British impresario Malcolm McLaren’s headstone reads, “Better a spectacular failure, than a benign success.” So it goes in life and, sometimes, at the movies.
Hollywood makes lots of movies. Most of them aren’t good. Sometimes the good ones make money (lots of the bad ones do, too), but then sometimes…they don’t. Films fail at the box office for many reasons, though—a poor release date, a distracted news cycle, a disconnection from the zeitgeist, a flagging trend—not always because they’re bad. Some infamous money-losers rank with my favorite movies—and probably yours, too.
What follows are 35 films that didn’t connect with audience in theaters—which is a nice way of saying they flopped, earning less in ticket sales than they cost to make and market. Sometimes, it’s easy to see why (Speed Racer hit 10 years too soon). Other times, not so much (why did John Carter stumble where Avatar flew?). But whatever the reason, these films were initially viewed as disappointments—though many are now considered cult classics; too off-kilter, quirky, or challenging to initially connect with mainstream audiences, they found their fans on video or streaming. Or, maybe I just think they’re good. (It’s my list, after all.)
Please note: I have not included on this list The Shawshank Redemption—perhaps the flop-worth-watching ne plus ultra—because it needs no help from me. It was the internet’s favorite movie for more than a decade, after all. Consider it mentioned.