10 films that ruined their creators

Not all films pay off: sometimes the studios “keep their own” or go into the red, but most often such blunders are not fatal.

Today we will talk about a dozen paintings that had the opposite effect and became fatal for the creators. They hit their pockets so hard that they forced the company to shut down and file for bankruptcy.

10 Titan: After the death of the Earth | 2000

The cartoons “The Lion King” and “The Little Mermaid” clearly proved the viewer’s interest in full-length animation, so Fox decided to come to grips with this niche, trying to, if not bypass, then at least move Disney.

They put everything but their heart into their project: a huge budget of $75 million was spent on the fees of voice acting stars (Drew Barrymore, Matt Damon) and cutting-edge graphics.

There were even plans to release the game on the Playstation, but the commercial failure put an end to them.

Less than 10 million in the first weekend immediately made it clear that the project would not pay off, so the final 22 million in the US no longer surprised anyone, as did the closure of the Fox Animation studio.

9. Mystery of the red planet | 2011

The bizarre cartoon about Martians abducting earthly mothers was pumped in at $150 million (and that’s not including marketing costs), and it earned less than a third of that amount.

Such a failure forced Robert Zemeckis to close his cartoon department, which was engaged in the creation of the “Secrets of the Red Planet”, and also put an end to his plans to shoot a new “Yellow Submarine” – a remake of the 1968 cartoon of the same name about The Beatles.

8. Cleopatra | 1963

Now hardly anyone remembers how a film with a planned budget of $ 2 million became one of the most expensive in the history of cinema.

As filming progressed, the costs grew and grew until they reached the astronomical size of 1963 million by the standards of 44, which is currently ~ 300 million.

Even more striking is the fact that after a resounding failure at the box office, the picture managed to pick up 4 Oscars out of 9 nominations.

Losses even forced the Fox studio to sell 300 acres of land that it owned in order to get out of the red and somehow improve the financial balance. If not for this, it would also have closed and would not have grown into the giant of the film industry that we know today.

7. What do you guys need! | 1983

And again, a film favored by critics (also 4 Oscar statuettes), but for some reason not accepted by the general public, which did not go to cinemas to see it.

Based on real events, the story about the astronauts could not even recoup the modest budget of 27 million, not to mention any profit.

In the same year, the Ladd Company released the animated comedy Twice Many Years Ago, which also flopped. Such a “double” led to the closure of a generally good studio.

6. Naked drummer | 2008

Of all the actors whose path to Hollywood was opened by the series The Office, Rainn Wilson turned out to be the most unfortunate: for a long time he was called only for secondary roles, and when he finally got the main one, it was the film The Naked Drummer.

A third-rate comedy filmed by Fox Atomic (a subsidiary of Fox created specifically for such tapes) turned out so bad that the parent company immediately closed its offspring.

The actor’s career, by the way, has not improved either: he has become less likely to act, only recently appearing in “Meg: Monster of the Depth” along with Jason Statham.

5. Cutthroat Island | 1995

In the early 90s, Carolco was on a horseback: “Terminator 2” and “Basic Instinct” brought her both money and respect, but she could not keep it.

Thinking about resurrecting the pirate movie genre, she took on Cutthroat Island, spending nearly $120 million on it.

Robbers, plowing the sea, literally sank the studio (world fees did not recoup even 20% of the costs), forcing it to declare bankruptcy even before the release of the last film.

4. Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within | 2001

Video game adaptations are rarely successful, as was known even in 2001, but Square still took a chance by entrusting the production of the animated film “Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within” to the sister studio Square Pictures.

Despite the fact that the plot of the project did not intersect with the Final Fantasy series of games, the authors still hoped for the interest of gamers, because the franchise has a huge army of fans.

Their hopes were in vain and the 137 million dollars spent did not even return half, and the studio was immediately closed.

This is even strange, given the amazing graphics (the entire cartoon is drawn on a computer) for those years, a good plot and the excellent work of the voice actors, in which Alec Baldwin took part.

3. This wonderful life | 1946

This picture is a kind of “Irony of Fate” for Americans and is regularly shown before the Christmas holidays, becoming not just a classic, but a real national treasure.

However, in the year of release, the authors got into trouble: director Frank Capra and two of his friends lost a lot of money, they had to close the studio The Liberty, which they barely had time to open.

2. Golden compass | 2007

We’ve written about the ambition of some failed films before, but The Golden Compass will quietly give 100 handicap points to each of them.

New Line Cinema, intoxicated by the success of The Lord of the Rings, decided to create a new franchise that could compete with it.

Remembering that the money spent on the Peter Jackson trilogy paid off many times over, the bosses were not stingy and allocated as much as 180 million for the filming of The Golden Compass, which was their mistake.

Even the stellar cast with Nicole Kidman, Eva Green, Daniel Craig and even Ian McKellen, who dropped in, didn’t help out.

As a result, New Line Cinema had to count losses, and a little later it was taken over by Warner Bros.

1. City of Lies, Artemis Hotel | 2018

It is no coincidence that 2 films are listed here, since both of them were shot by the same studio and almost simultaneously, and both became the reason for its closure.

The first, “City of Lies” – a detective story with Johnny Depp about the investigation into the murder of Tupac Shakur and the war of rappers, was supposed to be released in 2018, but due to the spoiled image of Johnny Depp and other problems, the release was postponed indefinitely.

Artemis Hotel also boasts starring stars (Jodie Foster, Sterling K. Brown, Dave Bautista), but other than that, there is no reason to be proud, because its release was the latest nail in the coffin of Global Road, which ended last year in a big disadvantage, which led to bankruptcy.