I think one thing about big budget bombs is that it’s more likely the people making it realize it’s a bomb, but by that point, it’s too late - the movie is financed and the movie will be made. If people quit they will likely just be replaced. Sunk costs and all that (and releasing a film will always make at least some of the money back, certainly more than an unreleased film will make).
Now, the small projects that are works of love like The Room or the aforementioned Ed Wood films… those are much more likely to be made without realizing that it’s a bomb.
I think it may depend, to some degree, on what you were aiming for. Roger Corman thought of himself as a working director, making product for sale and distribution. Even in his memoirs, he never thought of himself as an “auteur,” even when he was making “message” films that he had a deep personal investment in. (On a side note, check out “Shame,” with William Shatner, perhaps the best thing Shatner did in his life. “Shame” wound up bombing, largely because, I think, it was just too contemporary with race riots, MLK, and racial tensions; in his autobiography, Corman talks about how the townspeople he used as extras thought Shatner was the GOOD guy…)
From what I have read, Star Wars was thought by many to be a bombasaurus in the making by many involved with it.
Star Trek: The Motion Picture, on the other hand, was thought to be a can’t-lose proposition; EVERYONE wanted their name on that puppy, for purposes of resume. Except maybe Leonard Nimoy, who had to be bribed into submission before he’d participate. Whoopsie. Took the work of Harve Bennett and the leashing of Gene Roddenberry’s ego to save the franchise.
…but the most recent remake of The Island Of Dr. Moreau was thought by pretty much everyone to be a disaster ongoing and in the making, largely due to the antics of its big name actors and its possibly insane director. Turns out they were right…
That’s great. I’m glad you liked it. But given the calibre of the director and the cast, and the acclaimed novel it was based on, the movie was expected to be Oscar bait. Instead, it was widely panned by critics and flopped at the box office.
This was one of the first big movies my brother ever worked on, and he thought it was a privilege to see such a well-oiled machine at work. Nothing but top notch acting, a brilliant director, and a great production team performing at a high level.
They ended up creating a movie that most viewers found plodding and pointless. By contrast, some great movies have been made by people who were constantly fighting and on sets where everything seemed to be going wrong.
The one case I can think of where somebody knew going into a movie that it would probably be a bomb was when Ron Howard agreed to do Eat My Dust! in exchange for being able to direct (and star in) Grand Theft Auto (no relation to the video games).
What about movies that are clearly meant to be direct-to-video but, for whatever reason, play in one theater for a few days?
I remember reading that some distribution outlets, like Walmart, would not stock a movie that did not have a theatrical run. Didn’t have to be a long run, just had to be in theaters.
Here’s your chance! A spaghetti sci-fi, part-written by Matheson, follows the book mostly, fell into the PD in the '80s. Not a terrible way to waste an hour and a half, though it needs Sven-Surround.
In Jackie Gleason’s “apology” for the game show clinker You’re in the Picture, The Great One stresses that everyone on the production thought the show was going to be a hit. They playtested it in their offices with the secretarial pool with everyone thinking it was funny. It wasn’t until they actually rolled out the production that they realized - very quickly - that this show was the biggest bomb any of them had ever seen. It lasted two nights: one where they actually played the game, and one where Gleason sat in a chair and apologized for the first night. In explaining how a bomb that big could happen, he told the story of a Broadway production he’d been involved in with A-level writing, acting, and musical talent all around. Everyone was sure it would be a success; it was anything but. He contrasted that with a show about an ugly butcher who can’t get a date starring an unknown. Needless to say, Marty was a huge hit.
I can recommend “The Disaster Artist” Greg Sestero’s memoir of the production of “The Room” and his friendship with auteur Tommy Wiseau. According to his account, everyone on the production was convinced that the film would never be released because it was so bad.
For your viewing pleasure, there’s Popatopolis, a documentary that follows B movie director Jim Wynorski as he makes a feature … in 3 days! The cast and crew in this production acknowledge their awareness of the quality of the film.
Truffaut’s Day For Night is a great film about film making. (Starring himself as the director of course.) He has a nice line about making a movie in it:
“Making a film is like a stagecoach ride in the old west. When you start, you are hoping for a pleasant trip. By the halfway point, you just hope to survive.”
Outside of low budget schlock, Adam Sandler films, and such, most people start off hoping it’s going to turn out well. Somewhere along the line, reality sets in. Could be in pre-production, could be at the premiere. Usually it’s during filming.
Though ***Shakespeare in Love ***was nominally about Elizabethan theater, it was really a satire of modern Hollywood.
Recall Geoffrey Rush’s words: “Allow me to explain about the theatre business. The natural condition is one of insurmountable obstacles on the road to imminent disaster.”
A distraught investor asks, “So, what do we do?”
Rush answers, “Nothing. Strangely enough, it all turns out well.”
That is FREQUENTLY (though, God knows, not ALWAYS) the case with making a movie. To use just one example, Steven Spielberg will tell you that, during the making of Jaws, everything that could possibly go wrong did, and they were constantly worrying that the result would be an expensive megabomb, rather than the classic thriller it turned out to be.
Not long before Titanic came out, the show biz press was calling it the biggest disaster since Heaven’s Gate! Everyone seemed to agree that James Cameron’s ego and excesses had wasted two to three hundred million dollars on a turkey.
For that matter, before Dances With Wolves came out, everyone in Hollywood was calling it “Kevin’s Gate.” It looked as if a star’s vanity project had yielded an expensive turd.
Which just goes to show that… William Goldman was right. “Nobody really knows anything.”
Jack Lemmon was on Larry King many years ago and the topic of “Grumpy Old Men” came up.
He told King that he and Walter Mathau figured part-way through that the movie was horrible. Lame script, lame jokes, total piece of crap. Then, it came out and was a pretty good hit. They even made a sequel.
It goes the other way, too.
I know Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron were furious(heh) at George Miller during Mad Max 4’s production. I’m not sure if they thought it would bomb, but I don’t think either thought it would be the great movie it ended up being.
And of course, Donald Sutherland and Elliott Gould thought Robert Altman was an incompetent director and tried to get him removed from MASH. Who knew it would actually edit into a funny and great movie?
While people who worked on “Life with Lucy” realized it was a turkey, those at the top: Lucille Ball, Aaron Spelling, ABC thought they had a massive hit like “Golden Girls” on their hands.
Of course they had to finish the movie; it would be career suicide not to. An actor who quits a movie will be unwanted by any reputable producer. An actor who finished a terrible movie like a professional is like every other actor there is; pretty much ANY actor with a respectable list of credits has been in a bomb or three.
Even if the movie turned out badly, it would probably still make some of its money back. Especially a Batman movie.
All the movies that actually hit theatres were MEANT to be good. As has been pointed out, the production of a large scale film is a complicated process, almost always involves mid-production re-writes, and is difficult to determine the success of until you’re pretty far into it.
By the time you become sure the movie will be really bad, most of the money is already spent. The principal shooting is done, the sets and costumes long paid for, the union labor paid. At that point it is almost always going to be worth it to finish the movie to extract whatever revenue you possibly can. “Batman and Robin” was a financial disaster but it did pull it over $100 million at the box office; had it not been released it would have pulled in nothing at all, and by the time they knew how bad it would be most of the dough had already been spent and the cost to finish it was far less than $100 million.
On a commentary track for the 1953 version "War of the Worlds", one of the sci fi film historians notes that scifi films were usually profitable in the 1950s. Yet no studio decided to make a huge mega bucks sci fi film which seems baffling.
My favorite example of this comes from one of the all-time turkeys: “King Kong Lives”. Allegedly, writer Steven Pressfield thought it would be great - even after watching it - and was totally crushed when it bombed.
Not really. The studios at that time were still geared to churning out more standard fare, and besides, the quality of special effects was generally pretty crappy. Not only that, they were prohibitively expensive. To film blockbusters like Star Wars, they would have needed technology vastly superior to what was available.
There were, of course, exceptions to the above, e.g., Destination Moon, The Day the Earth Stood Still, and Forbidden Planet, but today they look very dated. The original Star Wars movies will still look fresh 100 years from now.