Warning: This article contains discussions/references of slavery
With movies like Top Gun: Maverick making waves at the box office, it is easy to forget the big-budget stinkers that didn't fare as well. The history of cinema is filled with movies that completely bombed in theaters, but not every flop is remembered.
From war epics like The Alamo to literary dramas like Beloved, some of cinema's biggest disasters have slipped from popular memory. Though many movies have been box office bombs, only the worst of the worst were so bad that fans pushed them from their minds and tried to forget all about them.
1. Town & Country (2001) - $10 million
Some movies are tremendous flops because they are pumped with so much money that they can't possibly earn enough. Town and Country was one such example and is a story that follows a middle-aged couple, who find their marital bliss interrupted by the problems of infidelity.
With a cast of older stars like Warren Beatty and Diane Keaton, the film could have been a moderate success despite its terrible reviews. It was light and innocuous enough to appeal to almost anyone, but it ended up being a terrible failure because it was made so opulently. Middle of the road comedies usually fade away as is, but the box office disaster that was Town and Country practically disappeared from memory after earning only $10 million (via Box Office Mojo).
2. Chill Factor (1999) - $11 million
Feeling very much like a film from 1999, Chill Factor combined two actors whose careers wouldn't make it long into the new millennium. The film follows two men who must keep a pair of heat-sensitive bombs from getting into the hands of terrorists.
Cuba Gooding Jr. and Skeet Ulrich were tapped to carry the film, and though they do a serviceable job, the entire experience comes off like a ripoff of Speed. Lacking the suspense of the aforementioned film, Chill Factor was only a box office bomb because it was made for a ridiculously large amount of money ($70 million - via Box Office Mojo) that it couldn't recoup.
3. Zoom (2006) - $12.5 million
Before the MCU, there were a few years when superhero movies dominated the summer movie calendar. Zoom attempted to get in on that trend and was the story of a former superhero who is called back into action to train a group of young heroes.
Unbelievably cheesy and without a clear audience, the movie was resoundingly rejected because viewers didn't need a family-friendly alternative to superhero movies. Tim Allen was past his box office drawing heyday, and the cash-grabbing cynicism of the film had audiences picking something else at the movie theater, leading to the movie earning $12.5 million at the box office (via Box Office Mojo) and the studio to lose a lot of money.
4. Ishtar (1987) - $14.3 million
The '80s was a decade of box office expansion, and it seemed like any movie with a decent budget could turn a profit. However, the buddy comedy Ishtar somehow failed to ride that wave. When two awful lounge singers book a gig in Morocco, they find themselves in the middle of a plot to overthrow the government.
Despite having Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman in the lead roles, the film completely failed to launch, earning only $14.3 million at the box office (where the budget was $55 million - via Box Office Mojo). Director Elaine May had succeeded with her brilliant films before, but her talents didn't seem to translate to a tent-pole movie. Ishtar failed to recoup its inflated budget and actually ended up costing way more than it earned.
5. Hudson Hawk (1991) - $17.2 million
Though Bruce Willis had starred in high-grossing movies in the '80s, by the '90s he began to find himself in a string of flops. Hudson Hawk is the story of a world-famous art thief who must steal a series of DaVinci works as a part of an international conspiracy.
Unlike the gritty action roles of his prime, Hudson Hawk opted for a sillier tone that came off as cartoonish. The cast was box office gold, but fans didn't seem interested in yet another goofy action film that already felt dated by 1991. While it wasn't the biggest flop of all, earning over $17 million at the box office (via Box Office Mojo), it certainly lost the studio a bundle of cash.
6. Ballistic: Ecks Vs. Sever (2002) - $20 million
As if the weird title wasn't enough to scare people away, the obvious copycat nature of Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever doomed it from the start. Two feuding agents must work together to stop a dangerous device that can be implanted in someone and kill them at will.
The Matrix was not only one of the highest grossing movies of the '90s, but it had an obvious influence on the visual style of action films for a few years afterward. Ballistic was clearly trying to get in on the trend, but by 2002, audiences weren't buying it. Its gigantic budget (via $70 million) made it doomed to fail, and the actual product was so poorly reviewed that nobody was buying.
7. Beloved (1998) - $22 million
The works of author Toni Morrison are some of the greatest novels in American history, but Beloved proved they weren't necessarily box office gold, earning $22 million at the box office (via Box Office Mojo). The story concerns an ex-enslaved woman who is visited by the spirit of a young woman, who may have something to do with her deceased daughter.
Lacking the lyrical nature of Morrison's writing, Beloved was far from one of the best book-to-film adaptations of all time. Even stars Oprah Winfrey and Danny Glover's star power wasnt enough to draw audiences to seats, and the almost three-hour-long movie was a box office bomb with a lot of missed potential.
8. The Alamo (2004) - $25 million
Accuracy isn't always a recipe for a great film, as The Alamo can attest. The film dramatizes the events of the standoff at the Alamo in 1836 between American settlers in Texas and the forces of Santa Anna's government.
The film was well-made, and an obvious labor of love, but the story wasn't really what audiences were looking for in 2004. After war movies, like Pear Harbor, failed to live up to expectations, it's likely that the audience probably wanted to avoid the same pseudo-historical drudgery with The Alamo. Naturally, a film about a historical event was bound to cost a lot ($107 million via Box Office Mojo), and the movie's meager returns saw it flop tremendously ($25 million).
9. The 13th Warrior (1999) - $61.6 million
The late-'90s was feast or famine at the box office and movies either broke records or bombed. The 13th Warrior is the story of an ancient Middle Eastern soldier who is sent by the Sultan on a special mission that finds him embroiled in the conflicts of a Viking village.
Though mostly competently made, and with a huge budget to boot ($160 million via Box Office Mojo), the action epic failed to move the needle with fans. It wasn't sunk by bad reviews, but it seems as if no one was particularly interested in seeing it. Even though it made a respectable amount of money (over $61 million), it still came out on the losing end because of its gigantic production budget.
10. Windtalkers (2002) - $77 million
Nicolas Cage's career has seen its ups and its downs, and Windtalkers was certainly one of his down moments. During WWII, a pair of Marines are tasked with protecting a squadron of Navajo soldiers.
The early 2000s was a peak time for war movies, but Windtalkers was missing something that could have put it over the top. Though it is considered one of Cage's most underrated movies, it paled in comparison to movies like Saving Private Ryan. War movies are costly enterprises and Windtalkers was far from a triumphant victory at the box office, earning only $77 million at the box office (via Box Office Mojo).