BLOGS
Whether you'll be sitting down to a turkey dinner or a Tofurkey lunch this Thanksgiving, we invite you to reflect upon the following ten movies from 2008. They weren't necessarily the lowest-grossing pictures of the year, but they failed to live up to financial expecations, in a big way. These suckers plummeted to the earth, flightless and doomed, like those poor gobblers dropped from a helicopter in that famous episode of WKRP in Cincinnati. It's not hard to imagine some of the investors saying, much like dazed radio station manager Arthur Carlson, "As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." But they couldn't, and they can't, so they've landed here with a resounding thud.
10. Zack and Miri Make a Porno: $24m (budget) / $29m (gross) It turned a small profit, and will no doubt make more in DVD sales, but given the stars, director, and plot, doesn't it seem like it should have made more already?
9. Babylon A.D.: $70m (budget) / $22.5m (gross) It'll break even when you add in the worldwide figures, but when even the director hates the movie, it's bad news.
8. Over Her Dead Body: $10m (budget) / $7.6m (gross) This came out in 2008? Really?
7. Mad Money: $22m (budget) / $20.7m (gross) Considering the almost constant TV ads leading up to the opening, investors gotta be mad it didn't make more money.
6. The X-Files: I Want to Believe: $30m (budget) / $20.1m (gross) Sorry, Chris Carter. We wanted to believe, but you were a few years too late with this.
5. Bangkok Dangerous: $45m (budget) / $15.3m (gross) It's Nicolas Cage in a movie called Bangkok Dangerous. What more can be said?
4. The Rocker: $30m (budget) / $6.4m (gross) It had a lot of the right notes, but it didn't rock the box office.
3. Miracle at St. Anna: $45m (budget) / $7.9 (gross) No miracle saved this one for Spike Lee.
2. Meet Dave: $60m (budget) / $11.8m (gross) We didn't expect this to make much, but someone must have.
1. City of Ember: $55m (budget) / $7.7m (gross) It looked amazing, it had interesting actors, but next to nobody saw it. Did you even see ads for it?
Note: Data is from Box Office Mojo or IMDB. Gross refers to domestic/U.S. numbers. Budget refers to production budget.
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I actually liked Bangkok Dabgerous. It was certainly Nic Gage's best action movie in a long, long time.
Wow, I had completely forgotten about 'The Rocker' already.
City of Ember was actually really good. I'm sad that more people didn't end up seeing it. It was a well-done, strong family flick with excellent characters and acting. When it comes out on DVD, see it with your kids!
I loved Zach and Miri, that's too bad. But Kevin Smith makes more from DVD sales on all of his movies anyway.
I really wanted to see City of Ember. Planned on seeing it, watched the trailers, played the games on the website, squeed when I came across the odd clip, read all the books . . . and then when it came out, no theatre within three hours of my house was playing it. And as much as I wanted to see it, my rule of thumb is that I'm not going to spend more time on the road than I will watching the movie.
I'm going to pick it up on DVD to make up for it.
30 million sounds about right for a Zach and Miri. None of Kevin Smith's movies have ever really done much better than that in theaters, so that is obviously the extent of his fanbase.
That's a shame about Mad Money. I had no desire to see it because I hate Katie Holmes. We rented it anyway and LOVED it! I thought the story was great and the movie was hilarious and I actually liked Katie Holmes in the movie.
City of Ember was really well done and may very well become a classic family film when it comes to DVD. Zach and Miri was both funnier and sweeter than I expected but it did about the right box office for a Kevin Smith flick.
I really wish Miracle at St. Anna did better
I'll make more effort to get to the theater to see films when the theater owners/managers start making people stop yakking like they are in their own living rooms during the movie. And when you ask people to "please be quiet", they generally act like you are the a**hole being rude. No need to mess with that...
Miracle at St. Anna was horrifyingly bad. It's the first time I've ever asked for my money back (and I see about a movie a week, for years and years now). And I didn't even get it.
Even though k.s.'s movies haven't been real huge financial hits at the b.o., I also thought z&m would be a bigger hit financially. Not a huge blockbuster, but a lot more than like jersey girl or something.