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Box Office Bomb: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
A [[Box Office Bomb]], or a ''flop'', is a movie for which production and marketing cost greatly exceeds its gross revenue. It doesn't mean, however, that it merely made studios lose money - gross revenue doesn't equal studio profit <ref>(''[[Waterworld]]'' is commonly cited as a money sink, and it indeed made the studio lose money, but its gross revenue greatly exceeded its budget; thus, not a flop)</ref>. It means it lost a truly ''spectacular'' amount of money. On the other hand, most but not all box office bombs cost their studios money: gross revenue often doesn't include revenue from DVDs and whatnot (justified because the revenue from theaters is much easier to count), or (often) revenue from the world outside America<ref> (''Waterworld'' made more than its budget abroad)</ref>; justified, because [[Little
This is not to be confused with [[Useful Notes/Hollywood Accounting|Hollywood Accounting]], where the movie is not ''actually'' a flop but the real revenue is hidden either for tax evasion or as part of a [[Springtime for Hitler]] scheme.
Commonly cited possible reasons for box office failures:
* '''Bad word-of-mouth''': The movie just happened to be simply so bad that people avoided it. Those who enjoy [[So Bad
* '''[[Dueling Movies|Competition]]''': This is particularly often in effect with [[Summer Blockbuster|summer blockbusters]]. People have a limited amount of brainless action they would watch, and if there's a lot of that available, some titles may be neglected. They also tend to be high-budget, and as such if the movie flops, it costs a ''lot''. There is, however, often a principle similar to [[Award Snub]] in nature: several good movies (with similar target audiences) are released simultaneously, thus one of them performs truly spectacularly, another one flops, but both are considered [[Vindicated By History|great in hindsight]] (the hit ''[[ET the Extraterrestrial (Film)|ET the Extraterrestrial]]'' and the flop ''[[Blade Runner (Film)|Blade Runner]]'', for example).
* '''Poor marketing''': Many a bomb became so despite (or due to) being an excellent movie in general. [[Never Trust a Trailer|Incorrect]] or [[Misaimed Marketing|misleading]] information about them (or just plain ''lack'' of marketing) makes audiences rely exclusively on word-of-mouth, which is generally not enough for a movie to successfully perform. The internet has made this situation a bit better, but not that much. These movies almost always achieve [[Cult Classic|cult status]] and can later become profitable on DVD.
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* ''[[The Garbage Pail Kids Movie]]'' (1987) -- Budget, $30 million. Box office, $1,576,615.
* ''[[Gigli]]'' (2003) -- Budget, $54-74 million. Box office, $7,266,209.
* ''Glitter'' (2001) -- Budget, $22 million. Box office, $5,271,666. This film's failure, along with that of the accompanying soundtrack album, sent [[Mariah Carey (Music)|Mariah Carey]]'s career [[Star
* ''[[The Golden Compass]]'' (2007) -- Budget, $180 million. Box office, $70 million (domestically), [[Germans Love David Hasselhoff|$372,234,864 (internationally)]]. Unfortunately, New Line Cinema had sold off the international distribution rights in order to raise enough money for the film's production, meaning that they only got the domestic gross, and never saw a penny of the international box office. As a result, [[Creator Killer|New Line was absorbed into]] [[Warner Bros]] soon after.
* ''Harts War'' (2002) -- Budget, $70 million. Box office, $33,076,815.
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* ''[[Mr. Bug Goes to Town]]'' (1941) --- Budget $713,511. Box office, $214,000. The film received almost no promotion from Paramount in either it's 1941 release, nor it's 1946 re-release as "Hoppity Goes To Town".
* ''[[The Nutcracker in 3D]]'' (2010) -- Budget, $90 million. Box office, $14,678,086, nearly all of which came from the Russian market.
* ''One From The Heart'' (1982) -- Budget, $26 million. Box office, $636,796. This film [[Creator Killer|bankrupted]] [[Francis Ford Coppola]], with most of his work for the next two decades being done [[Money, Dear Boy|to pay off the debts he accrued from making it]]. Like ''[[Heavens Gate (Film)|Heavens Gate]]'', it also heavily contributed to the end of the [[New Hollywood]] era.
* ''[[Outlander (Film)|Outlander]]'' (2008) -- Budget, $47 million. Box office, $7,033,683, nearly all of which came from overseas.
* ''[[The Postman (Film)|The Postman]]'' (1997) -- Budget, $80 million. Box office, $17,626,234. This film succeeded where ''Waterworld'' failed, essentially [[Creator Killer|ending]] [[Kevin Costner]]'s A-list status and his run as writer and director of his own films, though he would continue finding moderate success as an actor.
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* ''[[Red Planet (Film)|Red Planet]]'' (2000) -- Budget, $80-100 million. Box office, $33,463,969.
* ''[[Redacted]]'' (2007) -- Budget was a modest $5 million. Box office was a ''very'' modest $65,000. That's sixty-five ''thousand'' dollars. International revenues added another... $700,000.
* ''[[Rollerball (Film)|Rollerball]]'' (2002) -- Budget, $70 million. Box office, $25,852,764. It promptly [[Star
* ''[[Sahara]]'' (2005) -- Budget, $241.1 million<ref> $160 million in production costs, plus $81.1 million in distribution and marketing expenses</ref>. Box office, $202,938,255. After a lawsuit put several documents relating to the film's production into the public domain, the ''[[American Newspapers|Los Angeles Times]]'' did [http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-movie15apr15,0,6005119.story a report] using the film as a case study in production costs run amok.
* ''[[Showgirls]]'' (1995) -- Budget, $45 million. Box office, $20,350,754.
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