23 years ago, this sci-fi movie lost its studio 120 million and is one of the most misunderstood in history.

No matter how good a film is, and even if it offers something innovative, no one can guarantee its success with audiences, critics and the box office. Just this year we saw Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, George Miller’s feature film that took 10 years to reach the big screen, failed to bring in the money expected for such a project. And then there’s the case of movies that fail because they’re not that great, but end up being revered over time – like Tommy Wiseau’s The Room.

But what about science fiction? Failures seem much more common, as the use of visual effects and advances in technology sometimes work against these productions that claim to be avant-garde.

“The movie that sunk his studio”

One of the films that has undergone is Final Fantasy: Creatures of the Mind, a cinematic work directed by Hironobu Sakaguchi and animated by computer as the famous saga in the video games. Released in theaters in 2001, the film was the first full-length computer-generated film designed to depict humans realistically. And the result was, and still is with the move to UHD 4K, very impressive indeed. However, despite its efforts to bring something new to cinema, it flopped at the box office.

The feature film with the voices of Min-Na Wen, Alec Baldwin and Steve Buscemi was distributed by Sony Pictures, but Square created an entirely new structure to produce the film, Square Pictures. However, due to numerous 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 that ranged from $235.8 to $249.6 million.

Thus, with just over $85 million at the international box office, creatures of the spirit caused Square Pictures to lose more than $120 million, which led to the liquidation of the new studio and threatened Square, which itself was on the verge of bankruptcy: an absolute disaster that is considered one of the biggest box office failures. In order to survive, Square had to merge with its main competitor in the Japanese market, Enix, in 2003 to become Square Enix. Before going out of business and laying off 125 employees, Square Pictures still produced the Animatrix segment of the collective film, a farewell project.

Unintelligible work

However, many have since said that the feature film was ultimately an incomprehensible work.

Unlike Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children Complete, creatures of the spirit depicted a dense and serious story that took place in space. In the film, we are in the year 2065, when the greatest confusion reigns on our planet. Only the hardiest of humans live in a desolate world dominated by the ultimate enemy: mysterious ghosts that feed on extracting energy from all forms of earthly life. The future of our species rests on the courage and will of a few. The two clans then face each other to eliminate the ghosts in the most effective way: the first, led by a warlike general, wants to use a weapon of total destruction; The others, led by Dr. Aki Ross, face a difficult path: restoring the spiritual rhythm that must drive away ghosts and protect living beings. The adventure is risky, but they have nothing more to lose.

Is it too difficult for society? Some people say that. But perhaps, 23 years after its release, the public could now give it a second chance, as it has done with other legendary films, and thus forget the label of “the film that sunk its studio”.

We’ll let you be the judge: Final Fantasy: Creatures of the Mind needs to be rediscovered on VOD.