I just had the misfortune of seeing Fantastic Four. After that atrocity was over, I had to know why it was so bad, and read about a ton of production drama, from a director that couldn’t take the pressure, to an interfering studio, to using a special effects company that was simply not up to the job of such a major production, and then simply the fact that Fox wanted to get a movie out before a deadline so they could keep the rights to the characters.
But that seems to be how most movies end up truly awful. The director isn’t getting what he says he needs, or his ambitions are much bigger than the budget, or there’s major cast drama or studio interference. Or it’s just a sequel that a studio wanted put out to make a quick buck and didn’t care about quality.
So anyway, what I’d like to hear about on this thread are bad movies, where there was adequate funding(so no small indie films), a competent director, good cast, no drama, and the end product was exactly what everyone involved was looking for. And yet still got crapped on by audiences and critics.
Ah, decent one, since that was actually Lucas’ vision, but at a 6.5 on IMDB it’s more “bad for a Star Wars movie” than just plain bad. And it certainly made tons of money for Lucas and the studio. But you’ve got the general idea.
There’s really no mystery here. As anyone who’s ever held a job can tell you, lots of projects fail due to bad planning, bad design, bad management or bad luck. Frankly, I’m more often surprised when something actually works.
One thing I remember happening when it came to new product rollouts is that if management really believed in it, nobody really saw a point in dissenting. No one wanted to sound negative.
According to most of my contemporaries, and the critics, Gore Verbinski’s Lone Ranger is a bad movie. And I’m pretty sure it’s the movie they wanted to make.
There are films that get great reviews but do poor business. I recall the small budget independent horror film All The Boys Love Mandy Lane which ‘re-invented the genre’ but was quickly bought and then shelved for years. Never got a proper release.
There are films that get poor reviews but do fantastic business. Stuff like Transformers being an obvious example.
There are films that get poor reviews on their release but many years later are reappraised far more kindly. Many examples here but Blade Runner will do.
There are films which do badly in the USA but far better business worldwide or on DVD. Mixing mediums Police Squad managed just six episodes on TV but as The Naked Gun managed three very successful films.
No film is universally good or bad - look at the cult following of Plan 9 or the Steven Seagal films.
Yeah, I’ve been going through IMDB lately and finding a lot of very high rated movies that were complete failures at the time.
Once Upon a Time in America-8.4 IMDB rating
Blade Runner(as you mentioned)
A Christmas Story-8.1
Some movies rated fairly low that did HUGE business:
Crocodile Dundee 2
The Golden Child
Cocktail
I guess that’s how movie studios got the idea that a star could make a film money. During the 80s, anything with Tom Cruise or Eddie Murphy was gold, regardless of quality. That doesn’t seem to work as well as it once did.
Eh, I’m always a little sceptical of after-the-fact finger pointing that goes on after a movie flops. The director always says its due to studio interference, or insufficient marketing or whatever. The screen-writers say the director wildly changed the script, the studio says the cast or directors were prima-donnas who couldn’t be reasoned with.
Which isn’t to say stuff is made up or anything. But I’m sure it goes on during the production of successful movies as well. It’s just dragged out in public when someone needs to blame a poor box-office take on someone else, “Success has many fathers, failure is an orphan” and all that.
Right, there are very few movies that go 100% smoothly, and there are almost always changes along the way, and notes from the studio. So then if the movie does turn out badly, there is likely something that can be blamed.
But the Phantom Menace is a good example of movies that go wrong because there is too little interference. It doesn’t happen all the time, but sometimes a director has a really great movie that does really good business, and then the studio thinks of them as a genius and gives them a lot of money to do whatever they want. Heaven’s Gate and Elysium are two other examples, and I know there are others that I can’t think of. They’re not the worst movies ever, but they could have been better with more interference.
Most of Adam Sandler’s recent movies could also count. He’s not given tons of money because he’s thought to be a genius, but because his movies had been making enough money so it seems a safe bet to let him keep making movies. I don’t think there are any big production problems with his movies, they are more just like big vacations he takes with friends and they happen to make a stupid movie while doing it.
Figures for box office gross are notoriously unreliable due to creative accounting. However consider the ‘bad’ career of John Carpenter.
He had mediocre success with ‘turkeys’ like Halloween which grossed (according to IMDB) $47 million, both the Escape from… films grossed about $25 million each, The Thing only managed $19 million.
Wikipedia reports his films have grossed in total $282 million at an average of $18 million per film although back at IMDB they give a more generous, but still pretty pathetic, career total of $305 million.
Even allowing for inflation none of these films have done much.
This for a portfolio which includes the above mentioned films plus **Assault on Precinct, They Live, Dark Star, Christine, Fog, Starman, Big Trouble In Little China **and many others.
As I said I suspect the reported figures are lower than the truth however it is widely agreed Carpenter, despite his fame and influence, has performed poorly at the box office. Yet many, myself included, consider some of these films amongst our personal favourites.
Not really. It’s the numbers reported by theaters, who have no particular reason to cheat. The only unreliability is that they aren’t adjusted for inflation, though there are some charts that do that, too.
Box office net is where the creative accounting comes in.
I think in many cases, the studios are aware of the issue. The problem is it’s a competitive business. If you’re a director who’s just had a huge success, you’re going to be receiving multiple offers from different studios. You’re in a position to demand no interference and the studios that won’t agree don’t get a chance to work with you. So some studio will agree to let you make your dream project the way you want and just hope for the best.
And the gamble often pays off. There’s the box office equivalent of a dead cat bounce. Whatever the new movie is, the studio can sell on it the basis that it’s by the same guy that made that hugely popular movie from last year. That’s usually enough to guarantee some ticket sales even if the current movie is nothing like the last one.
If a movie is poorly received than the principles will create reasons after the fact about why it turned out so badly. Whether you believe them or not is optional.
Nick Cage was quoted some years after The Wicker Man came out that it was an intentional parody all along. He claimed people didn’t understand that. I don’t believe him, but I believe it WAS a hysterically funny unintentional parody, but I’m not sure of what.
I don’t know of After Earth having any significant production problems (unless you count “Directed by M. Night Shyamalan” as a production problem). But, by most accounts, it was an expensive dud that, despite its massive budget, didn’t make that much money. Wikipedia has it at $130M Budget and $244M Box Office, but I understand there were other hidden costs (such as its $100M advertising budget), that may not figure into those numbers.
I’d put Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull in this category. I don’t believe there were any production problems; everyone seemed to be in agreement about what they wanted the film to be; the cast and crew were all top-notch and on friendly terms.
And yet the movie is “meh” at best. 6.2 on IMDB. Go to Rottentomatoes, and you’ll see a positive critical consensus, yet the audience rating is only 54%. It’s not a disaster, but for many people it is just missing some vital spark.
I saw After Earth not long ago and thought the script was insultingly stupid. But a lot of films can overcome a poor script.
The film was basically a vanity project for Jayden Smith, the son of Will Smith. Will’s stature in the industry (and co-starring role) got the film approved, funded and made but it was always a full budget ‘blockbuster’ which was going to be carried by the not especially bankable Jayden Smith. That didn’t guarantee failure but made success more of a risk.
Then there is the suggestion on IMDB that Will Smith did uncredited direction.
While it is easy to be wise after the event (no pun intended): Rich father creates a film project for his son. Isolates the boy from objective criticism during production. Big budget meaning the film has to reach a high standard of success.