“Cover that head of yours!” : Rated 1 out of 5 It’s one of the worst movies in the history of cinema… and it sunk its studio

Some works are sometimes carried by studios, which do not hesitate to invest astronomical sums in the always risky business, throughout the creative chain, from the birth of an idea or concept to the projection of a film in front of an 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 failed so badly at the box office that they ended up defeating the studios that made them.

Earth, the battlefield

“I have a special love for that book. Hubbard was a great writer, and I had an idea of ​​the potential for a movie, a fantasy in my mind that went on for years.” These are the words of John Travolta, published in the article New York Times What is he talking about in January 2008? From Earth’s battlefield.

Directed by Roger Christian, who started out as a set designer on Star Wars and directed the second installment on Return of the Jedi, the film is set in the year 3000, on a desert Earth with humanity on the brink of extinction, under control. Psychlos. But the heroic Johnny Goodboy Tyler (Barry Pepper) will give hope to the surviving Earthlings…

The cast also includes Forest Whitaker, Kim Coates, Marie-Jose Crouse and, of course, John Travolta, in absolute bad taste, with futuristic dreadlocks and eyebrows worthy of the Grinch.

Reinvented by Quentin Tarantino thanks to his iconic role in Pulp Fiction, John Travolta roamed the corridors of Hollywood in the mid-1990s to convince studios to adapt the book written by the founder of the Church of Scientology. , of which the actor has been a member since 1975. But, given the sulphurous origin of its predecessor, it can be said that the matter was either highly flammable or completely radioactive.

The project finally fell into the hands of a very young structure, Franchise imagesIt was established in 1997. Supported by a German manufacturing company, Entertainment LicensingFinancial arrangements were also made with the help of John Travolta, who strongly believed in the project.

He raised millions of dollars in hopes of a two-part adaptation of the novel. He even agreed to take a $10 million pay cut in exchange for $15 million when the film grossed $55 million at the box office.

Obviously on a whim, since it didn’t even bring in $30 million at the international box office… Earth’s battlefield Considered one of the worst movies ever made, the worst movie of John Travolta’s career, and ranked high in your top 25 movies of all time.

Officially, the film cost 73 million dollars. But that was before the records of the Justice (and FBI) ​​report were examined… A complaint filed in December 2000 by a German co-production company, Entertainment Licensingrevealed that Franchise images Overshot the film’s budget, which was actually $44 million. Pure fraud.

In 2004, the judgment ordered Franchise Pictures to pay have fun $121.7 million. From this amount, the founder Franchise imagesEli Samaha was found personally liable and ordered to pay $77 million out of pocket.

financially strapped Franchise images In August 2007, bankruptcy was declared and liquidation took place.

War of the Abyss

It goes without saying that the drama of the sinking of the Titanic has always been a great source of artistic inspiration in cinema. And of course, as is often the case, the best coexists with the worst. Among the most famous, obviously James Cameron’s Titanic, or the magnificent Atlantic, 41° Latitude by Roy Ward Baker in 1958, in fact a real model for Cameron. And no, we’re not referring to the Titanic 2 parody.

Released in 1980, War of the Deep was one of the most expensive films ever made around a famous cruise ship sent to the bottom. Directed by Jerry Jameson, known for his work on TV series such as Arabesque, Dallas and Magnum, the film is an adaptation of the novel by Clive Cussler. Reboot Titanic!Published in 1976.

the pitch The US military has recently developed a new defense system that requires the action of an extremely rare mineral. Fortunately, Admiral Sandecker, Dirk Pitt and Dr. Seagram discovered that the Titanic had a huge cargo of this ore on board. The army then decides to go and reclaim the ship, but they are not completely surprised…

Here’s the trailer…

Released five years before the ruins were discovered, the film cost its production company, Incorporated TV Company (ITC Entertainment), nearly $40 million. Its run was a box office disaster as it grossed around $7 million.

It is barely enough to pay 5 million dollars for a large 16-meter model of the ship that was created, which weighed 10 tons. We also had to add $3.3 million to support this monster framework. Most notable is that this model was built by estimation; The wreckage of the Titanic had not yet been discovered at the time of the film’s production.

Still, the bill was bittersweet for the film’s producer, Lew Grady. “It would cost less to lower the level of the Atlantic than to refloat the Titanic” He turned to the newspaper independent.

The film was a bitter failure ITC Entertainment surrender universal images catalog and rights to its films previously distributed by its subsidiary, Associated Films Distribution. Years pass and he is in a bad financial situation, ITC Entertainment It was forced to regularly divest assets until it was no longer solely devoted to television distribution. The company closed its doors for good in 1998 after the death of its founder, Lew Grady.

Final Fantasy, Mind Creatures

Final Fantasy is one of the most famous video game licenses. Born in 1987 and released by Hironobu Sakaguchi, which has since become a major part of pop culture, it is owned by Japanese publisher Square Enix.

A true martingale and cash machine, with its titles available on all possible supports, not just consoles. It’s also widely available as OAVs, such as the excellent Advent Children, or, more recently, the impressive Kingsglaive.

Released in 2001 and shot entirely in computer-generated imagery by its creator Hironobu Sakaguchi, Final Fantasy: Creatures of Mind revolutionized the history of cinema. It was the first full-length computer-generated image designed to realistically represent humans. And the result was, and still is, in the transition to UHD 4K, very impressive indeed.

Here’s the trailer…

If the film was distributed by Sony Pictures, Square created an entirely new structure for the production of the film. square pictures. Due to many technical limitations, the budget continued to increase as production progressed, eventually reaching an astronomical sum of between $137 and $145 million, depending on sources. Adjusted for inflation, this corresponds to a budget ranging from $235.8 to $249.6 million.

The film grossed just over $85 million at the international box office. An absolute disaster, considered one of the biggest box office failures ever. Not only was Square Pictures liquidated after this fiasco, but the failure was such that it put Square on the brink of bankruptcy. In order to survive, it was forced to merge with its main competitor in the Japanese market, Enix, in 2003.

Until it went out of business and laid off 125 employees, square pictures He directed the Animatrix segment of the collective film. The last stand of the sad ending.