The Gunslinger45's top 10 Favorite Box Office Bombs

Hello MoFos! It is my weekend, and I feel like throwing out another top 10. This week I want to showcase some films I like, but happened to fail at the box office.

Now I want to lay a few ground rules for this list:

1. NO CLASSICS! Yeah a lot of movies now deemed to be all time greats and classics flopped at the Box Office. The Wizard of Oz, Citizen Kane, It's a Wonderful Life, Blade Runner, and Vertigo were not initial successes financially, but are deemed to be all time greats. I want this list to be unique and personal, not safe and easy.

2. If it is in my current top 50, it is disqualified. I want to showcase new movies. Otherwise number one and two will be The King of Comedy and Serenity. We must have some mystery to this thread.

3. I have to GENUINELY like the movie. No "ironic" hipster cool BS, and no so bad it is good.


So sit back, relax, and have a gander at my top ten films that crapped the bed in the cinema.

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Fear and Loathing in MoFo... The Gunslinger 45's Top 50 Favorite Films

In the 10 Ring: Gunslinger45's reviews

10.



One of the more notorious films on this list. Known for it's troubled production that drove the budget through the roof, it did not get its budget back from the box office. It was only after VHS and DVD sales, plus the sales to TV that this movie would eventually break even. And when your movie costs over 100 Million bucks, you want to make money, not just getting your money back.

That being said, I saw the movie in the theater and I liked it well enough to get it on VHS and rewatch it frequently. The set design I thought was very cool, and Dennis Hopper as the bad guy was a good choice. The action was cool, and Kevin Costner was pretty good. And while I would not put this movie in my Top 100, it is no where near a disaster of a movie the production was. Costner made that movie with The Postman.

We are one for one. I did not think Waterworld was bad at all. I was a big Costner fan back in the day, as you may see when Sexy's movie star list comes around. When he throws that little girl in the water for annoying him, that still sticks with me. Seemed out of place in a spectacle like Waterworld.

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Letterboxd

9.



This movie is less of a bomb, and more of a box office disappointment. But what do you expect when the movie was released around the same time as the then highest grossing film of all time Titanic. The mixed reviews at the time did not help much.

But then it came out on home video and developed into a monster cult classic. I mean this movie has conventions, books written about it, and can be quoted by just about every college slacker on the planet. Not to mention it is pretty damn funny. Hell ask the likes of Daniel M and Miss Vicky who are just a few of our local fanboys and girls of The Dude and this film.

This is also the first of a few films that will appear on this list that dis not find their audience in the cinema, but became loved on DVD and home video.

I'm not repping you for Big Lebowski. Sorry. Ick!

I had no idea Lebowski was a bomb. It is brilliant. We are of course two for two. If that is #9, I can't wait to see what's next.

8.

Every post Governorship Swarzenegger movie.





Yeah I am kinda cheating here. These days some people seem to be cynical toward the cinematic return of Arnie. His last two solo features both debuted in the bottom of the top ten at the box office. Same goes for the Sly Arnie team up film Escape Plan. I myself am not one of those cynical people. I really dug these movies!

The Last Stand was my personal favorite of these films. Arnie as an aging Sheriff of a border town not only allowed Arnie to be an action star again, but also allowed to be an AGING action star. This guy is not trying to make people forget he is older. The fact that these roles all call for an older guy is part of what makes them appealing. He knows he is old, calls it out, but will still blow away the bad guys in R rated fun!

7.



When Guap was still here he called this film the worst movie ever made. It is no where near that bad. But that being said it is no where near perfect. The movie has issues regarding creative control between the studio and David Lynch and the pace goes from slow to break neck in the blink of an eye. And trying to world build AND tell a complex story did not work out so well.

But that being said, I still like the movie. The set pieces and visuals are unique, there is a slight Lynchian touch, the movie is even more quotable for me the The Big Lebowski, and there is a nostalgia element as I saw this on the Sci-Fi channel when I was a kid.

I'm very curious about Escape, but you claim The Last Stand was better and I didn't think that movie was all that.

Are Stallone and Schwarzenegger in the movie A LOT? The whole time?

I seen Dune first run at the theater. I read the book right before seeing the movie so the film worked for me. If someone hadn't read the book they might say what the heck is all of this stuff?

6.



Not only was this a bomb, it bankrupted Warner Brothers Animation Studios. And I have no idea why, THIS IS A REALLY GOOD MOVIE! Cold War drama, giant robots, and it is a kids movie that does not talk down to the kids or makes me as an adult feel I am watching something dumbed down. And Vin Diesel was REALLY good as the Iron Giant.

So why did this movie fail? It sure as hell was not the critics, they loved the movie! The most likely case was like with a lot of these movies opened up against other big time flicks, and that hurt the box office. Dune went up against Beverly Hills Cop, The Big Lebowski and Titanic, and this movie was released the same week as The Sixth Sense.

But this movie has a big fan base, so all is not lost. A great piece of animation... that I regret I forgot to put on my Top 25 Animations list.

Yes they are.

5.



As everyone here knows I love Scorsese. The man is a master filmmaker. But even he has made a few bombs. But unlike other directors, his bombs I generally like. And because I said I would not go with The King of Comedy since I already talked about it, I am going with the movie that is actually Marty's biggest bomb.

Hugo was Scorsese's kids movie. Let that sink in. But Scorsese does not dumb down his film for kids. There is no pandering and no playing to the lowest common denominator. Just a lot of great storytelling. And what really shines through is his love of film. The story revolves heavily around the films of George Melies, the French illusionist and filmmaker. Even recreating behind the scenes sets for soe of his films. And along with a lesson in early film, Marty gets in his other passion for film preservation which comes toward the end of the movie. It is a very sweet and touching film from a man who usually deals with films geared towards adults. But that is why Marty is great. The ability to make a great movie in multiple genres.

I watched The Iron Giant for the animation list, and I really enjoyed it. I had no idea that it was a bomb in the theaters. I'm still not sure if it's going to make my final list, but it hasn't been cut yet from my potential list.

I saw Hugo by accident, but I was glad that I watched it. My father-in-law called me and asked me to buy him the DVD of Argo, but I misheard him and thought he said Hugo, so I bought the wrong movie. I decided to watch it instead of returning it. I had no idea that it bombed at the box office. It deserved better than that.

4.



Pitch Black was a small scale creature feature where Vin Diesel was the side character Riddick. He was a multiple murderer with a morbid sense of humor and not completely beyond redemption. This was the sequel to that movie, only now the budget was quadrupled, the scale was ramped up to space epic, and Riddick is now the central focus. The reviews for Pitch Black were mixed, while the reviews for Chronicles were pretty negative. This also killed the franchise until the third movie Riddick was released a few years ago.

This is another case case of the movie not doing so well at the theater, but has done VERY well on DVD. Now I have dug the movie since I saw it in the theater and I have no idea why people complain about the movie. I though this movie was a blast. It is a LOT of fun. A great movie I can just sit back and relax to. It had a great cast, great settings, and Riddick is stone badass.

That was a HUGE problem with the movie. Hard to dive into. It was not set up like Jackson did the Lord of the Rings movies. Also helped that those movies were about an hour longer then Dune.

3.



Now a lot of these film on my list are bombs of disappointments. This movie, is one a MAJOR box office bomb! It may lack the stature or infamy of Heavens Gate, Inchon, or Pluto Nash but this was still a HUGE flop. Production problems plagued this movie, and blew the budget up to a rumored 160 million dollars. And the film grossed around 60+ Million dollars, and that is not even taking into account the money spent on advertising. This movie tanked and tanked hard. And John McTiernan's career went to hell with it.

That being said, I really like this movie! Yeah it is the same kind of story that Seven Samurai did so much better. But I really liked the whole Viking and Arab angle. You had some great actors, great action, and the sets were terrific. And I quote the hell out this movie. Between the line about the Fire Worm, to the lines of Buliwyf, to me learning their warrior's prayer.

This will not be remembered as a great movie, but I love the movie all the same.

2.



Coming off the success of Clerks, Kevin Smith was brought in to Universal by producer Jim Jacks to make his second feature. The movie is really good, but the marketing campaign by Gramercy Pictures was S**T! No one knew this movie was out. And brought in around 450,000 dollars it's first day, and 2.5 million by the end of it's short theater run. Well below the 6 million dollar budget.

But the film found it's audience on home video and DVD, and continues to be a gateway film for many of Kevin Smith's fans. And hasmore then made it's money back on DVD. And it is a REALLY funny movie! I love it.

1.



I LOVE this movie! I was one of a handful of people who saw it, and I saw it in 3D. And for the longest time (or at least until I saw Gravity) it was the best movie I saw in 3D.

But even without the 3D it is a REALLY fun movie. Man tracks down the satanists who killed his daughter and stole his grand daughter so they can sacrifice her to the Devil. Fast cars, gun play, violence, explosions, pointless nudity, NIC CAGE! Add in the grindhouse sort of feel and William Fichtner as the scene stealing Accountant makes for a hell of a ride.

By no means a classic, but I adore this film. And I am one of very few who do. This flick was not appealing to a broad audience. But I love it, and that is all that matters.

Never seen Dune or The Chronicles of Riddick. I gave up on Mallrats to avoid slitting my wrists. Waterworld isn't terrible, but it's not good. I found Hugo to be pretty dull; it's definitely my least favorite from Scorsese.

It took a couple viewings for The Big Lebowski to really grow on me, but now I love it. The Iron Giant was near the top of my animation list. I haven't seen The 13th Warrior since it first came out. Supposedly my ancestors were vikings, so those kind of movies appeal to me. I remember liking it, but it's been so long and I remember so little that it'd basically be like watching it for the first time if I revisited it.

It sucks that Schwarzenegger's return to the big screen has been met with a yawn from the public. I enjoyed The Last Stand quite a bit; it was fun, entertaining, provided some thrilling action and had some funny one-liners-- all the key ingredients to a good Schwarzenegger movie. Escape Plan was decent. I didn't like Sabotage at all, though--- far too dour for its own good.

for Drive Angry. I think it's a better grindhouse-style film than Machete or Planet Terror and some of the other imitators to come out in recent years. People have grown so accustomed to Cage's films sucking that they seem to automatically reject everything he does, but Drive Angry was in on its own joke. It was a bad movie on purpose, but immensely entertaining for all the reasons you mentioned: over-the-top violence, gratuitous nudity, Nic Cage drinking beer from another man's skull. I mean, how is that not awesome?

I guess my favorite box-office bomb would be last year's The Lone Ranger. Johnny Depp is one of my favorite actors, so it had that going for it. Plus I love westerns, which is a genre that's essentially been on life support for quite some time. I was worried that it'd be too Disneyfied, but that concern was eliminated pretty early on when Fichtner's character cut another man's heart out. I also like my big-budget blockbusters to have a great sense of adventure. The Mummy comes to mind, for instance, of even the much-maligned Indiana Jones & the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. The Lone Ranger has that same adventurous spirit, which is something that's missing from a lot of summer blockbusters nowadays. (Blame it on The Dark Knight syndrome.) Everyone wants SERIOUS, whereas I prefer my popcorn flicks to be fun and over-the-top and humorous and even a little bit zany. The Lone Ranger is definitely bloated; it's thirty minutes too long and has one too many climaxes, but I found it more thrilling and entertaining than just about any other movie from last year. Naturally, everyone else hated it and thought it sucked.

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