Bombs that probably deserved better (1 Viewer)

[Jason Adams]

Dont know if its been mentioned but EQUILIBRIUM got the screw job as well. Totaly badass movie shown only in less than 300 theaters and for only like a week and a half. Could have been much bigger had it been given the chance. I get customers who come in and comment on how they absolutely loved this film. Some (like myself) like it even better than the matrix! And anyone I recomend it to always comes back to thank me. What a shame...

I saw it in the theaters too, but my problem is that it was a tad slow. But those action scenes were SO COOL! But yeah, it did get a screw job.

 

[chung_sotheby]

I would have to add a vote for Wonderboys , as I feel that it is one of my personal favs that just didn't click. I had read the book (I am a HUGE Chabon fan) and was really interested in this movie (Big Tobie & Kate fan from The Ice Storm [I used to live in New Canaan], as well as a fan of Robert Downey Jr.), and lo and behold not only did it receive widespread critical acclaim, but it was released and marketed badly TWICE, and failed at the box office TWICE. I can't think of another movie that had ever done that before.

Some others I thought god the shaft, commercially, critically or both, when it first came out:

Zero Effect
The Beach
Nine Queens
The Salton Sea
Spanking the Monkey
Roger Dodger
Two Family House
Manhunter
To Live and Die in LA
Freeway
The Believer
Bright Lights, Big City
Primary Colors
Lolita (1997)
The Player
Short Cuts
Waking Life
Dazed and Confused
Sexy Beast
Ginger Snaps
Real Genius
A Christmas Story
The Good Girl
Rushmore
Bottle Rocket


Oh, and I'd like to second Dark City, One Hour Photo, October Sky and In the Bedroom (Best movie in the last four years)

 

[TheLongshot]

I would have to add a vote for Wonderboys , as I feel that it is one of my personal favs that just didn't click.

See, and I never saw what the big deal with that movie was.

Also, some of those films you've listed I don't think were screwed, because they were small films that probably would have limited appeal anyways. ("Waking Life" and "Sexy Beast" comes to mind)

Jason

 

[Nicholas Vargo]

Chung,
Looking over your list of bombs, most of those are right except one, and that one is "A Christmas Story." You might ask why and I'll tell you. It started off okay, but in its second weekend, it was the #1 movie in America and ended up making a nice small profit. Don't believe me, go to Box Office Mojo. They have all of the top 10 box office figures for eack week all the way back to January 1982. But I will repeat, it wasn't a bomb. It made its money back, and even though I'm not exactly sure, I would imagine that it did.

Anyway, the one movie that I wish hadn't bombed was "Hudson Hawk." It is definately one of the most quotable movies ever. For example:

DARWIN: I will torture you so slowly, you'll think it's a career. I'll kill your friends, family, and the bitch you took to the prom.

HUDSON HAWK: Betty Jo Byarski. I can get you an address on that.

Other movies:

PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE-Had a chance and Columbia Pictures messed it up completely. Not to mention if you read some of the comments at the IMDB and amazon.com a lot of people hate it, including one reviewer who thought "Old School" was a much better film.

OFFICE SPACE-Most people I knoiw love this movie, and there just teenagers. This is one funny movie and I can tell you one thing. It wasn't the promotion that killed the movie, it was the lack of promotion there of (With that having been said, I quite enjoy the film's trailer featuring portions of Fatboy Slim's hit song "Rockafeller Skank")

GET OVER IT-Definately one of the best ways to spend 80 minutes watching a movie. This movie is jaw-droppingly funny and actually a pretty smart teen comedy (and it's not just because of Kirsten Dunst). It's just very funny. Maybe nobody at Miramax believed in it.

SOUTH PARK: BIGGER, LONGER & UNCUT-Why didn't this movie do better? It is so bitingly funny and so vulger that it is funny. Maybe it was that "In a world..." trailer featuring the "O Fortuna" music which gave it a different angle that Paramount must have been trying to aim for. I know this movie actually made money, but as I said before, it should've made more than $52 million (In fact, curiously enough, how much did it cost to make this movie?)

There are probably more, but I'll post them when I can think of them..

 

[Iain Jackson]

The South Park movie cost $20m to make, so it made a profit. However, I agree that it certainly deserved to make more money...

 

[TheLongshot]

The problem with the promotion of "Hudson Hawk" was that it was put in the "summer blockbuster" spot, and it never should have been there. It gave people the wrong impression of what it should be about. Probably should have been released in the fall, where films like that can find an audience.

Jason

 

[chung_sotheby]

Also, some of those films you've listed I don't think were screwed, because they were small films that probably would have limited appeal anyways. ("Waking Life" and "Sexy Beast" comes to mind)

While a film could be small, I think that "limited appeal" is just an excuse conjured up by some marketing people who don't have the guile or effort to try to expand a good films to a larger audience. If all "small" movies with "limited appeal" were brushed off as such, would there be room for such hits as movies about frumpy Greek singles with crazy families and movies about seventies-reject hitmen dealing with the nature of life and miracles? (My Big Fat Greek Wedding and Pulp Fiction, respectively) I think that Waking Life and Sexy Beast had some really new and exciting elements of filmmaking that a good marketer could have used to rope in a larger audience, to challenge and entice filmgoers with an alternative to the overhyped and bloated crap that seems so prevelent in theaters today. By saying that an extremely good movie has "limited appeal" is to concede that all movie goers are of the "lowest common denominator" and that they only choose movies that stimulate their most basic of snesory nerves without challenging their simplistic minds. I believe that movie goers, when notified and given the chance to see something of high quality, will prefer the product of higher quality over the product of questionable merit. But that's JHHO

 

[Mike Graham]

Donnie Darko
One Hour Photo
I would disagree with either of these beings "bombs." Was anyone expecting the very disturbing Photo to make big business at the end of the summer blockbuster season? Although a few million would've been more appropriate for its intake (I thought the film was fantastic with wonderful visuals and performance by Williams), its exceedingly creepy style may have been too much for some.
Speaking of Darko, even if it hadn't of been screwed over due its release date being affected by 9/11, the film's very confusing nature may have kept it from making (relatively) big box office compared to its budget.

 

[Rob Bartlett]

One Hour Photo's numbers were fantastic for its distributor, and has gone on to do some pretty decent business on the home market.

 

[Rob Bartlett]

chung , I think many of us are spoiled when a more daring or niche film hits it big. Why is it that The Hulk will make only a little bit more then a foreign language picture by the same director?
Oh, and My Big Fat Greek Wedding was a "lowest common denominator" movie, (I think people use that phrase to derogitorily, it's like calling pepperoni a "lowest common denominator" topping. More people jsut like Pepperoni.) It was a comedy that strongly appealed to adult women, a faction of audiences that have been severely underserevd this year.
Some films just don't appeal everyone. If we can't all agree on a movie like AI , what hope is there for something like Waking Life ? Why should we expect America to come to a conensus we we ourselves are quite divided?

 

[Patrick McCart]

A lot of people forget the classic bombs...

Metropolis, Citizen Kane, Napoleon (Abel Gance), Fantasia, Pinocchio, The General, and Intolerance all did poorly upon their original release.

Thankfully, all of these have become favorites thanks to re-releases and restorations.

Fantasia and Pinocchio did poorly because of the absence of European release due to World War II. Plus, both were not as popular as Snow White when first released.

Intolerance cost too much and was too confusing to audiences at the time.

Napoleon cost too much and was marketed poorly. It didn't help that the 6 hour film was cut up into an 80 minute film for the United States.

Metropolis got beaten pretty badly, but re-gained popularity gradually.

 

[Scott Weinberg]

Would have liked to see Down with Love earn some more box-office coin.
I suspect that the HTF Movie Braintrust (i.e. anyone who posts in this forum regularly) will be quite taken with the film once it hits DVD.

 

[Jonathan White]

The Boondock Saints - Was this film actually released anywhere? Absolutly fantastic, it must have done well on DVD/Video as they are currently making a sequel.

 

[Matt Stone]

IIRC, Boondock Saints only played on about 5 screens in the US.

 

[Brandon_T]

My vote goes for Anna and the King . I think this is one of the better movies I have seen in the last ten years.
I remember seeing the trailer for it during the Phantom Menace screenings and thinking that is looked like crap. When I finally viewed the movie, I found it moving, and beatiful. It was budgeted at 75million, and made in the 39million range. I have made countless people watch it who didn't want to and all loved it at the end.
I also second Election.
Brandon

 

[TheLongshot]

Would have liked to see Down with Love earn some more box-office coin.

So would I. I did my part, tho, seeing the movie twice.

Unless you've seen "Pillow Talk", tho, a lot of the movie would go over people's heads.

Jason

 

[Brian Johnson]

I was going to mention The Fifth Element but after seeing this I guess it did pretty well in theaters.
Funny thing is I had never heard of the movie till I had joined the HTF.

 

[Matt Stone]

Funny thing is I had never heard of the movie till I had joined the HTF.

I remember quite a few commercials boasting that it was the new Star Wars. But for some reason, I never saw it in the theater.

 

[Holadem]

As matter of fact, did it not come out right of after the SW re-releases? Bad timing I guess, it could have easily made more.

--
Holadem

 

[Matt Stone]

As matter of fact, did it not come out right of after the SW re-releases?

Yep, I'm pretty sure that's true. It probably would have made more money coming out at a different time.