. Largely an absolute classic of American cinema since its release, it’s a spectacular and captivating mural that never loses its true emotional power, enhanced by Bill Conti’s unforgettable score. In short, it’s amazing.

The Planets , at least on paper, seemed aligned enough to become a hit in theaters… and the opposite happened: an absolute disaster. Produced for $27 million, it didn’t gross more than $21 million internationally. Of course, the duration of the film is 3 hours, 10 hours, which de facto limited the number of screenings. And he created some pretty solid works that came out at the same time, like Dead Zone by David Cronenberg or Under Fire by Roger Spottiswoode. Prevents.

The fabric of heroes Made by The Ladd Company; The company was founded by Alan Ladd Jr. in 1979 after his tenure as president of 20th Century Fox ended. He was the man behind Chariots of Fire, Blade Runner (big fail there too…), Body Fever and Peter Hyams’ excellent sci-fi film, Outland. Works distributed by Warner Bros. by arrangement.

Burdened by a series of great failures, The fabric of heroes It was the final blow to society. It would take more than a decade to recover, especially since Warner Bros. terminated the distribution agreement for his films, forcing him to turn to new partners.

After a very brief resurgence of vitality in the mid-1990s in the 2000s thanks to Paramount and Miramax Films, The Ladd Company was liquidated in 2007. Its separation from Warner Bros. It was truly a blow from which he never recovered.

Life is beautiful

A cinematic totem of Christmas for decades, broadcast almost every year in the United States, Frank Capra’s Life is Beautiful is undoubtedly the work that most embodies and celebrates this spirit of Christmas, to the point that it is among America’s favorite films.

Admiring in every way, a deeply moving work that begins with the suicide attempt of its main character. A person who also sacrifices his life for the benefit of others. The one who sacrifices his studies, his desire to travel the world, all his dreams of becoming an explorer… to end up being an explorer of his city.

But he is the builder of the city, – his own – with his cheap housing for the needy and the poor. He who dreamed of being a guest of the world is actually a world builder who does not know himself. An absolutely sublime, extraordinary metaphor whose power is intact and more relevant than ever, 76 years after its release.

It seems hard to believe, but the movie wasn’t always so highly acclaimed; Far away. Life is beautiful, Distributed by RKO, it was Liberty Films’ first film; The legendary Frank Capra, David Tannenbaum, William Wyler, Samuel J. A company founded by Briskin in 1945 that paid $2.3 million. A very large amount for the time, especially if we adjust it for current inflation: it corresponds to more than 36 million dollars.

Originally scheduled for a January 1947 release, the film’s release was pushed back to December 1946 so it could compete at the 19th Academy Awards the following year. Very warmly received by critics, it was weighed down by his theatrical career, grossing only $3.3 million, ranking 26th in releases. He even lost RCO 525,000 dollars. A real disaster for the founding quartet of Liberty Films, who were going to produce fifteen films.

The four partners were looking for a studio to sell to Liberty Films in order to escape the hold of the company. Paramount bought the company in May 1947. They received a total of $3,450,000, and Capra, Wyler and Stevens were offered five-picture contracts at Paramount.

Liberty Films was officially dissolved in April 1951. Nevertheless, it was a sad ending to an adventure that still promised to be the best work of its kind. Even five Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director, couldn’t do anything about the company’s failing fortunes.

Pirate Island

With a production budget of $115 million, with a gross of barely $10 million domestically (18 million including international box office), Pirate Island is known as one of the worst failures at the American box office. , alongside an equally colossal failure Gate of Heaven mentioned above and John McTiernan’s 13th Warrior. It caused his production company Carolco Pictures to lose $97 million, or more than $195 million today when adjusted for inflation…

However, the adventure began with good intentions: designed like a tentpole movie, Pirate Island There was a fire Swashbuckler; An Anglo-Saxon term referring to swashbuckling and pirate films, in the manner of its illustrious ancestors who were Captain Blood and the Red Corsair.

But Renny Harlin’s film had the opposite effect than expected: it killed the genre for nearly a decade, before Pirates of the Caribbean arrived. memory of failure Pirate Island It was so bitter that it haunted Disney, even to the point that its executives tried to pull the project while the film was in pre-production. “A pirate movie? Worst idea ever!” recalled Gore Verbinski in a fascinating (and lengthy) interview published on the Collider site in March 2021.

Pirate Island It had many problems, including the removal of Michael Douglas and his casting by Matthew Modine. Incredibly expensive real wooden sailing ships were built and then restored. From an initial budget of $60 million, the envelope quickly increased to $100, and then $115 million.

He also permanently damaged its lead actress Geena Davis, who was Mrs. Harlin in town at the time, and even produced her own film for the occasion. It will take years to recover. And again, on the fields.

The film destroyed Carolco Pictures, which was founded in 1976 by two prominent film investors, Mario Cassari and Andrew Vajna. It was the company that acquired the rights to the Terminator franchise and hired James Cameron and Arnold Schwarzenegger to direct and interpret Terminator 2: Judgment Day.

He also created works like Angel Heart, Cliffhanger: Traque au summit, The Doors, Total Recall, Chaplin, Basic Instinct. A very nice hunting picture that has been removed from the canvas by accident Pirate Island. Carolco folded in 1996 after selling its assets to Twentieth Century Fox for $50 million. And to think that the film was supposed to be the last chance for a company already in the grip of serious cash flow problems…

Indeed, in a painful irony, the company had long delayed another project that had cost it millions of dollars in pre-production and never materialized. The famous Crusades film that Paul Verhoeven worked on with Arnold Schwarzenegger in 1994, which still promised to be extraordinary.

Daunted by the sulphurous aspect of its subject matter, and also because it had exceeded its financial capacity to produce such a film, Carolco Pictures preferred to put all its eggs in another, less risky basket, Pirate Island…