Poll: Worst movie fiasco ever

[zekeson]

Poll question: Poll: Worst movie fiasco ever

Poll: Worst movie fiasco ever

Jennifer and Ben have received a lot of attention lately – much of it due to their reportedly horrid movie, Gigli – pronounced, near as I can tell G-Lee. Is it the worst movie of all time? Or, is another movie your absolute least favorite disappointment? Below are the movies I’ve selected for the poll. These are ones that I often hear associated with Worst of All Time.

To aid in your decision making (or, to skew the poll results in an already worthless pool) I have added some fiscal info. You can’t vote for an “other”, but feel free to discuss others.

Stars, title, Cost/return (worldwide assumed) percent return.

Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck
"Gigli"
$54 million dollars/24m * estimated at this point (44.4% of production costs)
Dir: Martin Brest

Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton
“Cleopatra"
$44 million/26m (59% of production costs)
Dir: Joseph L. Mankiewicz

Kris Kristofferson and Christopher Walken
"Heaven's Gate"
$36 million/3m (8.3% of production costs)
Dir: Michael Cimino

Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman
"Ishtar"
$55 million/12.7m (21.3% of production costs)
Dir: Elaine May

Arnold Schwarzenegger
“The Last Action Hero”
$100 million/26m (26% of production costs)
Dir: John McTiernan

Geena Davis & Matthew Modine
“Cutthroat Island's”
$100 million/$9.9m (9.9% of production cost)
Dir: Renny Harlin

Eddie Murphy
"Adventures of Pluto Nash"
$100 million/$4.4m (4.4% of production cost)
Dir: Ron Underwood

Kevin Costner
“Waterworld”
$200 million/88.3m (42.5% of production cost) * worldwide gross over 225m
Dir: Kevin Reynolds & Kevin Costner

Most stats for this poll came from:
http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/1995/0WTRW.html
Other info from IMDB.com

[keopeli]

1. I'll vote Ishtar, but you left out Howard the Duck! :) NM

[schrodinger_I]

2. Battlefield Earth

What a piece of crap!!!!! I even had free tickets but still walked out on it.

[Nay]

23. Yeqh, Battlefield Earth gets my vote. Thank god I didn't actually PAY

to see this piece of incredible tripe.

[radwriter0555]

24. Town and Country REALLY REALLY SUCKED

too.

[Drifter]

3. Proud to say ...

I have never seen any of these movies (I can't imaging that will change). In fact there are actually a few I have never heard of.

the best part about being a person who (in general) does not see movies, is that I never have to suffer through a bad one.

I think the last movie I saw was 6th sense (most likely a video rental).

Cheers
Drifter

[ET Awful]

4. You left out Battlefield Earth

Which is the one I'd be most likely to vote for.

Starring John Travolta
Released in US May 12, 2000
Total US Gross $21,471,685
Production Budget $80,000,000
Worldwide Gross $21,471,685
Distributed by Warner Bros.

[bookman]

14. Ouch...

..that WAS a bad one.

[BigMcLargehuge]

16. Just think, 12 dollars of that domestic gross is mine!

I saw it twice. The feel good comedy of 2000.

I haven't ever laughed that hard at a movie. I even brought the deeply discounted action figures to the second showing.

[MiltonLeBerle]

26. Are you saying that it wasn't even released internationally?

seeing as the U.S gross is the same as the worldwide take.

[Superfly]

5. Didn't we just do this

about 2 weeks ago?

Just wondering...

[eyesroll]

6. I actually, kinda-sorta liked Last Action Hero...

(ducks)

[Nomad559]

8. The Blair Witch Project

How Is it that this AWFUL movie Is not on list. x(

[zekeson]

10. It has the top return on investment of

ANY movie ever, so wasn't really relevent in my loose definition of fiasco.

[KinkyDem]

19. I thought that was

The Texas CHainsaw Masacre.

That movie sells TONS of copies even still, cost to create was like $400 and NOONE in the original cast has EVER been paid.

[zekeson]

21. according to the source I pulled this data from

TCSM has grossed 7 million. I don't see a listing of costs - I agree - there can't have been much expense and I have heard the same about pay to cast.

http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/1986/0TCM2.html

No other movie comes close to the BWP's ROI

Blair Witch Project, The
$35,000 cost
$248,300,000 return
354,614.29% return

[zekeson]

7. Clearly I should've included Battlefield Earth

Completely missed it -on the poll and on big or small screen.

And, I think the poll that was done a few weeks ago was a what movie sucked poll, or what was your least favorite. This was a kind of fiasco poll - lotsa hype, low return cuz even Hollywood couldn't turn this sows ear into a silk purse.

Speaking of which I should've also included Swept Away.

[MrBenchley]

9. Heavens' Gate Hands Down...

Based on the Johnson county wars of the 1890s, in which two people were killed, Cimino managed to kill three stuntmen making his mess.

He didn't like the color of the dirt in Glacier National Park so he he brought new dirt...then dumped that dirt into the lake when he didn't like that color either.

He shot more than a million feet of film (a normal feature uses 100,000). Kodak ran a concurrent ad campaign with the ironic slogan "If you don't do it right, what's the use?"

His leading lady didn't speak English and had to read her lines phonetically....when she spruned Cimino's advances, he had stuntmen beat her up.

After the debacle at the premiere, he convinced the studio to let him spend millions more on a prologue and epilogue. The prologue, which was supposed to be taking place at Harvard, was shot at Oxford, where he cut down a 400 year old oak. The epilogue showed the sun setting in the east.

He actually sank the studio.

[soleft]

13. Heaven's Gate Destroyed the Studio - United Artists

[MrBenchley]

17. Yup!

It's an unwatchable mess....with what seems like half an hour of rolelr skating in the middle...

[zekeson]

18. I was gonna stay out of this

but WHAT the hell was all that about? I understand that was one of the real cost factors too. Building a damn rink to spec of the time... Unwatchable.

[MrBenchley]

34. Koresh only knows...

I've only seen it on video, and even fast forwarding it seems endless....

How about the chase through the dust storm? All you see is dust blowing past the camera for minute after minute, with indistinct shapes somewhere in the background.. Suddenly a wagon comes into the foreground and turns over, and a subtitle says "Help! The wagon turned over!"

And the sound is totally inaudible throughout...at Intermission when John Hurt rears up on the white horse, you can tell from the rhythm what he says is a poem, but you can't make out a single fucking word of it.

I had a friend who went to the premiere, who said that after the first three minutes the actors began getting up and sneaking for the exits and that by 25 minutes in, the entire front of the theatre was empty.

[zekeson]

35. Great story

I hadn't heard that before, but I would believe it. I have the orginal one sheet poster of the tragedy. Used to think it would worth something to collectors of horror films.

[meegbear]

11. What about "Swept Away"?

Didn't only make 500K opening weekend?

[zekeson]

12. Swept Away

Was made only to be included in this list, it would seem:
Swept Away
$10,000,000 cost
$598,645 return
-97.01% of return

[Throckmorton]

15. Ishtar is a wonderful movie.

Why do you all feel the need to bash such a wonderful and sensitive movie?

The song composition scene is a tribute to American Cinema. "If you admit you can play the accordian no one will hire you for a rock and roll band", could be the story of my life.

[newyawker99]

33. Congrats Throckmorton!! 900 posts

:toast:

[KinkyDem]

20. What about the first two attempts to

film Dune.

They never finished either one at cost of millions and millions of dollars.

[zekeson]

28. Lets roll that into the actual "finished" version of Dune

that would create quite an expensive barf-fest. I really couoldn't tolerate Dune. The released version bored the crap out of me - don't recall that I ever made it more than an hour into it - that giant worm with all the guys mopping up after him caused me twice to have to leave the theatre in hsyterical laughter. Note to self, don't get drunk before attempting viewings of Dune...

[slack]

30. *oops*

I was too late ;)

[Richardo]

22. I'm from the future (September 8, 2003). It's this one:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=242244

DC 9/11: Time of Crisis

[KamaAina]

25. "Last Action Hero" 'cause Ahh-nuld's the biggest movie fiasco ever!

Remember, kids, stay away from the beef tacos!

[ForrestGump]

32. "Last Action Hero" is excellent

Arnie proves he's not beyond poking fun at his own image and the entire affair was pretty telling in its lampooning of action-movie stereotypes. The dude who played Benedict (Charles Dance), the glass-eyed villian, was also superb - he's got to be one of the most over-the-top bad guys in movie history.

The film may not have the substance of "Total Recall" or "Terminator II" (or even others, like "Predator" and "Running Man") but it's probably my favorite Schwarzenegger film, at least in terms of being able to watch and enjoy the thing over and over.

Some great supporting actors in it, too. I mean, dude, Sirs Ian McKellen and Larry Olivier were in it..... :D



"I'm the famous comedian, Arnold Braunschweiger."




"Where are the ordinary, everyday women? They don't exist, because this is a movie!"

"No, this is California."

[baldguy]

27. The Adminstration of George W Bush

It cost the investors $250 mil to set him up, and now, after just a little over two years into it, the rest of us owe $480 bil.

And we've still got two years to go.

[slack]

29. another one: Dune

from David Lynch (great Novel from Frank Herbert).

[stoner_guy]

31. Pluto Nash Cost 100M?

I have that on DVD. It is a decent movie. I had no idea they spent that much money on it. I'm going to have to watch it again to see where all the money went.