|
Bombs, Disasters and Flops: The Most Notable Examples Part 5 |
|
|
Bombs, Disasters and Flops: The Most Notable Examples Part 5 |
|
Note: The box-office figures for domestic grosses and non-USA grosses are fairly accurate, but must be taken as estimates only. |
|
Greatest Box-Office Bombs, Disasters and Flops of All-Time
|
|
| Film Title, Director, Studio, Budget Information, Description | |
|
Roar (1981)
The film's tagline said everything: "There's never been a film like ROAR - and there never will be again!" However, this curious film had some similarities to the big hit in the mid 1960s, Born Free (1966). Wildlife animal rights activist and actress Tippi Hedren starred in this semi-documentary (home) film production opposite her husband -- the film's director, co-star, and writer. It told the story of Madeleine (Hedren), with her long estranged scientist/husband Hank (Marshall) living in the African jungle with their three children (one being real-life daughter Melanie Griffith) - and other than that, just a minimal plot, with the many leopards, lions, tigers, etc. filling out the cast. This family adventure film was made over a period of eleven years, and during filming caused director/star Noel Marshall, Hedren, cinematographer Jan de Bont and Melanie Griffith to all be injured or mauled by a lion. Melanie's injury required 50 facial stitches and plastic surgery to repair. Other problems on the set (behind the scenes) besides the maimings included a flood, a fire, foreclosure, and a feline virus that decimated the wild animal cast. The film was screened for only one week. In 1972, Hedren founded and became president of the Roar Foundation and Shambala Preserve, an 80-acre wildlife habitat 40 miles northeast of Los Angeles (in Acton, CA located at the edge of the Mojave Desert between the Antelope Valley and the Santa Clarita Valley), to provide sanctuary for dozens of exotic animals who have suffered from gross mistreatment and neglect. In early December of 2007 when one of the Bengal tigers mauled a preserve's caretaker, the whole issue of the danger of captive animals was again raised -- recalling the white-tiger mauling of Roy Horn (of the illusionist team of Siegfried and Roy) four years earlier before a horrified Las Vegas audience. |
|
One From the Heart (1982)
This stylized musical romance, two years in the making, followed the tremendous success of Coppola's Godfather films in the early 70s and Apocalypse Now (1979), but he was looking for a less difficult, more lighthearted production this time around. The film was originally budgeted at $2 million, but he eventually invested $14 million of his own funds through Zoetrope (plus $12 million from others) into the costly production (when some investors got 'cold feet' and withdrew). The film's failure ultimately caused the demise of Coppola's studio. One reason for its inflated price tag was that it was one of the first films to use experimental video equipment that included live, in-camera feeds that could instantly be edited - something termed "electronic cinema". Coppola referred to himself as the film's "composer" as he directed the "live cinema" from a technological video control room. He hired Paramount to distribute his film, but then frustrated by the studio's nervousness, he pretentiously premiered it (in what he called its "final preview") in a Radio City Music Hall gala in NYC with reserved seats only. Coppola pulled the film from theaters two weeks after it opened due to a negative reception from "studio politics and media chatter." The musical film was set in a re-created, artificial fantasy world of Las Vegas, although it was entirely filmed on a Hollywood soundstage (with a recreated city composed of painted backdrops and superimpositions), with no location shots or exteriors. Its main boring, unappealing, one-dimensional and ordinary characters (Teri Garr as an ex-waitress and travel agent, and Frederic Forrest as a mechanic/junkyard owner who salvaged old neon signs) were celebrating their 5th anniversary as a couple on 4th of July Eve and suffered a domestic breakup after exchanging gifts. When they temporarily parted ways, they were joined by two other short-term lovers (Raul Julia as a Latin waiter/professional dancer-musician and Nastassja Kinski as an exotic circus acrobat/performer). The humanity of all the characters was overwhelmed by the sets, complicated lighting schemes, special effects and production values. The film received one Academy Award nomination (for Tom Waits' soundtrack, Best Original Song Score). However, the film's characters did not sing their own songs -- they were instead sung by bluesy Waits and country music star Crystal Gayle. Still looking for an audience for his unconventional film, self-termed his "biggest flop" and financial gamble, Coppola produced a 15-minute video (viewable at one time online) marketing the recently-released 2004 DVD restoration (and reworking) of his film. In a statement, he said he hoped the video would help counteract "the bad press and premature criticism" that originally shot down his film. |
|
Yes, Giorgio! (1982) It seemed like a wonderful idea, to star the great tenor opera star (Luciano Pavarotti) in a musical romantic comedy. In this expensively-financed and escapist film, Pavarotti (in his screen debut) did star as famous Italian opera singer Giorgio Fini, who came to America during a performance tour, but lost his voice. During treatment by Boston throat doctor Pamela Taylor (Kathryn Harrold), the philandering married singing star fell in love with her, and invited her to experience an extravagant "fling" in San Francisco. She also helped him overcome a fear of performing opera at NY's Metropolitan Opera House, although there had to be a melodramatic finale of his return to his wife and family. The film had one Academy Award nomination -- Best Music (Original Song: "If We Were in Love", performed during a hot-air balloon ride over Napa Valley). It also had three Razzie nominations: Worst Actor and Worst New Star (for Pavarotti), and Worst Screenplay (Norman Steinberg). |
|
Krull (1983, US/UK) This derivative, copy-cat, familiar sword-and-sorcery sci-fi and fantasy film was a box-office flop, due to its lackluster approach to its princess-rescue storyline, when compared to other similar films, such as Star Wars (1977) and Return of the Jedi (1983), Excalibur (1981), The Sword and the Sorcerer (1982), and Conan the Barbarian (1982). It also had an uninspiring title, and featured two unappealing and bland actors. It was specifically designed by its studio to 'cash-in' on the popularity of "Dungeons and Dragons" films in the wake of Star Wars. Prince Colwyn (Ken Marshall) was the hero, whose kingdom was under siege by an evil Beast, who kidnapped his Princess bride Lyssa (Lysette Anthony in her film debut, although her voice was dubbed by American-accented Lindsay Crouse). He went on a journey-quest to rescue her from the alien Beast in a "dark fortress" (filled with marauding biomechanical Slayers) by first acquiring a sharp, five-pronged, star-shaped, magical double-edged sword or spinning boomerang (glaive). One of Prince Colwyn's challenges was that the Beast's Black fortress (or spaceship) kept changing locations by teleporting around the surface of the beseiged planet Krull, to avoid attack. Along his circuitous journey, Colwyn united with a renegade band of thieves led by Torquil (Alun Armstrong), apprentice magician Ergo (David Battley) and mysterious Rell the Cyclops (Bernard Bresslaw) to combat the monster. The special effects were expensive but crudely dated, and the appearance of the Beast was always fuzzy and distorted. |
|
Staying Alive (1983) Co-written and directed by self-obsessed Sylvester Stallone and produced by Robert Stigwood, this 6 years-after disappointing sequel to Saturday Night Fever (1977) followed up with the Tony Manero signature role (played again by Oscar-nominated John Travolta) in Manhattan - now a jazz dance instructor and bar waiter at a dance club attempting to break into Broadway dance shows and being rebuffed at auditions. Although he had a relationship with another struggling and supportive, 'girl-next-door' dancer named Jackie (Cynthia Rhodes, seen also in Flashdance (1983) and later appearing in Dirty Dancing (1987)), he fell hard for long-haired, icy British dancer and wealthy, bitchy diva Laura (Finola Hughes, better known for the daytime soap opera General Hospital and as the make-over show host of "How Do I Look?" on the Style Network) who used him sexually - soon followed, coincidentally and miraculously, by his securing of a minor role (and then the co-starring male lead role) in Laura's new show titled Satan's Alley. The love triangle between the two women and Travolta formed the basis for the overheated plot. The dull-acted performances from heartless characters (especially Manero's irresponsible, insecure, mean-spirited, manipulative, misogynistic and insensitive role), the choppy musical and dance scenes, the completely predictable and cliched dialogue, the repetitive and monotonous plot, the over-powering pop soundtrack with some forgettable BeeGees songs and brother Frank Stallone's chart-topping hit "Far From Over" made this the worst sequel ever made (according to Entertainment Weekly magazine in 2006), and it was also voted the fifth Worst Film of all time by Maxim magazine in 2002. The screenplay's superior first draft by Norman Wexler was flattened into this one-dimensional musical drama (Rocky-ized) by Stallone through his unoriginal directing and scripting - ignoring everything that made the original film such a hit. Although this musical dance sequel wasn't a major box-office flop, the film was savagely and soundly criticized as a prime example of horrible film-making, and it received three Razzie Awards nominations: Worst Actor (John Travolta, also for Two of a Kind (1983)), Worst New Star and Worst Supporting Actress (Finola Hughes). Travolta had already been vilified for taking the starring romantic lead role in Moment by Moment (1978) with Lily Tomlin, and this film encouraged more mixed reviews for his career, with the downward spiral continuing for more of his films in the 80s, including Two of a Kind (1983) and Perfect (1985). |
|
The Cotton Club (1984) Francis Coppola's jazz age musical crime drama was about the famed late 1920s Prohibition Era Harlem nightclub and gangsters of various ethnic groups (Irish, Jewish, Italian) in competition with each other in Harlem. It also followed a secondary plot line regarding the musical dance team of Sandman and Clay Williams (Gregory and Maurice Hines), who worked in the Cotton Club -- with black entertainers performing for rich white clients. The film was lukewarmly received at the box-office and by critics, and recouped only half of its privately-financed budget (paid for by brothers Fred and Ed Doumani of Las Vegas). The plodding and mediocre film told the story of pianist/jazz cornet player and aspiring movie star Michael "Dixie" Dwyer (Richard Gere) - modeling real-life George Raft - who was recruited to be the errand boy for power-mad, psychopathic mob boss Dutch Schultz (James Remar), working alongside his own younger brother Vincent Dwyer ("Mad Dog Dwyer") (Nicolas Cage) as a numbers runner and hit-man. A love triangle developed between Dixie and Dutch's greedy, precocious, teenaged singer-flapper/moll Vera Cicero (Diane Lane), and Sandman fell in love with beautiful mulatto Cotton Club singer Lea Rose Oliver (Lonette McKee). Dixie was also working with other gangsters, including two criminal associates: malevolent Irish gangster Owney Madden (Bob Hoskins) and towering Frenchy Lemange (Fred Gwynne) - owners of the exclusive whites-only Cotton Club. The ambitious, self-conscious film had a plethora of cameo appearances by stars in fictional roles and impersonations of 20's era celebrities scattered throughout to evoke the era (Diane Venora as Gloria Swanson, Gwen Verdon as ex-show-girl mother Tish Dwyer, Jennifer Grey as Patsy Dwyer, Gregory Rozakis as Charlie Chaplin, Zane Mark as Duke Ellington, Vincent Jerosa as James Cagney, Rosalind Harris as Fanny Brice, and Larry Marshall as Cab Calloway). The character of Dutch Schultz was based on real-life gangster Arthur Flegenheimer. Joe Dallesandro portrayed Charles 'Lucky' Luciano, and Diane Lane's trademarked line: "Hello suckers!" recalled real-life Texas Guinan. Cage as "Mad Dog Dwyer" was based upon Mad Dog Coll. Laurence Fishburne's role as Bumpy Rhodes was based on real-life Harlem gangster Bumpy Johnson. The characters of the Williams Brothers were based on Broadway stars The Nicholas Brothers, one of whom had a relationship with Dorothy Dandridge in the real Cotton Club during the period of the Harlem Renaissance when the club was filled with movie stars, gangsters, and wealthy businessmen. Although Coppola was one of the greatest directors in film history (and was one of the "auteurs" of the 70s), he also produced/directed some spectacular flops, many in the early 1980s (such as One From the Heart (1982)). Coppola was forced to take over the directorial reins when the production (which was supposed to be famed producer Robert Evans' directorial debut) ran into serious trouble. The film was criticized as being incoherent and somewhat confusing, with muddled character delineation and wooden acting by the leads, and exhibiting an uneven balance between multiple and parallel storylines and themes seen in separate vignettes (such as brotherly conflict between two sets of brothers, a gorgeous mulatto passing as white and racial discrimination, ethnic tensions between mobsters, and the transition from silent films to talkies). Was the film a love story (involving two different couples), a typical gangster film (recalling some of the more violent sequences in The Godfather films), or a musical? And the overlong film was plagued by negative publicity, including rumors of conflict on the set, constant script rewrites, news of the troubled production - strained relations between Evans and Coppola, and threats of bankruptcy due to months of shooting. And audiences had lost their taste for musicals by 1984. Tangential to the film's problems was a murder, scandal, and trial implicating Evans in a drug-related murder in 1983 -- his acquaintance, Florida cocaine dealer Karen ('Laney') Jacobs Greenberger (and two male accomplices) were eventually convicted in 1991 of brutally murdering one of the film's investors, showbiz entrepreneur Roy Radin. In 1980 during the production of Popeye (1980), Evans had already pleaded guilty to cocaine possession. Diane Lane received the film's sole Razzie Award nomination for Worst Supporting Actress, and it deservedly received two Oscar nominations for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration (for its gorgeous production values, glamourous sets and costumes) and Best Film Editing (for its stylistic and elegant camerawork, including the climactic inter-cut scene of Sandman's dazzling solo dance on the Cotton Club stage with the shooting in a New Jersey restaurant). |
|
Revolution (1985) Hugh Hudson's (famous for the Oscar-winning Chariots of Fire (1981)) miscalculated historical epic of the American Revolution was this Warner Bros. film. It starred miscast Al Pacino as an 18th century New York fur trapper named Tom Dobb speaking with a Scottish-Cockney-Bronx accent, Donald Sutherland as British redcoat villain Sgt. Maj. Peasy with a Yorkshire brogue, and Nastassja Kinski as renegade New York aristocrat Daisy McConnahay with a Eurotrash accent in an unnecessary love-interest subplot. It grossed only $359,000 on a budget of about $28 million. The perfectionist director's intentions were to make a major masterpiece (it does have excellent production values), but cost overruns led to entire scenes being deleted. Problems on the set included Pacino's illness, bad weather, and various set disasters. The overly-dramatic film was supposed to be "impressionistic", but ended up with jerkily-filmed action/battle scenes, a disjointed plot, unlikely and overly coincidental circumstances, and a downbeat ending. The film was nominated for four Razzie awards: Worst Actor (Pacino), Worst Director, Worst Musical Score, and Worst Picture (Irwin Winkler). Its colossal failure curtailed Hudson's major directorial efforts until the big-budget I Dreamed of Africa (2000) 15 years later, and Pacino wouldn't star in another film for four years (until Sea of Love (1989)). It took 15 years for another Revolutionary War epic to eventually be made, Roland Emmerich's The Patriot (2000) with Mel Gibson. |
Intro | Part
1 | Part 2 | Part
3 | Part 4 | Part
5 | Part 6 | Part
7 | Part 8 | Part
9 | Part 10 |
Part
11 | Part 12 | Part
13 | Part 14 | Part
15
Created in 1996-2008 © by Tim Dirks. All rights reserved.
Introduction to Greatest Box-Office Bombs, Disasters and Flops: Films have the potential to skyrocket the profits of a studio, or to send it into ruins and bankruptcy. Sometimes an actor’s or director's career suffers, sometimes not. Films that cost more to make than they take in revenue (both domestic and worldwide) are considered box-office catastrophes or bombs. Movie audiences often love to relish the fact that some films, such as Gigli (2003) or Heaven's Gate (1980), turn out to be monumental flops, and are fascinated by the details of why certain directors/actors and their films fail.
