# Lowest grossing Hollywood film ever? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 1, 2003, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lowest-grossing-hollywood-film-ever/145985 "2003-01-01T03:44:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![mrs\_bales](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@mrs\_bales](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mrs_bales)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2003, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lowest-grossing-hollywood-film-ever/145985/1 "2003-01-01T03:44:06Z")
I know that Mariah Carey’s Glitter, only did 2 million and that Howard the Duck was one of the biggest flops too. I wanna know the biggest flop ever. I’ve never heard of a movie only grossing like $100, 000. Has this ever happened? ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d26b3c/32.png) [@Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Blue_Sky)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2003, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lowest-grossing-hollywood-film-ever/145985/2 "2003-01-01T03:56:30Z")
According to The Box Office Guru, a movie called [_Far Out Man_](http://us.imdb.com/Title?0099546) made only $82,000. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Cynical](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ee59a6/32.png) [@Mr.Cynical](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Cynical)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2003, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lowest-grossing-hollywood-film-ever/145985/3 "2003-01-01T04:00:43Z")
Even worse: It’s Pat, a SNL spin off, grossed $60,822 at 33 theaters. ---
**Author:** ![Ephemera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8baadc/32.png) [@Ephemera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ephemera)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2003, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lowest-grossing-hollywood-film-ever/145985/4 "2003-01-01T04:09:56Z")
Worse yet, I’ve seen “It’s Pat” on Showtime and actually didn’t mind it. Does that make me sub-human? ---
**Author:** ![mrs\_bales](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@mrs\_bales](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mrs_bales)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2003, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lowest-grossing-hollywood-film-ever/145985/5 "2003-01-01T04:16:07Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Mr. Cynical \* > \*\*Even worse: > > It’s Pat, a SNL spin off, grossed $60,822 at 33 theaters. \*\* That makes me kinda sad. Never seen the movie, but the skit was a hoot. The average movie ticket goes for about, $8? $60,000, that’s depressing. ---
**Author:** ![Markxxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2003, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lowest-grossing-hollywood-film-ever/145985/6 "2003-01-01T04:17:47Z")
I rented it for 1.00 and it is a decent movie. It is more like a TV Type Movie but there have been a lot worse movies. Anybody think Pluto Nash?? Xanadu?? Can’t Stop the Music?? ---
**Author:** ![BrandonR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/779978/32.png) [@BrandonR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrandonR)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2003, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lowest-grossing-hollywood-film-ever/145985/7 "2003-01-01T04:40:53Z")
It’s Pat is one of the greatest movies of all time. ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2003, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lowest-grossing-hollywood-film-ever/145985/8 "2003-01-01T04:53:23Z")
The “Fantastic Four” movie might be considered to be the lowest grossing movie ever, but then again it was never even officially released. Even on video. ---
**Author:** ![Lorenzo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4da419/32.png) [@Lorenzo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lorenzo)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2003, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lowest-grossing-hollywood-film-ever/145985/9 "2003-01-01T05:09:22Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Mr. Blue Sky \* > \*\*According to The Box Office Guru, a movie called [_Far Out Man_](http://us.imdb.com/Title?0099546) made only $82,000. \*\* Wow, man. I bought a copy of that on VHS. IIRC, it wasn’t that great, man. You really wanted it to be greet, man, for Chong, but it just really wasn’t that great, man. For completists only. ---
**Author:** ![buffybeast](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/53a042/32.png) [@buffybeast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buffybeast)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2003, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lowest-grossing-hollywood-film-ever/145985/10 "2003-01-01T05:33:22Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by mrs bales \* > \*\*I know that Mariah Carey’s Glitter, only did 2 million and that Howard the Duck was one of the biggest flops too. I wanna know the biggest flop ever. I’ve never heard of a movie only grossing like $100, 000. Has this ever happened? \*\* Hey, I liked Howard the Duck. ---
**Author:** ![vivalostwages](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d07c76/32.png) [@vivalostwages](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vivalostwages)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2003, 6:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lowest-grossing-hollywood-film-ever/145985/11 "2003-01-01T06:57:19Z")
Kenneth Branagh’s **Love’s Labours Lost** made less than a million. I don’t think it was well reviewed. Does anybody even remember it? And Tim Burton’s **Ed Wood** –one of my all-time favorites–made a only a few mil., even after Martin Landau won a supporting actor award. ---
**Author:** ![Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapioca_Dextrin)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2003, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lowest-grossing-hollywood-film-ever/145985/12 "2003-01-01T16:25:53Z")
I think I’ve got everyone beat (except for the Fantastic Four Fiasco). [Dad Savage](http://us.imdb.com/Title?0118915). Despite the prescence of Patrick Stewart, I read in Empire IIRC that the UK gross was £76 ($125 or thereabouts). That’s talent. ---
**Author:** ![muttrox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a8b319/32.png) [@muttrox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muttrox)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2003, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lowest-grossing-hollywood-film-ever/145985/13 "2003-01-01T17:22:15Z")
The question is asking two different questions. What movie made the least gross is not at all the same as the biggest flop. Biggest flop would belong to something like Ishtar, Heavens Gate, WaterWorld, i.e. a movie that cost an enormous amount to make and made very very little of it back. I mean geez, how much did Pat actually cost to make, who cares if it only grossed 62K (and by the way those movies are intended for video market also where it seems to be doing OK judging from the responses on this thread). ---
**Author:** ![bernse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@bernse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bernse)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2003, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lowest-grossing-hollywood-film-ever/145985/14 "2003-01-01T17:26:40Z")
I actually saw both Xanadu and Howard the Duck in theaters when I was a kid. Do I get some sort of prize? ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2003, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lowest-grossing-hollywood-film-ever/145985/15 "2003-01-01T17:34:57Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by vivalostwages \* > \*\*Kenneth Branagh’s **Love’s Labours Lost** made less than a million. I don’t think it was well reviewed. Does anybody even remember it? \*\* I’m trying to forget it. Why did they make it into a musical? Oh the horror! ---
**Author:** ![Eats\_Crayons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/278dde/32.png) [@Eats\_Crayons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eats_Crayons)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2003, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lowest-grossing-hollywood-film-ever/145985/16 "2003-01-01T17:54:44Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by bernse \* > \*\*I actually saw both Xanadu and Howard the Duck in theaters when I was a kid. Do I get some sort of prize? \*\* I gotcha beat – I have friends who _worked_ on _Howard the Duck_ and I had to see it many times. One of the reasons it was considered a huge flop though was because, at the time, it had an unprecendentedly high budget that then ballooned up and went significantly over budget. (However, they’ve taken some comfort thinking of it as a “research and development” project – they developed some incredible robotics technology for the duck that was later used in more profitable movies and TV shows.) The “greatest flop” would be as **Muttrox** said the one that also cost the most. There are hundreds of films made every year that aren’t ever even picked up by distributors so they have a one and only screening at a film festival and never even make it to video. You just never hear about those ones. Two horrible movies are _Carver’s Gate_ and _Silverman_. They barely saw the light of day _Carver’s Gate_ showed in ONE theatre (that I know of) and only for one week, and the title was even mispelled on the theatre’s marquee. _Silverman_ somehow got picked up by a video distributor, even though after its premiere, my friend went out with one of the producers who called it “the worst pice of crap he’d ever seen” and the lead actor was horribly embarassed by it. Those are but two examples – many, _many_ more movies are produced each year and then vanish _or_ end up being released obscurely overseas (like a film that was released only in German-speaking Switzerland and Italy). ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2003, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lowest-grossing-hollywood-film-ever/145985/17 "2003-01-01T18:09:02Z")
**muttrox** : _Heaven’s Gate_ is proof that even a beautiful, wonderful film can be a “flop” at the box office. I’m not sure I agree with your definition though. I was going to post something earlier about how the B.O. gross must be related to the cost of making the film in order to get an accurate picture of “the biggest flop”; but the OP is asking which release made the least money, not which lost the most. ---
**Author:** ![muttrox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a8b319/32.png) [@muttrox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muttrox)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2003, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lowest-grossing-hollywood-film-ever/145985/18 "2003-01-01T18:30:39Z")
The OP is asking two different questions: 1. Which movie grossed least? 2. Which movie biggest flop It assumes these are the same, my point is that they are not. #1 is a question of fact, I think the answer is $0, as eats\_crayons pointed out. #2 requires definitions – reasonable people can disagree, depending what criteria go into a “flop”. ---
**Author:** ![bcullman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bcullman/32/8207_2.png) [@bcullman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bcullman)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2003, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lowest-grossing-hollywood-film-ever/145985/19 "2003-01-01T20:32:39Z")
Dad Savage has some promise, but I don’t recall seeing it in the theaters at all. Naturally, _any_ movie that isnt released in theaters is going to be a low grossing movie. I think we need some parameters to define this ‘lowest grossing hollywood movie’, most importantly, released in over X number of theaters, where X is suffiently large to classify the movie as at least tried in the theaters. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2003, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lowest-grossing-hollywood-film-ever/145985/20 "2003-01-01T20:37:17Z")
I recall some article which calculated which movie had the worse inverse relationship between production cost and ticket sales. The winner was _Cutthroat Island_. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lowest-grossing-hollywood-film-ever/145985.md?page=2)