8 Movies That Bombed So Hard They Bankrupted Studios

WhatCulture

Even The Man of Steel isn't exempt from killing his own studio through a bad box office performance.

Transcript

00:00Not every movie can be a box office smash, and that's okay.

00:03How much money a movie takes in often has little relation to its actual quality.

00:07Plenty of films are just too niche for a wide audience

00:10and go on to achieve dedicated cult followings once they're released on home media.

00:14But there's a difference between being a box office disappointment and being a box office bomb.

00:19And there's an even bigger difference between being a box office bomb

00:22and losing your studio so much money that they are forced to declare bankruptcy.

00:26And so with that in mind, I'm Ellie with WhatCulture,

00:29here with eight movies that bombed so hard that they bankrupt their studios.

00:35Number 8. The Golden Compass, New Line Cinema

00:38New Line was on top of the world back in 2007.

00:42Since 1967, the production company had built up a reputation for taking chances

00:47on oddball films that other parts of Hollywood might pass on.

00:50A Nightmare on Elm Street and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles films

00:54were their greatest successes until 2003,

00:57when they produced the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

01:00It was easily their most profitable investment yet,

01:03with the films grossing nearly $3 billion worldwide.

01:06Riding high on this success, New Line immediately put $180 million

01:10towards adapting another popular fantasy book series for the big screen,

01:15Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy.

01:17Unfortunately, this stillborn film franchise did not perform quite as well as they hoped.

01:23It only took in $70 million in the United States,

01:26and while it performed much better abroad,

01:28New Line had sold the overseas distribution rights to fund the film's production.

01:32This meant that they never saw a dime of that foreign revenue.

01:36This was regarded as one mistake too much by parent company Time Warner,

01:40and New Line was swallowed up by Warner Brothers Pictures

01:43just two months after The Golden Compass's release.

01:46Number 7. The Lady Vanishes – Hammer Productions

01:50Hammer Productions and Alfred Hitchcock are two titans of British cinema.

01:54Hammer is still known worldwide for its timeless Hammer horror films,

01:58such as The Quatermass Experiment and Christopher Lee's iconic performance

02:02in their Dracula adaptation.

02:04Hitchcock is, of course, known for equally well-regarded classics such as Psycho and Vertigo.

02:09So you'd think that Hammer Productions' remaking a Hitchcock masterpiece

02:13would be a recipe for critical and box office success.

02:16Sadly, what looks good on paper doesn't always work out so well in reality.

02:20By 1979, Hammer's gothic horror films had fallen out of fashion,

02:25and they attempted to pivot towards more serious fare with films like The Lady Vanishes.

02:30But critics were lukewarm at best towards it,

02:32and it didn't exactly make a splash at the box office.

02:35This final financial disaster, after a long string of them,

02:38forced the studio into a long hibernation.

02:41Since a revival in 2007, they have been lending their name to the odd horror release,

02:46but they are undoubtedly a shadow of what they once were.

02:49Number 6. Looney Tunes Back in Action – Warner Bros. Feature Animation

02:54Remember when Brendan Fraser was the big star of the moment back in the early 2000s?

02:59After The Mummy hit our screens, Hollywood were determined to push him as the next big leading man

03:04and put him front and centre on most of their posters.

03:07So what went wrong?

03:08Well, apparently starring in movies like this one certainly didn't help.

03:12By all accounts, the production was a complete mess behind the scenes.

03:16Warner Bros. initially wanted it to be a sequel to 1996's Space Jam,

03:20but Michael Jordan refused to sign on again.

03:23Then they changed it to Spy Jam and tried to lure Jackie Chan into playing the title role.

03:28This also fell through, and eventually long-time Looney Tunes fan Joe Dante

03:32was brought on to direct what would become Back in Action.

03:35He received absolutely no creative freedom,

03:38and the film didn't even make its $80 million budget back at the box office,

03:42only managing to pull in $68.5 million.

03:46Warner Bros. went from planning to release more Looney Tunes movies as soon as possible,

03:51to shutting down its feature film animation division entirely.

03:54Now, just for the record, I personally love this film.

03:57It is my childhood, so I won't hear a negative thing said about it, and that is all.

04:02Number 5. It's a Wonderful Life, Liberty Films.

04:06In the years before World War II, Frank Capra had earned himself the title of Hollywood legend

04:11and three Academy Awards for Best Director.

04:14After returning from the war, he founded the production company Liberty Films in 1945,

04:19along with three other former servicemen.

04:21The very first film of the new company was to be It's a Wonderful Life.

04:26Unfortunately, while the Christmas classic actually did reasonably well at the box office,

04:30it was nowhere near successful enough to recoup its production costs of $2.3 million,

04:35and the fledgling studio found itself facing financial ruin barely a year into its existence.

04:41It was quickly swallowed up by Paramount,

04:43who locked Capra and his friends into multi-picture contracts with their studio.

04:47Liberty Films would only go on to release one more film under its label,

04:501948's State of the Union, before finally being dissolved in 1951.

04:56Capra later wrote of this failed venture that its purpose was to

04:591. Influence the course of Hollywood films,

05:022. Make four former army officers independently rich,

05:05and 3. Virtually prove fatal to my professional career.

05:09Ouch. Truly his own worst critic.

05:11Number 4. Battlefield Earth Franchise Pictures

05:15Say the words box office bomb to somebody,

05:17and there's a strong chance that this will be one of the films they think of first.

05:21John Travolta, a devout Scientologist,

05:23had been trying for years to get an adaptation of L. Ron Hubbard's Battlefield Earth Greenlit.

05:28In 1998, he finally found a financial backer in the newly founded Franchise Pictures,

05:34and things just went downhill from there.

05:36Upon its release in 2000, Battlefield Earth was savaged by every critic alive,

05:41amateur and professional.

05:42Everything from the acting to the direction to the special effects was torn to shreds,

05:47and the whole fiasco ended up making only $29.7 million against the $73 million budget.

05:54John Travolta, newly restored to the spotlight thanks to Pulp Fiction six years prior,

05:59found his reputation once again in tatters.

06:01The people running Franchise Pictures were later found guilty of inflating the budgets of the likes

06:07of Battlefield Earth and other features to scam investors and filed for bankruptcy in 2007,

06:13leaving behind nothing more than a legacy of dodgy dealings and awful movies.

06:18Number 3. Mars Needs Mums Image Movers Digital

06:22Robert Zemeckis has had a varied career, to say the least.

06:25You'll find well-regarded successes in his filmography, such as Forrest Gump or Back to the Future,

06:30but you'll also see more than a few misfires like What Lies Beneath or Welcome to Marwen.

06:35While he didn't direct Mars Needs Mums, it was made by his company Image Movers as part of a joint

06:41venture with Disney, and his fingerprints are all over it.

06:44The odd motion capture animation that Zemeckis had previously used in A Christmas Carol was on

06:49full display again, and it looked just as unsettling here. In fact, the entire thing just looks downright

06:55ugly. Audiences seem to think so too, as the movie took in only $39 million against its $150 million

07:02budget, which cemented it as Disney's biggest financial disaster ever. Even before the film's

07:08release, Disney and Image Movers announced that Image Movers Digital, the division that made the

07:13movie, would be closed down. Shutting down your company after your release fails is one thing,

07:18but going bust before the movie is even released? That has got to hurt.

07:212. Heaven's Gate – United Artists

07:25From the mid-1960s to the early 1980s, Hollywood was a hotbed of experimentation.

07:31Legendary pioneers like Martin Scorsese, Robert Altman and Francis Ford Coppola were being given

07:36unprecedented freedom to make the kinds of films they wanted to make, free from the studio restrictions

07:41of the preceding decades. This era gave us some of the greatest American films ever made,

07:47but it all had to end sometime. Still riding high from his best picture-winning classic,

07:52The Deer Hunter, director Michael Cimino decided to write a tale about a dispute between land barons

07:58and settlers in 1890s Wyoming. Upon its release in 1980, Heaven's Gate was derided by every industry

08:05publication as one of the worst movies ever made. The critical thrashing was so bad that United

08:10Artists actually pulled it from the theatres after just one week. They attempted to release it again a

08:15year later in a slightly shortened director's cut format, but that also performed horribly,

08:20only taking in $3.5 million against its $44 million budget.

08:26Not only did Heaven's Gate put United Artists out of business, with the failing studio eventually

08:31becoming part of MGM, it brought an end to the freedom that maverick directors had enjoyed in

08:36Hollywood for so long.

08:37Number 1. Superman IV The Quest for Peace – The Canon Group

08:42When the first Superman feature film hit cinema screens in 1978, it changed the landscape of film

08:48forever. With its groundbreaking use of special effects and genuinely emotional moments, it was

08:54the first indication for Hollywood that superhero movies might be worth investing in. Naturally, it was

08:59followed by three sequels in an attempt to cash in as much as possible on this new franchise.

09:04But being in something only for the money can be perilous. Sometimes you still luck out and get

09:09a halfway decent end product, and other times you get Superman IV. The film looks noticeably cheap

09:15the whole way through, a result of having its $36 million budget slashed in half. A particularly

09:21hilarious example is a scene in which Superman is supposed to be approaching the United Nations

09:26building in New York City. Of course, any viewer with even a vague idea of what that building

09:30looks like can see that Superman is not even in America. The scene was in fact shot in Milton

09:36Keen's, with very little effort made to hide that fact. The Canon Group, teetering on the brink

09:41of bankruptcy even with the movie's reduced budget, was brought out by Pathé Communications

09:46the following year, and soon ceased to exist altogether. Not so super, man.

09:52That concludes our list. If you think we missed any, then do let us know in the comments below,

09:56and while you're there, don't forget to like and subscribe, and tap that notification bell.

10:01Also head over to Twitter and follow us there, and I can be found across various social medias

10:05just by searching Ellie Littlechild. I've been Ellie with WhatCulture, I hope you have a magical

10:10day and I'll see you real soon.

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