| 1 | %%Zero-Context Examples are not allowed. Such examples have been commented out. Please add more context before restoring them. |
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| 3 | Some films are able to attract multiple demographics. ''These'' films, on the other hand, [[AudienceAlienatingPremise tend to attract a very small demographic]]. |
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| 6 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 7 | |
| 8 | [[folder:Genres]] |
| 9 | * Almost every movie set during [[UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror the Iraq War]] of 2003 has been a BoxOfficeBomb, including ''Film/TheKingdom'', ''Film/GreenZone'', and ''Film/InTheValleyOfElah''. The war itself is so politically charged (the most controversial case since UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar) that any depiction of it risks alienating large chunks of the audience based on its perceived politics, and it's too current to work as a PeriodPiece. An alternative explanation is that the problem is with films perceived as critical of the military, or as depicting typical soldiers as victims and/or war criminals. The one successful Iraq War movie, ''Film/AmericanSniper'', focused on a specific, real life soldier and thus was distant enough of those pitfalls, and even then, the film was controversial due to the supposed [[HistoricalHeroUpgrade sanitization]] of Chris Kyle, who some felt was a war criminal. ''Film/ActOfValor'' managed to make money, and ''that'' started life as a Navy SEAL recruitment film (and the jingoistic tone [[CriticalDissonance was hated by critics but certainly worked for the viewers]]). ''Film/ZeroDarkThirty'', by the same team of ''Film/TheHurtLocker'', also recouped its budget given it dealt with [[UsefulNotes/OsamaBinLaden the hunt everyone wanted to be solved]]. (''ZDT'', along with ''Film/LoneSurvivor'', also shows how Afghanistan is less contentious for audiences than Iraq and thus easier to sell). |
| 10 | * Unlike television, fictional movies where the central themes and characters are LGBTQ+ can be a hard sell for mainstream audiences, especially outside of the United States and Europe. The QueerShowGhetto is stronger (especially outside the aforementioned region where LGBTQ+ acceptance isn't as mainstream) than most other "Ghetto" tropes because not only will most straight people think such a movie isn't for them, but if it's about one specific queer subset--say, a lesbian period drama--then the other queer subsets might think the movie isn't for ''them'' either. And it's difficult to appeal to every group without coming across as pandering a ThemeParkVersion of queer culture. While ''Film/LoveSimon'' was a major success, much of that was due to {{Yaoi Fangirl}}s turning out in huge numbers. The majority of LGBTQ+ films are independent releases that have more creative freedom due to the smaller budget being easier to recoup. |
| 11 | * Hollywood and MediaNotes/ProfessionalWrestling tend to not mix very well, whether it be for movies directly about wrestling or a NonActorVehicle featuring a wrestler. Wrestling as a medium is often recognized as being a popular, crowd-pleasing artform, but also niche and often lowbrow, which often results in "wrestling films" being pigeonholed into low-budget B-movie shlock (a not-insignificant amount of films by Creator/WWEStudios falls into such material), with the one-two punch of mainstream audiences often being disinterested in the subject matter or its non-actor stars (even when Wrestling/HulkHogan and wrestling as a whole were in their prime of mainstream relevance in the late-80s, his forays into Hollywood led to a string of critical and commercial bombs), and wrestling fans being disinterested in watching their ''wrestling'' stars degrade themselves in a shallow attempt to imitate Hollywood as opposed to their strengths in the ring. While wrestling in films ''can'' be done justice (''Film/TheWrestler'' saw Creator/DarrenAronofsky making a critically and commercially successful character drama positively drenched in wrestling culture), and some wrestlers have been able to become successful actors ([[Wrestling/DwayneJohnson Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson]], Wrestling/JohnCena, and Wrestling/{{Batista}} have seen plenty of success as action stars, while the likes of Wrestling/RoddyPiper, Wrestling/KevinNash, and Wrestling/AndreTheGiant carved out a spot in various CultClassic films), often their success is built simply off their own terms -- committed endeavors by wrestling promotions [[ThisIsGoingToBeHuge to create "the next Hollywood star"]] tend to be widely panned across the board, with attempting to act and wrestle at the same time usually being a recipe for disappointment. |
| 12 | [[/folder]] |
| 13 | |
| 14 | [[folder:Studios]] |
| 15 | * Creator/SonyPictures is infamous for producing and releasing films with off-putting premises that are quite often critically reviled on release, generate [[OvershadowedByControversy controversy]] pre-release and [[BoxOfficeBomb bomb]] as a result of said controversy, '''especially''' after 2014: |
| 16 | ** While Creator/HappyMadisonProductions' films tend to attract audiences, they've also made a few that appeal to no one: |
| 17 | *** ''Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star'' promised viewers the story of a masturbating ManChild with a [[TeenyWeenie tiny penis]] attempting to become a porn star. It turned out the audience of people interested in seeing a buck-toothed man in a sweater vest repeatedly pleasure himself was very small indeed, and the film made [[BoxOfficeBomb less than a third of its budget back]], on top of being critically savaged. |
| 18 | *** ''Film/ThatsMyBoy'' is about the survivor of statutory rape at the hands of a middle school teacher and parental abuse at the hands of his father. Decades later, he's an unemployed alcoholic, and he hasn't spoken to his now-adult [[ChildByRape son of said rape]] in years. It's a comedy starring Creator/AdamSandler. Critics, and much of the potential audience, found the setup far too serious to be funny, and it never recouped its budget. |
| 19 | *** ''Film/{{Pixels}}'' combines the studio's usual low-brow comedy with a sci-fi action approach, featuring an AlienInvasion that copies 1980s video games. Gamers - plus older audiences in general - wouldn't like the low-effort jokes or how the movie depict them as losers, and younger people who could like this type of humor won't get the nostalgic references. Hence it failed at the box office, and marked Happy Madison's last theatrical release, as the studio has since retreated to Creator/{{Netflix}} exclusives. |
| 20 | ** ''Film/Ghostbusters2016'' became infamous for this. The fact that it was a ContinuityReboot with an all-female cast who unceremoniously replaced the originals rather than a continuation of the first two films did not sit well with the Franchise/{{Ghostbusters}} fanbase, which wasn't helped by the fact that a planned ''Ghostbusters 3'' was reportedly cancelled in favour of greenlighting this movie or that die-hard fans had been on-again-off-again taunted with the prospect of a proper third sequel for nearly ''thirty years''. The fact that it came out during a very contentious election year in which one of the candidates was a woman served to heighten the discussion over this film gender-flipping the cast, as well as the [[TaintedByThePreview underwhelming trailers]] and all the bad publicity caused by [[OvershadowedByControversy all the flame wars over the film's direction and cast]] resulted in casual moviegoers being turned off from seeing the movie as well, leading to it [[BoxOfficeBomb bombing]] at the box office despite [[SoOkayItsAverage a mixed to positive critical reception]]. It's rather telling that a major selling-point of ''Film/GhostbustersAfterlife'' is that it's a direct, if distant, sequel to ''Film/{{Ghostbusters II}}'' that [[{{Unreboot}} goes out of its way to ignore this version]]. |
| 21 | ** ''Film/CharliesAngels2019'' was a more sincerely feminist (and more race-diverse) continuation of [[Series/CharliesAngels the original 1970s series]]. But it didn't pan out: The original (male) fans were alienated by the reduced sexualization and the more {{Anvilicious}} and feminist tone of the characters, while the women and the young female audience Sony was trying to market to also ignored the film as they ''still'' viewed it as "the JiggleShow from the Seventies", and it was too dusty a property to woo the general 18-24 crowd (some of whom wouldn't have been born even when [[Film/CharliesAngels2000 the Cameron Diaz/Drew Barrymore/Lucy Liu films]] were released in the early 2000s!). Not helping matters was the fact that [[Series/CharliesAngels the previous attempt at a reboot in 2011]] was a notorious flop which only lasted four episodes. The result was a major BoxOfficeBomb. |
| 22 | * In the public mind, Creator/{{Disney}} is usually synonymous with mass-market, family-friendly {{Animated Musical}}s. Even though many of their successful movies have their darker moments, most of their attempts at making fully DarkerAndEdgier movies have alienated audiences by being too scary and violent for young audiences, while the "[[{{Disneyfication}} kiddie]]" stigma attached to the Disney name scares away older viewers, as shown by the disastrous box-office failure of ''WesternAnimation/TheBlackCauldron'', which almost ''destroyed the entire studio'', and was quickly forgotten once ''WesternAnimation/TheLittleMermaid1989'' was released into theaters and was proven to be far more successful. However, during the early 2000s, Disney then tried breaking away from the mold again, even revisiting the DarkerAndEdgier trope a second time, but this resulted in movies like ''WesternAnimation/AtlantisTheLostEmpire'' and ''WesternAnimation/TreasurePlanet'' becoming disastrous box office failures, forcing Disney to eventually begin to end their long-running trend of animating traditionally-animated movies for good. However, these movies are still considered as [[CultClassic cult favorites]], preventing them from being completely forgotten. |
| 23 | [[/folder]] |
| 24 | |
| 25 | [[folder:Individual Films — Animated]] |
| 26 | * ''WesternAnimation/ElArca'' is an animated retelling of the story of Noah's Ark from the animals' point of view that is very questionably written: Christians who would have been interested in the film for its Biblical story were turned off by its blasphemy and raunchiness, the aforementioned sexual themes made the movie unsuitable for children when its art style and sillier scenes seemed geared for them, and most viewers (except for [[VocalMinority a few members]] of the UsefulNotes/FurryFandom) were repulsed by the sexualization of animal characters. To cap it all off, a large number of furries are put off by the biblical themes. The movie seemed to have no idea who its audience was supposed to be, and consequently failed and fell into obscurity. |
| 27 | * ''WesternAnimation/BolivarElHeroe'': For one thing, the film takes many artistic licenses with the story of Simon Bolivar, which for many people is disrespectful. For another, the poor animation and the numerous and exaggerated clichés in an attempt to make an "{{Animesque}}" adventure also alienated anime fans. |
| 28 | * ''WesternAnimation/{{Cesante}}'' is a Chilean adult animated film that covers 12 hours in the life of an unemployed man named Carlos Meléndez and the trials and tribulations he goes through in search of work and respect. The film premiered in 2003, at a time when Chile was going through a serious economic crisis that left many people unemployed, which for many hit too close to home. In addition, the consciously ugly and grotesque aesthetic alienated viewers who weren't used to animated films that weren't intended for family viewing. |
| 29 | * Although considered a CultClassic, ''WesternAnimation/{{Felidae}}'' has difficulty finding mainstream attention in large part because of its premise. It's a FilmNoir where the primary characters are feral cats. Sounds harmless enough... except the film is also full of disturbing imagery involving [[{{Gorn}} gruesome murder]], [[NightmareSequence surreal nightmares]], and a realistic sex scene (again, as a reminder, the characters are non-anthropomorphic ''house cats''). The film obviously can't be watched by children, but adults couldn't get into the film either on accounts of the characters being ordinary cats and the [[ArtStyleDissonance jarringly cartoonish art style]]. |
| 30 | * Although ''WesternAnimation/{{Fantasia}}'' is now considered a Disney classic, some have argued this was one of the reasons for its initial box office failure at the time, as a mature concert arthouse film featuring a variety of shorts that had no dialogue and widely varied in their tone and narrative had little appeal to general audiences, who found the experimental nature of the film and use of classical music to be too "avant-garde" and "formal" for their liking, while many critics and classical music nerds saw the mere idea of ''Fantasia'' as insulting and disrespectful to classical music. Despite having plans for more films at the time, the film's failure meant Disney would not try the ''Fantasia'' concept again until ''WesternAnimation/Fantasia2000'' nearly ''[[SequelGap 60 years]]'' later... which [[HistoryRepeats also flopped at the box office for similar reasons]] (despite the original film having been VindicatedByHistory by then), causing Disney to abandon the ''Fantasia'' concept altogether. |
| 31 | * A chunk of the reason ''WesternAnimation/{{Foodfight}}'' flopped so badly was the nature of its concept. While films like ''Film/WhoFramedRogerRabbit'' or ''Franchise/ToyStory'' showed that the idea of a crossover film involving a bunch of branded characters could work, ''Foodfight!'' decided to focus on supermarket advertising mascots--while cartoon characters or toys can be separated from their brands somewhat, ''Foodfight!'''s characters ''are'' brands, which causes it to come off as uncomfortably close to a feature-length advertisement. What's more, the literal moral of the film is "BrandNamesAreBetter, and BrandX [[ANaziByAnyOtherName is run by Nazis]]", which is not a good message for young children to absorb. And despite being a concept ill-suited to anyone but very small children, the film also introduces a lot of elements that kids would be unlikely to understand, such as what exactly its characters even ''are'', or the countless ParentalBonus-type jokes. Even if not for the film's TroubledProduction, the pure story alone is enough to leave most people baffled. |
| 32 | * This was one reason ''WesternAnimation/{{Frankenweenie}}'' was a box office disappointment. A black and white stop-motion animated feature focused around death and reanimation is a hard sell for today's families, especially when it's topped off by a violent climax. [[ScrewedByTheNetwork Disney didn't help matters by refusing to move its release date to distance it from the more accessible]] ''WesternAnimation/HotelTransylvania'' and the equally-dark-and-quirky-but-released-first ''WesternAnimation/ParaNorman''; when the former became a SleeperHit that exceeded industry expectations and had strong weekly holds, and the latter got the earliest wave of critical buzz, that burned off demand for another Halloween film for 2012. |
| 33 | * Once ''WesternAnimation/{{Lightyear}}'' underperformed at the box office, this point was raised by analysts, claiming that as beloved as ''Franchise/ToyStory'' is, nobody had a real interest in the story of the "real" Buzz Lightyear. Many found the film's concept to be too confusing and unnecessary for it to be appealing, and having Buzz and ArchEnemy Zurg portrayed very differently from their toy counterparts ([[TheOtherDarrin not even their voice actors returned]]) didn't help. Fans of ''WesternAnimation/BuzzLightyearOfStarCommand'' also disliked it for feeling that show had already done this idea much better, and were turned off by the film using nothing from it. What's more, even those who did take interest in the premise argued that the film's actual final product [[NeverTrustATrailer doesn't match up with the intended idea of "this is the movie Andy saw as a kid"]]--rather than a GenreThrowback to 1990s toyetic sci-fi, it's a pretty straightforward modern animated action film that barely resembles the toy line it inspired in-universe. |
| 34 | * ''WesternAnimation/PawsOfFuryTheLegendOfHank'' is a spiritual remake of ''Film/BlazingSaddles'', a very raunchy, politically incorrect movie, now being geared towards a family audience, mainly children. Its TroubledProduction and unintentional similarities to ''Franchise/KungFuPanda'' did not help it. |
| 35 | * ''WesternAnimation/PlaymobilTheMovie'' is based off of a [[Toys/{{Playmobil}} toyline considered niche]], and had to deal with the stigma of toy-based movies being expected to be hollow MerchandiseDriven cartoons. Even worse, Toys/{{Lego}}, a toyline that overshadows Playmobil in almost every way, had [[WesternAnimation/TheLEGOMovie a movie a few years prior]] that both managed to defy the expectation that it would be a cheap cash-grab, but also managed to become a huge success, meaning that people were inevitably going to compare Playmobil's movie to it. Not only that, but [[WesternAnimation/TheLEGOMovie2TheSecondPart said LEGO movie's sequel]] was released ''the same year as the Playmobil movie!'' All of this resulted in an opening weekend described as the worst opening in cinematic history for a film playing in over 2,300 theaters. |
| 36 | * ''WesternAnimation/TheRoadToElDorado'' is an homage to the ''Film/RoadTo'' films starring two Spanish thieves who find the titular city and get mistaken for gods. Further complicating things is that, like many other animated movies here, it can't decide whether it wants to appeal mainly to kids or adults. (Though a combination of this and bad marketing did lead to the movie failing at the box office, it largely contributed to the film's CultClassic status.) Kevin Koch, an assistant animator, cited this trope as part of the reason for the film's lack of success: |
| 37 | -->''For me there were two major problems with ''The Road to El Dorado''. First, it was a period piece set in UsefulNotes/SouthAmerica — I thought at the time that that combination would be box office poison. There are certain settings and time periods that I don’t think modern audiences are interested in, even if the film is fantastic.'' |
| 38 | * ''WesternAnimation/RomeoAndJulietSealedWithAKiss'' takes [[Theatre/RomeoAndJuliet one of the most famous tragic plays of all time]], replaces the characters with cute seals (the title characters are seal ''pups'', making the whole romance story feel uncomfortable), and [[LighterAndSofter tones the story down for kids]], adding [[SparedByTheAdaptation a happy ending]] and a KidAppealCharacter [[ChildrenVoicingChildren voiced]] and [[ThrowItIn written]] by an actual child. Despite [[NoBudget being made on a shoestring budget]] (thanks to almost everything being done by a single person), it failed to turn a profit. |
| 39 | * ''WesternAnimation/TheStar'', being an animated retelling of the birth of Christ, is a hard enough sell in mainstream cinema, but it's ''also'' a comedy where the events are told from the animals' perspective. Its box office conversely had a smaller initial opening debut than [[Creator/SonyPicturesAnimation the creator's]] former movies. |
| 40 | * A pair of animated movies based on the Titanic disaster: |
| 41 | ** ''WesternAnimation/TitanicTheLegendGoesOn'' takes a hundred-plus-years-ago tragedy and throws in a bunch of wacky hijinks to comprise everything prior to what actually happened. |
| 42 | ** ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfTheTitanic'' takes the sinking of the Titanic (though, for the most part, treats things much more seriously than ''The Legend Goes On''), and turns it into an anti-whaling Aesop, to say nothing about its fictional aversion of what happened in real life. |
| 43 | * ''WesternAnimation/ThomasAndTheMagicRailroad'' had a ton of factors going against it from the beginning. As popular as ''WesternAnimation/ThomasAndFriends'' was, there was little general interest in a theatrical film starring Thomas the Tank Engine, with movies based on properties aimed at children historically doing awful at the box office. Even without that going against it, those who might've been interested in the film were turned off by [[HumanFocusedAdaptation the focus on new human characters over the familiar engine characters]] (some of whom were from [[Series/ShiningTimeStation a show]] created to introduce ''T&F'' to American audiences, and are largely unfamiliar to those living outside the country) and the inclusion of magical and fantasy elements, which many saw as a betrayal of the grounded realism that had defined the original ''Railway Series'' stories and the show up to that point. There's also the issue of the show's MediaNotes/{{Supermarionation}} style. While the use of model trains with static faces worked for the show, it [[HardToAdaptWork did not translate well to a feature-length movie]] (where expectations are higher than for a kids' show), with many criticizing the style, especially the static faces, for being [[SpecialEffectsFailure cheap and shoddy]] by film standards. Despite a decent marketing campaign, these factors would cause the film to flop at the box office, only making $19.7 million on a $19 million budget. |
| 44 | [[/folder]] |
| 45 | |
| 46 | [[folder:Individual Films — Live-Action]] |
| 47 | * ''Film/ThirteenHoursTheSecretSoldiersOfBenghazi'' combines a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Benghazi_attack highly volatile subject matter]] with [[Creator/MichaelBay a divisive filmmaker]] whose [[Film/PearlHarbor previous attempt at a war film]] was not well-received, during an ''election year'' with a [[UsefulNotes/HillaryRodhamClinton candidate]] who many conspiracy theorists blamed for the attacks. Add that it was released alongside ''Film/RideAlong 2'' while facing [[Film/TheForceAwakens stiff]] [[Film/TheRevenant holdovers]], and it became a box office bomb. |
| 48 | * ''Film/AbsoluteBeginners'' is an adaptation of a widely beloved novel that makes numerous controversial changes to the story and relies heavily on intimate knowledge of 1950s sociocultural movements and the historical background behind them. The combination of its handling of the source material and its esoteric plot meant that few were interested in seeing the film. Consequently, it was a critical whipping boy that lost £6.6 million at the box office, acting as one of three {{Creator Killer}}s for Goldcrest Films. On the upside, it eventually got VindicatedByHistory decades later. |
| 49 | * The straight-to-DVD 2015 romantic comedy, ''Accidental Love'', used to be Creator/DavidORussell's failed project ''Nailed'' which is about a waitress (played by Creator/JessicaBiel) who got a nail stuck in her head and then, went to appeal a congressman (played by Creator/JakeGyllenhaal) to pass the health care bill. This was even made when Russell was still notorious for [[PrimaDonnaDirector his troublesome on-set behavior]] at that time and anyone who had seen the film noticed that it looked very outdated - [[UnintentionalPeriodPiece especially because a health care bill did pass]] [[TheShelfOfMovieLanguishment in the years between filming and release]]. Now we know why Russell [[CreatorBacklash disowned it]] and used the AlanSmithee approach, and the movie’s distributor tried to pass it off as a romantic comedy. |
| 50 | * ''Theatre/{{Alegria}}'', the dramatic film inspired by the Creator/CirqueDuSoleil show, is a fable that entwines the story of a street mime and a circus singer falling in LoveAtFirstSight with that of unwanted children being forced to tend and sell flowers for a cruel taskmaster. Aside from people hating mimes, it's too dark and mature thematically for children -- the story kicks off with the mime and his child friend both wanting to die, a supporting character is a lovelorn old alcoholic, etc. But not many teens or adults want to watch a movie about whimsical circus people helping each other to realize that they have AWorldHalfFull. The film only made it to theaters in UsefulNotes/{{Canada}} and a few European countries. |
| 51 | * ''Film/TheAmericanSocietyOfMagicalNegroes'' is a satire on the MagicalNegro trope, centered on a secret society of black people whose job is to fulfill the lives of white people. The [[IntentionallyAwkwardTitle title alone]] made people uneasy and [[MemeticMutation spawned memes]] about [[NWordPrivileges white people being unable to ask for tickets to the film]], and many who hadn't heard of the trope thought the film was simply a black-centric {{Film/HarryPotter}}-esque affair with nothing else going for it. All of this combined with poor reviews citing the film as poorly executed resulted in it bombing and being pulled from theatres after three weeks. |
| 52 | * ''Film/AmericanUltra'' is a prime case of this. The plot is about a stoner who is trained by the CIA, but somehow doesn't know that they were trained by the CIA and the CIA now want the stoner dead... and that is a premise that nobody would know who to market towards. The supposed stoner comedy was a major flop and critical mess. Screenplay writer Creator/MaxLandis stated in an interview with ''WebVideo/RedLetterMedia'' that the movie was marketed as a stoner comedy when it was never meant to be, and that audiences were not willing to give it a chance as a result. |
| 53 | * ''Film/AmosAndAndrew'' is a film about a black man who moves to a predominantly white island into a summer home who ends up getting mistaken for a criminal and nearly gets killed by police. And it's PlayedForLaughs, with much of the humor being sitcom-esque. Critics dismissed the film as racist tripe and it bombed in theatres. |
| 54 | * ''Film/AnAlanSmitheeFilmBurnHollywoodBurn'' has a serviceable starting point, on how directors can disown their movies by changing the credit to AlanSmithee, but it was fairly obscure trivia at the time, meaning that the film really needed a strong storyline to hang its hook on. But the intended satire of the film industry was lost in a too personalized script full of {{Take That}}s and an obtuse format as a (mostly) retrospective {{Mockumentary}} that ended up making for a story that falls far too much under TakeOurWordForIt, and ends up being hard to follow for anyone who isn't knowledgeable about Hollywood politics. |
| 55 | * ''Film/Anonymous2011'' is a film based on a common conspiracy theory that Creator/WilliamShakespeare did not actually write his plays, and they were instead written by the Earl of Oxford. The theory (and consequently, the film) requires a lot of familiarity with now-obscure figures and events from Elizabethan England; the average person has no idea who the Earl of Oxford even is, after all. However, the film also thoroughly [[HistoricalVillainUpgrade villainizes Shakespeare]], depicting him as a drunk, illiterate HateSink and a fraud, and takes massive [[ArtisticLicenseHistory liberties with history]] (e.g. heavily screwing with dates, depicting the Tudor Rose as an actual breed of rose, and claiming that Queen Elizabeth [[spoiler:was not only not a virgin, but had so many bastards that she couldn't even keep track of them all, and the Earl of Oxford was her son and romantic partner]]). It's also directed by Creator/RolandEmmerich, who is best known for action schlock like ''Film/IndependenceDay'' and ''Film/Godzilla1998''. To paraphrase [[WebVideo/BrowsHeldHigh one critic]], "you have to know the period to understand what's going on, and if you understand what's going on, you will hate what's going on." The film flopped pretty hard, and only made back half of its 30-million-dollar budget. |
| 56 | * ''Assholes'' (directed by actor and model Peter Vack) combines the mumblecore genre with extreme gross-out comedy and BodyHorror with detailed close-ups of herpes sores, our main female protagonist defecating a demon, IncestSubtext, vomit and poop. The entire plot revolves around our main characters getting addicted to poppers and the toxic relationship that results from that (PlayedForLaughs, in this case). The title and trailer also outright advertise the fact that there are no truly likeable characters. The combination of genres (mumblecore, [[GrossOutShow gross-out comedy]] and SadistShow) is unlikely to appeal to anyone. David Ehrlich once said that the film played out "like a microbudget cross between ''Film/SaloOrThe120DaysOfSodom'' and ''Film/TheSquidAndTheWhale''". Despite receiving an award at SXSW, it has 4.3 on Website/IMDb at time of writing and is featured on the Website/{{Letterboxd}} list "The Most Controversial Films on Letterboxd" (which aggregates all the films on Letterboxd with the most variance in ratings) which cements the film's polarizing reception. |
| 57 | * ''Film/TheAssignment2016'': Many people generally disliked the idea of a man undergoing involuntary sex reassignment being played for [=horror/comedy=] (and ''very'' [[EasySexChange unrealistically]]), with some transgender rights groups advocating boycotting the film, although the director insists it really wasn't meant to be transphobic at all. Because of this, despite having a budget of only three million dollars, the film was still a ''massive'' BoxOfficeBomb. |
| 58 | * ''Film/BabysDayOut'': Both Creator/RogerEbert and WebVideo/MisterPlinkettReviews argued this to be why the film ultimately bombed critically and financially. The film is about a StrayingBaby of the sort seen in all manner of classic animation, wandering around Chicago and getting into cartoony slapstick antics with [[TheFamilyForTheWholeFamily goofy kidnappers]]... and it's all in live-action. While people may be happy to deal with this kind of premise in cartoons, seeing an ''actual'' baby getting abducted, wandering around a construction site, and nearly getting hit by a car was more frightening than funny for the parents who are most likely to want to see a movie starring a baby--such an audience obviously would not find rampant child endangerment particularly amusing. One scene actually needed to be reedited from the trailer because it showed the baby's head hitting the pavement. Additionally, being live-action causes a lot of moments that would normally be wacky slapstick to turn into FamilyUnfriendlyViolence (e.g. a man getting his crotch set on fire). And while the prior Creator/JohnHughes effort ''Film/HomeAlone'' featured a somewhat similar concept, that managed to appeal to kids by making Kevin into something of an EscapistCharacter for a child audience, which doesn't work when your protagonist is a baby (babies are not known for asking to go to films). [[GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff The film did at least perform much better in India]], which has a storied tradition of cartoonish over-the-top live-action productions. |
| 59 | * ''Film/{{Battleship}}'' is one of the most infamous cases of this. Both Creator/{{Universal}} and Creator/{{Hasbro}} were expecting huge numbers for the film after the latter's success with the ''Film/TransformersFilmSeries''. But while that series was based on a toyline that had decades of lore, ''Battleship'' was based on a board game with no plot, which sounded like an absurd idea to most people. They tried to spice it up by adding some sci-fi elements to the story, but that only made it look like every other blockbuster movie at the time. Ultimately, it ended up flopping ([[GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff in the U.S., at least]]), and [[StillbornFranchise any plans for a sequel were sunk]]. |
| 60 | * ''Film/Baywatch2017'' attempted to repeat the DeconstructiveParody route that worked for ''Film/TwentyOneJumpStreet'' to please those who weren't fans of [[Film/{{Baywatch}} the TV show]]. And then came trailers showcasing that the cheeky self-references were annoying, and also that the film was loaded with VulgarHumor. This certainly drove away potential ''Baywatch'' viewers and made it tank in the domestic box office (while faring somewhat better internationally). |
| 61 | * ''Film/BeauIsAfraid'' is a picaresque horror comedy about a very anxious man attempting to get home in time for his mother's funeral. It's a very strange movie with a lot of very uncomfortable subject matter, including but not limited to a naked serial killer, tons of BlackComedy, AbusiveParents, and [[spoiler: a giant penis monster.]] It's also three hours long. While Creator/AriAster built up a lot of good will with his previous films, it still flopped, and critics and fans alike were baffled by the choice to release it in IMAX, which isn't traditionally a good format for arthouse films with limited appeal. |
| 62 | * ''Film/TheBeaver'' is about a mentally-ill man who is able to communicate with a discarded beaver puppet. The concept itself is a hard sell, but the film stars Creator/MelGibson in the lead role and tries to portray him in a sympathetic context... at the time where Gibson had made headlines for controversial tirades against his ex-wife as well as his infamous DUI arrest. The film flopped and was met with a mixed reception among critics. |
| 63 | * ''Film/Bombshell2019'' was an AcclaimedFlop that barely recouped its budget domestically for being a classic "film for no one": the movie is about Fox News (alienating liberal-leaning audiences who have disdain for the openly conservative network) regarding sexual misconduct at Fox News (alienating conservative-leaning audiences who consider Fox News to be a respectable channel), and any attempt to make the movie a "fun" look at {{Corrupt Corporate Executive}}s a la ''Film/TheWolfOfWallStreet'' and ''Film/TheBigShort'' (the trailers heavily used Music/BillieEilish's "Bad Guy") didn't catch on. And a ''Forbes'' [[https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottmendelson/2019/12/22/box-office-grumpy-cats-earns-just-65m-as-bombshell-implodes/?sh=522d090e6b1a analyst]] added that AngstAversion was probably in play, summing up ''Bombshell'' underperforming on how "folks didn't want to go to the movies to watch women get harassed and/or assaulted by powerful men", and women in particular "don't necessarily want to race out to the theater to watch something that explicitly reminds them of the horrors of the modern world." |
| 64 | * ''Film/TheBookOfHenry'' features an abused girl that no one believes so because the abusive parent, a police commissioner, has connections, so the kid next door -- Henry -- decides to create a plan to save her... by killing her father! The [[MoodWhiplash jarring tone shifts]] (a {{glurge}}y first half, then Henry dies, and once his mother discovers the eponymous book with the plan, she goes on with it) make it even worse. |
| 65 | * ''Film/BoxingHelena'': A surgeon becomes obsessed with a woman, and amputates all four of her limbs so as to [[EpunymousTitle keep her in a box.]] Reportedly, the picture cost roughly $2 million to make in a decade when most Hollywood features cost about $50 million, and ''still'' managed to ''lose'' money. Quite notably, after Creator/KimBasinger broke her contract and refused to do the film after reading the script, which managed to [[StarDerailingRole make a huge dent in her career for years]] despite it being a role she didn't play, yet it's still generally agreed this was the ''right'' decision and she would have fared even worse if she'd been in it. (The career of the actress that replaced her, Creator/SherilynFenn, didn't fare any better, mind you.) |
| 66 | * ''Film/BlackChristmas2019'' was the second remake of the acclaimed (and TropeMaker for the SlasherMovie) [[Film/BlackChristmas1974 original film]]… except with [[{{Anvilicious}} an incredibly unsubtle message about toxic masculinity and rape culture]] that the director bizarrely went out of the way to promote, even outright saying that she had put "message before plot". (The original movie already had a subtle pro-choice message.) Fans of the original film were dismayed by it [[InNameOnly not being a faithful adaptation]], and general audiences, even those who would agree with the Aesop felt that the characters were douchebags with nobody worth rooting and/or caring for. Predictably, it was met with savage reviews and underperformed at the box office, with the [[Film/BlackChristmas2006 ill-fated 2006 remake]] being perceived as SoBadItWasBetter. |
| 67 | * ''Film/{{Bros}}'' was widely touted as the first mainstream gay romantic comedy, and while it was praised by critics, it performed poorly in the box office which many blamed on its marketing. The film was heavily promoted to general audiences, but most straight people, even if they're not homophobic, still thought that a gay romance simply wasn't for them. On the flip-side, many queer people were also put off from watching it precisely ''because'' the advertising made it look like it was pandering a ThemeParkVersion of LGBTQ+ culture to straights. But if you actually watch the movie, it's about the community's internal struggles and it makes a lot of queer-specific references that a straight person wouldn't get unless they're a close ally. As such, many feel that the movie would have fared better if it ''had'' been promoted primarily to queer audiences, since the average straight person wasn't going to watch it anyway. |
| 68 | * ''Film/{{Caligula}}'' is extremely notorious in part because of this. It tried to be simultaneously a dramatic historical epic and a low-brow sexploitation film, and failed at both. The drama was too ludicrous for the mainstream, and even if it wasn't, they would have still been turned away by the depraved sexual acts. Meanwhile, the porno crowd didn't find the drama appealing, and [[FetishRetardant the exploitation stuff wasn't titillating enough for them.]] |
| 69 | * ''Film/TheCallOfTheWild2020'' was a film adaptation of [[Literature/TheCallOfTheWild the Jack London novel of the same name]]… except as a live-action/animation hybrid with Buck becoming a CGI dog and [[{{Disneyfication}} the story retooled for a family friendly audience.]] Adults who were interested in an adaptation didn't care for all of the changes and thought the CGI was distracting and unnecessary, while families were turned off because a film based on an old, dark, problematic and violent book ([[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotForKids despite its presence in many grade-school libraries]]) didn't sound very kid-friendly, so it became a huge commercial flop (being released right as the UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic was starting to hit the film industry didn't help). |
| 70 | * ''Film/{{Cats}}'' is the adaptation of a popular yet divisive stage show, already pushing away those who don't like musicals or the original productions -- which to make matters worse, has a structure that works better on a stage, a succession of dance numbers scored to an IAmSong with barely a plot in-between. And then comes a trailer showing the characters are anthropomorphic cats with overly-human features right out of the UnintentionalUncannyValley, which are [[FetishRetardant oddly sexualized]] even though [[WhatDoYouMeanItsForKids the movie is PG-rated]], and the alienation was complete. (Even the UsefulNotes/FurryFandom wanted nothing to do with the movie!) Add opening on Christmas weekend opposite ''Franchise/StarWars: Film/TheRiseOfSkywalker'', as well as other family-friendly fare such as ''Film/JumanjiTheNextLevel'' and ''WesternAnimation/FrozenII'', and ''Cats'' went straight to the litterbox as a critical and commercial flop. |
| 71 | * ''Film/ChaosWalking2021'' is an adaptation of a [[Literature/ChaosWalking Young Adult book]] that came out over a decade prior to the movie's release and the trailers made it clear it was not an especially faithful adaptation beyond the basic premise, which was off-putting for fans of the novels; some readers were also wary of it being a live-action adaptation purely because the Noise - a key plot element - is [[HardToAdaptWork difficult to translate well]] from book to film. Then there's the challenge of it being a teen-oriented dystopian movie that [[FleetingDemographic missed that genre's heyday]] by about five years; a lot of audiences were tired of these kinds of movies and didn't think ''Chaos Walking'' had anything much new to offer beyond the [[{{Gendercide}} 'no women']] and mental projection gimmicks (not helping is that many viewers felt these more interesting aspects of the premise were [[TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot seriously underutilized]] in the film itself). Combined with all the [[TroubledProduction well-publicized issues behind-the-scenes]] and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the general lack of interest in ''Chaos Walking'' contributed to it bombing at the box office. |
| 72 | * The 1930s movie ''Film/ChildBride'', which was ''seemingly'' about the horrors of child marriage, but leaned more towards... [[ExploitationFilm exploitation]]. As the subject matter was too disturbing for nearly all audiences, it was quickly forgotten and buried. Infamously, it was passed up by ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'' because of this. |
| 73 | * This is likely one of the biggest reasons the 1986 adaptation of ''Film/TheClanOfTheCaveBear'' bombed at the box office. While [[Literature/EarthsChildren the novels]] are by no means obscure - they were in fact at the height of their popularity in the 1980s - they're [[HardToAdaptWork difficult to translate]] into film due to the story's structure (most of them, ''The Clan of the Cave Bear'' included, are heavy on exposition and internal monologues, and they're largely character-driven with little goal-oriented plot). Inevitably, a lot of things would have to be altered to make the story fit into a two-hour film format. Another issue is that the first book especially is not exactly feel-good fare, with lots of unpleasant content such as graphic violence, discrimination, child abuse, sexual assault and a DownerEnding. The end result is that fans of the books were [[TheyChangedItNowItSucks wary of the changes to the story]] while the average viewer may have been [[AngstAversion put off by the grimmer content]]. |
| 74 | * ''Film/CloudAtlas'' is nearly three hours long and has [[NestedStory six simultaneous plots]] with [[GenreRoulette widely different tones]] (PeriodDrama, character-based drama, techno-thriller, farcical comedy, sci-fi action, ScienceFantasy) and only thematic connections. To make it worse, to ensure the cast could have [[ActingForTwo roles in all the stories]], the cast is inevitably [[{{Yellowface}} made over into different races, including non-Asian roles filling into Asian characters]], [[OvershadowedByControversy which made many Asian-Americans want to boycott]]. Even those who don't mind such concern found that the makeover [[UnintentionalUncannyValley are either ugly or hideous]]. No wonder it didn't perform well in theaters, but good home video numbers mean it may become a CultClassic. That said, the film was not universally panned: film critic Creator/RogerEbert gave it four stars out of four and called it "one of the most ambitious movies ever made". |
| 75 | * ''Film/{{Clue}}'', when in theaters, ran with the gimmick of MultipleEndings where a moviegoer would be treated to one of three different endings. This alienated the audience because they didn't want to go multiple times just to see all the endings (if possible), and the film performed poorly at the box office as a result. It says a lot that when the film was released on cable and video, and with all three endings combined together to make one (with two fake and one real), it performed ''far'' better and is still viewed as a CultClassic today. |
| 76 | * An interesting case with ''Film/{{Cuties}}''. It was popular in its native UsefulNotes/{{France}}, and its story of a young Muslim girl rebelling against her conservative, strict, restrictive-for-women native Senegalese culture is based on the experiences of the film's director. Then Creator/{{Netflix}} bought the U.S. distribution rights and then caused one of the most disastrous, needlessly self inflicted wounds in the ''history'' of films. It promoted the film as a sexy dance film with ''11 year old girls.'' The original trailer and poster (we won't link but feel free to search with an incognito browser and possibly a VPN) were both unrepresentative of the film and wildly sexualized. The poster for example, features the four girls in their skimpy dance outfits and one of them ''in mid-twerk.'' Netflix quickly changed the marketing to what the film actually is, but the damage was done and the film is only remembered for the original marketing and is somewhat unfairly considered legalized child porn today. (Somewhat because the film ''does'' feature sexualized dancing by the young girls and some very squick-ish scenes, even if they were there to enforce the film’s message.) |
| 77 | * ''Film/TheDarkCrystal'': Reading through contemporary reviews shows that few people could fathom the concept that a film made with puppets, and helmed by perhaps the most beloved children's entertainer of his time Creator/JimHenson, could possibly be for anyone over age 10, resulting in it being castigated for being far too dark and scary for kids. This is exactly what Henson was going for, as he'd always hated being pigeonholed as only doing work for children and wanted to branch out to adult-oriented material. His follow-up film ''Film/{{Labyrinth}}'' was clearly an attempt to strike more of a balance, with more kid-friendly characters and the lead heroine and villain played by human actors, but it still was too much of a stretch for critics and audiences of the time, sending him into a CreatorBreakdown he never had time to quite recover from before his death a few years later. Luckily, both films have since become seriously reevaluated and are now beloved {{Cult Classic}}s. |
| 78 | * ''Film/TheDayTheClownCried'': A key reason, though not the only one, this Creator/JerryLewis film will never be released. A movie about a German clown (Lewis) who entertains doomed children at a concentration camp isn't going to fly over well. With anyone. [[BuryYourArt Lewis himself kept his own copy locked up]] [[CreatorBacklash and refused to mention it when asked.]] He donated it to the Library of Congress some time prior to his death, on the stipulation it would not be screened until 2024. |
| 79 | * With a title like ''Film/DearWhitePeople'', you know a movie is going to be controversial. Racism is a pretty touchy topic and the heavily politicized feel turned off many viewers, especially white viewers. WordOfGod insists [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotPolitical the film isn't meant to be taken seriously]] and is more about personal identity, but the title and trailer doesn't really give that impression to the casual white viewer. That said, when it was adapted as a [[Series/DearWhitePeople Netflix series]], it did pretty well and ran for four seasons. |
| 80 | * ''Film/{{Dick}}'', a comedy set in the 1970s about two teenage girls who develop a crush on UsefulNotes/RichardNixon and end up becoming major figures in the Watergate scandal. Teens weren't interested in a comedy based around 1970s nostalgia while adults weren't interested in the revisionist history concept (the film also [[HistoricalDowngrade depicts Woodward and Bernstein as a pair of morons]]) so the film died a quick death at the box office, plus the HistoricalInJoke that the girls were the Watergate informant "Deep Throat" turned the movie into an UnintentionalPeriodPiece a few years later when W. Mark Felt admitted he was the true identity of "Deep Throat". However, it has become a CultClassic over the years. |
| 81 | * ''Film/DiscoGodfather'', an action drama with almost no comic elements starring Rudy Ray Moore, had so many strikes against it from the very beginning that it was effectively doomed before it hit theaters. First, it came out in the autumn of 1979, just in time for [[DiscoSucks disco's reputation to have already turned into a joke and an embarrassment]], making Moore's character Tucker Williams -- a badass ex-cop disco DJ -- more ridiculous than cool. While it was somewhat more current in depicting angel dust as the scourge of black American youth at the time, the way that drug trips and addiction are depicted is absurd unintentional comedy, with users mentally tortured by hallucinations of the kind of cackling demons that Moore had previously played for laughs in ''Petey Wheatstraw''; even though the climax features the hero trying to defy the evil spirit of PCP itself, manifested as an Angel of Death [[PyrrhicVictory that robs him of his sanity while releasing his nephew Bucky from her grasp]], the threat of drugs is always played deadly serious. Most damningly of all, Moore keeps away from his strengths -- Tucker never tells any filthy jokes and refrains from foul language and outrageous behavior, the things that Rudy Ray was so talented at and made Dolemite beloved by audiences -- in favor of his weaknesses (flat dramatic acting and preachiness). [[CreatorKiller Moore retired as a leading man shortly after]], restricting himself to small supporting roles or cameos where he reprised the character of Dolemite, and continued to perform stand-up until his death, though he never quite reached the heights that he had in the 70s. |
| 82 | * ''Film/{{Dragonslayer}}'' was a deconstructive fantasy about, well, a dragon slayer, loaded with darker themes akin to something this side of the ''Franchise/ASongOfIceAndFire'' series, co-produced by Creator/{{Disney}} and Creator/{{Paramount}}. [[WhatDoYouMeanItsForKids And it was rated PG]]. Families and children avoided it because of the ''very'' dark themes despite its PG rating, including blood, murder, scary dragons, arguments over religion, partial nudity, and women being sacrificed to dragons (showing the viewers the messy results). Those pining for darker and edgier fantasy avoided it as well because they saw it... as a "PG-rated film by Disney". It flopped at the box office and was largely forgotten by both studios as a result. Though years later, some viewers liked it after getting past the premise, making the film a bit of a CultClassic nowadays. |
| 83 | * The documentary ''Film/{{Earthlings}}'' already touches on a pretty heated subject regarding [[MeatVersusVeggies dietary habits]], but between its clear appeal to emotion and [[GodwinsLaw equating modern society with that of the Nazis]] for using animals for food (something the human species has done since the dawn of its existence), it's really easy to see why this movie would be off-putting, if not downright offensive, to most people. |
| 84 | * ''Film/ExitToEden'' was a 1994 {{Romantic Comedy}} film starring Creator/DanaDelany and directed by Creator/GarryMarshall, and featuring Creator/DanAykroyd and Creator/RosieODonnell in a major comic relief subplot. Sounds like a pretty safe bet--unless you know that it was based on a kinky UsefulNotes/{{BDSM}} romance novel written by Creator/AnneRice, and Delany's character is a {{Dominatrix}}. General audiences (who might otherwise have enjoyed the comedy and romance) were largely turned off by the film's frank portrayal of sadomasochistic relationships, while kinksters (who might otherwise have enjoyed the BDSM) found it too silly to be erotic. [[FetishRetardant (Not mentioning the fact that that no one wanted to see Dan Aykroyd and Rosie O'Donnell in S&M outfits)]]. The result was an infamous BoxOfficeBomb, which is still frequently cited as one of the worst films of the 1990s. |
| 85 | * ''Film/FantasticFour2015'' was a [[DarkerAndEdgier dark and serious]] reimagining of [[ComicBook/FantasticFour a whimsical and light-hearted superhero team]], full of BodyHorror and largely devoid of action. Naturally, this scared off fans of both the source material and superhero movies. Fans of the classic ''Fantastic Four'' disliked the grounded premise that excised the more fantastical and bizarre elements of the comics. People who enjoyed the gritty ''ComicBook/UltimateFantasticFour'', which the film was supposedly based on, were unhappy that the film [[InNameOnly would not be a faithful adaptation]]. To top it all off, several fans ''wanted'' it to fail, in the hopes that [[Creator/TwentiethCenturyFox Fox]] would sell or give the rights to the team back to Creator/MarvelStudios for inclusion in the Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse (which would eventually happen in 2019 when Creator/{{Disney}} completed its acquisition of Fox and most of its assets, including the Fantastic Four film rights). Unsurprisingly, it was a commercial and critical flop, turning this attempt into a StillbornFranchise the moment it came out. |
| 86 | * ''Film/TheFarm'' is a movie about a cannibal commune where people are raised as livestock and used for meat and milk. Putting aside the torture scenes, the movie contains ''numerous'' things that will only appeal to particular groups. The movie has the humans kept in tiny crates meant to obviously represent the kinds of treatments of dairy cows and large-scale pig farms. [[spoiler: There is one scene in particular where an infant is smashed on the ground]]. It's probably not surprising, given the aesop and method of delivery, that the director had ties to members of [=PETA=]. Based on the reviews of the movie on [=IMDB=] and Rotten Tomatoes, most viewers were fine with the premise, but that one infamous scene put them off and made the message {{Anvilicious}} "shock value" to the point of being offputting. |
| 87 | * The Creator/BenedictCumberbatch film ''Film/TheFifthEstate'' was a thriller about hacker/activist Julian Assange, who is still considered a controversial figure by many Americans for Wikileaks supposedly being involved in the Russian meddling in 2016's election in favor of UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump, as well as the never-resolved sexual assault charges levelled at him (he hid in an embassy for several years to avoid being taken to court). Add to it that the marketing making it look like the movie was trying to [[VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory rewrite history]] and turn Assange into some sort of kick-ass action hero, and it's no wonder it turned out to be a BoxOfficeBomb. It didn't help that the film was based on a book written by a former associate of Assange who has since become one of his most hated rivals. That assured that even those who vehemently support Assange would refuse to go see it, on the assumption that the film would make him look bad. |
| 88 | * ''Film/FlashOfGenius'' was a {{Docudrama}} about Robert Kearns, his invention of the intermittent windshield wiper, and his lawsuit against the Ford Motor Company. Problem was, the subject matter was very mundane and the real-life event isn't well-known to most people. Unsurprisingly, it failed to attract most moviegoers and didn't even make a quarter of its budget back. [[https://bombreport.com/yearly-breakdowns/2008-2/flash-of-genius/ As Bomb Report describes it]]: |
| 89 | --> ''"Windshield wipers + no star power = [[BoxOfficeBomb flop]]."'' |
| 90 | * ''Film/FreddyGotFingered'', which starred absurdist comedian Creator/TomGreen, was almost universally denounced, disparaged, and ridiculed. [[NeverTrustATrailer Although mainstream TV ads for the movie looked harmless enough]], the film itself followed the misadventures of an apparently mentally handicapped man who made it his life's mission to be as bizarre and offensive as possible (licking an open wound, wearing a bloody deer carcass as clothing, etc.). Creator/RogerEbert at least [[DamnedByFaintPraise paid this movie the compliment]] of reminding him of the classic surrealist film ''Film/UnChienAndalou'' - but then, moviegoers in 1929 hated ''that'', too. |
| 91 | -->'''[[WebVideo/BrowsHeldHigh Kyle Kallgren]]:''' This '''cannot''' be MediaNotes/{{Dada}}! It's too normal to be Dada! It's too shit to be anything else! |
| 92 | * ''Film/FunSize'' is a movie produced by Creator/{{Nickelodeon}}'s theatrical film company that looks like it's aiming for the tween girl demographic like Nick's many kidcoms (it starred Music/VictoriaJustice, hot off the success of ''Series/{{Victorious}}''), yet it's rated PG-13. The movie's too crude for young kids (the trailers alone highlight this), and the find-the-missing-little-brother plot is too childish for the tweens. |
| 93 | * Errol Morris's debut documentary embodies this trope -- ''Film/GatesOfHeaven'' is about a family-run pet cemetery faced with closure and the challenge of finding new resting places for its inhabitants. It's a sweet, gentle film, but it's not surprising to learn that Creator/WernerHerzog's infamous shoe-eating venture was the result of a bet he lost with Morris over whether it could get released at all! |
| 94 | * This was [[http://www.inquisitr.com/4120952/ghost-in-the-shell-flop-critics-weigh-in-on-why-the-movie-tanked-at-the-box-office/ one of]] [[http://deadline.com/2017/04/ghost-in-the-shell-scarlett-johansson-box-office-flop-whitewash-1202061479/ the reasons]] cited for the box office failure of ''Film/GhostInTheShell2017''. While the [[Anime/GhostInTheShell 90s anime movie]] has CultClassic status in the UsefulNotes/UnitedStates, there's still a large number of people who had never heard of the franchise. This proved problematic with the marketing, which seemed to be trying to appeal to hardcore fans instead of casual moviegoers, who of course tend to outnumber anime fans. Also complicating things was the fact that a lot of the themes and imagery used in the trailer had already been covered in ''Film/TheMatrix'', which caused many potential viewers to think the movie looked like a tired rehash (in fact, Creator/TheWachowskis admitted that ''GITS'' was a major inspiration for them). Another issue is that despite the film being marketed to them, many hardcore fans of the original films and series avoided it since the filmmakers took too many creative liberties with the license. Then there was the infamous controversy over having Creator/ScarlettJohansson play the Major, [[spoiler: AKA [[RaceLift Motoko Kusanagi]]]], which [[OvershadowedByControversy dominated the entire conversation about the movie]] and made many nerds antsy about supporting it. As one writer put it: |
| 95 | -->"A lot of journalists – especially fan bloggers – who would normally breathlessly cover this kind of movie approached it with a lot of caution. No one wants to seem socially ignorant, so a whole lot of sites that generally provide free PR offered far less support. As a result, the movie got way less play online, and when Johansson did get interviewed, she often had to defend her casting." |
| 96 | * Creator/NewLineCinema attempted to follow up their spectacular success with ''Film/TheLordOfTheRings'' by adapting another famous fantasy novel series, and settled on ''Literature/HisDarkMaterials''. Unfortunately, the series had become OvershadowedByControversy as its author Creator/PhilipPullman had openly stated that his goal was to provide an atheist answer to the Christian-based fantasy series ''Literature/TheChroniclesOfNarnia'', in which the heroes' ultimate goal is to "kill God." This subtext had remained under the surface enough in the first two books to not cause much trouble, but exploded in the third and became a favorite target of the Catholic Church and evangelical pundits. New Line's response was to tone down these elements as much as possible, changing the villainous organization the Magisterium from a clear parallel of the church to a more generic EvilEmpire. This ended up pleasing no one: the people who were complaining in the first place were not the sort to back down over a slight story change, and the fans of the series were outraged at such Bowdlerization and wondered why the studio had bothered getting the rights to such a controversial series if they weren't prepared to go all the way with it. The first (and to this day, [[StillbornFranchise the only]]) film, ''Film/TheGoldenCompass'' was released to middling reviews and mediocre box office ([[GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff the latter in North America, anyway]]), and [[StillbornFranchise the future films were scrapped]]. Its domestic failure also caused [[CreatorKiller Warner Bros. to absorb New Line]] and [[StarDerailingRole did a number on rising star Dakota Blue Richards' career as well]]. The books would later get another adaptation, [[Series/HisDarkMaterials this time a television series]], that would fare much better than the film did. |
| 97 | * ''Film/HanzoTheRazor'' is a trilogy of films about a samurai detective/metsuke solving various corruptions in Edo Japan. The series mixes this relatively interesting premise with [[{{Blaxploitation}} blaxploitation]]-inspired music and editing, but the problem is that Hanzo himself is a DesignatedHero who is just as repugnant as the murderers and thieves he encounters along the way, due to raping women to get the information he needs. The worst part, they enjoy it by the end usually. |
| 98 | * ''Film/TheHappytimeMurders'' suffered from this big time. [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotForKids A hard-R involving Muppet-like puppets]] didn't appeal to many people (''Film/MeetTheFeebles'' suffered from this same problem), on top of Creator/MelissaMcCarthy's declining star power as a result of several bad career decisions (including this one) and the fact that [[Creator/JimHenson The Jim Henson Company]], who co-produced the film, has had several not-very-well-received projects come out within the decade under the Henson Alternative label the film would go under[[note]]quite a few promising projects of theirs fell by the wayside; ''Happytime'' was lucky enough to be SavedFromDevelopmentHell[[/note]]. The film's main selling point was the novelty of R-rated puppets -- except that coming long after ''Theatre/AvenueQ'', ''Series/GregTheBunny'', ''Film/TeamAmericaWorldPolice'', ''WebVideo/DontHugMeImScared'' and the aforementioned ''Meet the Feebles'', the novelty was gone. Not even the ''Muppet'' fandom, usually quick to [[VindicatedByHistory positively reassess failed works years after]] and with defenders of almost everything, has had much kindness to it, as many were burnt out by the failed projects of the Henson Alternative label at that point (of which it was [[CreatorKiller the last made for the screen]], the label and adult Henson works becoming exclusive to stage shows after, albeit [[ScrewedByTheNetwork to the expense]] of the more warmly received Netflix series ''The Curious Creations of Christine [=McConnell=]''). [[FriendlyFandoms Overlapping fandom]] with ''Avenue Q'' and ''Don't Hug Me I'm Scared'' gave a lot of ''Muppet'' fans halt about the use of adult puppetry just for raunchy humor upon seeing it be [[TrueArtIsAngsty used for more]]. As such, there was a notable lack of pre-release fandom hype, and most discussion at the time was on the then-unreleased ''Series/TheDarkCrystalAgeOfResistance'' instead. It naturally was met with weak reviews and floundered in the box office against ''Film/CrazyRichAsians''. |
| 99 | * ''Harold'' is a 2008 indie comedy film about a 14 year-old with early baldness making him look like a 50 year-old which in itself is a pretty alienating premise. Aside from an abysmal 30% in Rotten Tomatoes it only gathered some $13000 on a $3.5 million budget. Nevertheless Creator/SpencerBreslin [[TookTheBadFilmSeriously was praised for his portrayal]]. |
| 100 | * ''Film/HaroldAndMaude'' is... a tricky sell. The film is a romantic BlackComedy, following the brewing friendship and romantic relationship between a proto-EmoTeen who [[SuicideAsComedy habitually fakes his own suicide in elaborate ways]] and a feisty ManicPixieDreamGirl who happens to be [[MayDecemberRomance 79 years old]]. Upon release in 1971, it received middling reviews and bombed commercially, and it took at least a decade [[VindicatedByHistory for audiences and critics alike to reevaluate the film as an underrated classic of black, existentialist comedy]], finally making a profit in 1983. |
| 101 | * 2019's ''Film/TheHauntingOfSharonTate'' could only qualify as this. What would have been an otherwise generic and forgettable horror film made the incredibly tasteless decision to attach the tragic murders of Creator/SharonTate and her friends in order to draw in a wider audience. In addition to the largely offensive account of her final days which portrays Sharon's real-life friends and fellow victims as freeloaders and nuisances (even at one point, fellow victim Jay Sebring refers to them as "housemates from Hell"), Sharon herself (played by Music/HilaryDuff in a Razzie-winning performance) is portrayed as increasingly crazy partially due to her pregnancy. Unlike Creator/QuentinTarantino's [[Film/OnceUponATimeInHollywood Oscar-winning account that also featured a fictionalized portrayal of the actress where she survives her murder by the Manson family]], Sharon's family disowned the film and critics and fans alike agreed wholeheartedly, even citing it as the worst film of the year with it currently holding an ''8%'' rating on Metacritic. |
| 102 | * ''Film/Hellboy2019'' is a DarkerAndEdgier reboot adapting a character that had already appeared in [[Film/Hellboy2004 two]] [[Film/HellboyIITheGoldenArmy movies]]. The fact those were modest hits at best showed the demonic anti-hero fighting supernatural threats was not exactly the most mainstream superhero, and the producers ensured more things against the movie with a DarkerAndEdgier[=/=] BloodierAndGorier approach giving high content ratings that limited the audience, while also driving away existing fans who would've rather seen Creator/GuillermoDelToro complete a trilogy. Hence when ''Hellboy'' arrived in theaters only to burn out very quickly, it was pretty clear audiences were not excited for this reboot. |
| 103 | * ''Film/HomeSweetHomeAlone'', Creator/{{Disney}}'s 2021 ''Film/HomeAlone'' reboot, was sharply criticized for this. Notably, the film's [[{{Expy}} designated stand-ins]] for the Wet Bandits are a financially struggling married couple with children who plan to sell [[{{Macguffin}} a valuable antique doll]] to avoid losing their home, and ultimately break into the protagonist's house to take back the doll after he seemingly steals it from them out of spite. Despite the antagonists being two perfectly nice and well-adjusted people whose actions are more-or-less completely justified, they still get [[ButtMonkey put through every bit as much hell as Marv and Harry]] in [[Film/HomeAlone the original film]]. Questionable execution aside (the film was also heavily criticized for the protagonist coming off as a [[UnintentionallyUnsympathetic thoroughoughly detestable]] {{spoiled brat}}, in contrast to the generally likeable Kevin [=McCallister=]), most viewers simply weren't able to get past the premise of a ''Home Alone'' reboot with two completely sympathetic burglars in the antagonist role. |
| 104 | * ''Film/{{Hugo}}'' [[http://www.theshiznit.co.uk/feature/why-martin-scorseses-hugo-will-flop.php was rife with things to alienate audiences]] despite the name of Creator/MartinScorsese attached. A director mostly known for R-rated fare doing a family film... which in turn is a PeriodPiece with no big names (at most, Creator/SachaBaronCohen and Creator/BenKingsley in secondary roles)... opening the same weekend as ''Film/TheMuppets2011''. No wonder that in spite of all the positive reviews, even becoming a major award contender, ''Hugo'' barely recouped its huge budget at the box office. |
| 105 | * ''Film/IAmNotAnEasyMan'', a French film from 2019 was a satire about gender relations and sexual harassment set in a LadyLand AlternateUniverse but its mixture of satire, hard truth and rom-com made it difficult to know who to market to; it wasn't a traditional RomCom but as a satire, it was very Juvenalian (mocking, abrasive and caustic). The main characters were largely unlikeable, and [[CrapsackWorld the world was a terrible place to live in - for both universes]] and also the cross-dressing (meant to show men in a women's position) was outright FanDisservice and {{Squick}}, even if it was satire. A HighConcept movie that posed the question "What if women were men, and men were women?". It [[CluelessAesop wasn't quite sure how to handle the topic of misogyny and misandry well]], given that it was a mixture of RomCom and satire. As a whole, it fell between two stools being not quite one thing but not quite the other. People who wanted a traditional RomCom would not have enjoyed the gender politics as the theme, whereas people looking for a more intellectual film wouldn't have enjoyed the RomCom aspect, and although it tried to give AnAesop on sexism and double standards, the film was seen as having more of a LostAesop. In general, it was a hard sell and marketing it was difficult. |
| 106 | * ''Film/ImThinkingOfEndingThings'' is a twofer in terms of hard sell. On one hand, it's an extremely metaphorical/non-literal movie that quietly references a variety of different arts and media to create a rather complicated story that will likely require a second viewing to fully understand. However, it's also a very depressing movie about a dying relationship [[spoiler:though really it's about a relationship that only ever existed in the imagination of an aging highschool janitor who, while rather intelligent, never actually did anything with his life; the entire movie is metaphorically about him contemplating suicide, with it being very ambiguous whether he killed himself at the end.]] All of which may stop you from ''wanting'' to watch it again. While critics generally enjoyed it, general audiences were much more divided on it. |
| 107 | * ''Film/{{Inchon}}'' was a movie about a major battle in the UsefulNotes/KoreanWar. It was also a propaganda vehicle for the Unification Church, directly funded by founder Sun Myung Moon. Given that the Church is widely seen as a cult today, and was even less popular then, it was immediately viewed with suspicion, and it took years to find a willing distributor (along with not being very good in spite of the big names and budget, resulting in a critical and commercial disaster never released on home video). It did, however, provide the world with Creator/LaurenceOlivier's famous MoneyDearBoy quote, and [[CultSoundtrack an acclaimed soundtrack album.]] |
| 108 | * ''Film/JemAndTheHolograms2015'' was an attempted LiveActionAdaptation of the 80s cartoon ''WesternAnimation/{{Jem}}'', trying to follow the successes of ''{{Film/Transformers 2007}}'' and ''Film/GIJoeTheRiseOfCobra''. Unfortunately, it ended up barely resembling the source material; the cartoon was about adult women with full time careers as well as adventures, and the film aged them down to teenagers to make the story resemble ''Series/HannahMontana'' more. The goofy, irreverent tone of the cartoon was likewise brought back to grounded realism, removing a lot of the fun that fans loved about it. Then there was the controversial removal of The Misfits, a rival band to the Holograms, who don't show up until TheStinger. Adding to that was an extremely generic plot that hit off several clichés about overnight fame and was more a retelling of Music/JustinBieber's rise to fame than anything resembling ''Jem''. Despite having a small $5 million budget, it was a disastrous bomb that was pulled from theatres after only two weeks. |
| 109 | * Creator/{{Disney}} faced this with its adaptation of Creator/EdgarRiceBurroughs' ''Literature/JohnCarterOfMars'' series: the title of the first book, ''A Princess of Mars'', was seen as being too alienating for the young male audience who would be the natural target for an adaptation of the classic pulp action story[[note]]It doesn't help that Disney + princess = [[Franchise/DisneyPrincess a girly franchise]][[/note]]. They instead titled the film ''Film/JohnCarter'', which ended up being equally unappealing as despite the massive influence of the series, Carter himself hasn't gained the kind of name recognition (especially compared to Burroughs' other major hero Franchise/{{Tarzan}}) for his name alone to get many people interested. The result was that a film various people had been trying to get off the ground for almost a ''century'' bombed hard and created a StillbornFranchise. |
| 110 | * ''Film/JohnQ'' [[AmericansHateTingle outside of the United States]]. Foreign audiences find the premise of TheHero taking an ER at gunpoint after being denied life-saving surgery alien and unrelatable (though not necessarily bad or uninteresting) because either healthcare is easier to come by, guns are harder to come by, or both. |
| 111 | * ''Film/JustVisiting'' is an Americanized 2001 time-travel comedy based off the French ''Film/LesVisiteurs'' series. But the American side didn't care as it was based off the French series almost no one knew about, while the French were [[TheyChangedItNowItSucks alienated by the many differences between this film and the parent series]]. It was a BoxOfficeBomb all the way around and was turned into an {{Unreboot}} after ''Les Visiteurs: Bastille Day'' ignored the events of this film. |
| 112 | * ''A Karate Christmas Miracle'' (starring Creator/EricRoberts) is not what you'd expect from its title. On the surface, it tells the story of a boy who believes that if he earns a black belt in Karate, Santa might bring his long-missing father home for Christmas. Sounds heartwarming, right? Until you learn that the father disappeared during a mass shooting at a movie theater, and is last seen being threatened by a clown with a gun. So, essentially, the Aurora tragedy! Taking into account the possible poor taste of the subject matter, the fact is that the film doesn't know if it wants to be a heartwarming Christmas fable or a dark commentary on gun control. Consider that the film's writer, Kenneth del Vecchio (who also plays the father) has made politically-charged movies in the past, owing to him being a law student. It's as if the filmmakers wanted to make a straight social-commentary movie but the financiers decided to shoehorn Christmas into it because they thought it would sell better. |
| 113 | * ''Film/TheKillingOfJohnLennon'' is ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin - a film about Music/JohnLennon's [[HeWhoMustNotBeNamed assassin]]. Technique-wise, it's not a bad film, and contrary to what some critics claim, it doesn't make the killer look any more sympathetic -- if anything, he looks worse, because the film portrays him as a bigot, a bully, and a shitty husband. But many fans of Lennon want the assassin to fade into obscurity and actively try not to even mention the assassin by ''name'', much less want to watch a ''film'' about him. |
| 114 | * [[Creator/MNightShyamalan M. Night Shyamalan’s]] ''Film/TheLastAirbender'' is a LiveActionAdaptation of a [[WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender popular cartoon series of the same name.]] Unlike other films of its kind, however, the original series wasn’t that old, which made it feel unnecessary. The original cartoon is {{Animesque}}, with a lot of supernatural elements and abilities that would be hard to translate into live-action (especially in 2010), which is why, compared to the show, [[AdaptationalWimp the movie’s characters feel much weaker.]] This made fans of the series dismiss the movie as an unfaithful to its source material. It also [[RaceLift completely changed the character’s races.]] Even people who weren’t familiar with the cartoon would have a hard time watching it, since it tries to retell the entirety of the show’s first season within 90 minutes, making the film’s plot feel, confusing, crowded, and poorly-paced. All these factors led to it being a critical and financial disaster. |
| 115 | * ''Film/TheLastDuel'' is essentially a historical legal drama, a gloomy, slow-paced period piece, lacking on crowd-pleasing fare such as romance (in fact, it centers around an arranged marriage and how the wife was raped) or combat (aside from some brief battles and the title duel at the end). So in spite of big names attached (director Creator/RidleyScott, an AllStarCast including Creator/MattDamon, Creator/BenAffleck - both of whom also wrote the script - and Creator/AdamDriver), the studio [[InvisibleAdvertising didn't care to promote it]] - or at least didn't know how - and it became an AcclaimedFlop, opening to just $9 million with a nine-digit budget. |
| 116 | * ''Film/LawnDogs'': A 10-year-old girl and a 21-year-old man [[IntergenerationalFriendship become close friends]]. It's rated R. Their relationship is mostly platonic, but there are strong hints that the girl has [[PrecociousCrush feelings]] for the man. Not many people want to watch a movie about this, though those that did often considered the film to be excellent. |
| 117 | * The 1981 epic ''Film/LionOfTheDesert'', starring Creator/AnthonyQuinn. It is a powerful anti-colonialist film, but it is set in a conflict not many know about ([[UsefulNotes/TheRoaring20s 1920s]] UsefulNotes/{{Libya}}), with a hero not very famous outside of his country and [[UsefulNotes/FascistItaly enemies]] that aren't often seen as [[FascistButInefficient "scary" enough]] in cinema. The death blow comes with the fact that it was commissioned and financed by UsefulNotes/MuammarGaddafi, making potential viewers avoid the film for considering it propaganda. Too bad, because according to most critics it is actually good. |
| 118 | * ''Film/ManOnTheMoon'': For all the spilled ink about Creator/AndyKaufman, most people who weren't already in showbiz only remembered him as a FunnyForeigner on a [[Series/{{Taxi}} well-done but short-lived sitcom]]; those who remembered his ''other'' work either loved or loathed him. The filmmakers were perfectly aware that this trope applied and the writers even begged Universal Pictures to launch the film on the festival circuit rather than position it as a mainstream Christmas blockbuster, but because Creator/JimCarrey was playing Kaufman higher-ups believed it could be a hit out of the gate. It ended up getting mixed reviews and was Carrey's first box-office flop as an A-lister, but he wasn't bothered; as he told ''Playboy'' a few years later, "I don't think it was meant to do a lot of business, because Andy didn't do a lot of business. We were true to him and polarized the same people."[[note]]Though the theatrical run wasn't a complete disaster in a vacuum, the film made nearly $50 million at the box office, not too bad for a biopic. The problem was that it cost a little over '''$80 million''' to make, which was a ''really'' high budget for this kind of movie.[[/note]] (The film found an unexpected PeripheryDemographic on [=DVD=] and cable: the younger end of Carrey's fanbase, who were unable to see the film in theaters due to its R-rating and came to the subject matter cold -- they found it fascinating. It also found a smaller periphery demo in ProfessionalWrestling fans, as Kaufman is almost a mythical figure in pro wrestling fandom thanks to his feud with Wrestling/JerryLawler, who played himself in the film.) |
| 119 | * The 1997 ''Series/McHalesNavy'' movie was a SettingUpdate of a [[PeriodPiece period]] sitcom from the 1960s about a PT boat crew in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, reimagining the characters as a misfit gang of modern-day US Navy officers battling a Russian terrorist in the Caribbean. Fans of the original sitcom were turned off by the drastic changes to the source material, while nearly everyone under the age of 40 was turned off by the antiquated source material itself. The result was one of the biggest flops of the '90s, grossing barely ''one tenth'' of its budget. It probably didn't help that ''[=McHale's=] Navy'' doesn't exactly have the iconic status or MultipleDemographicAppeal of, say, ''Series/TheAddamsFamily'', ''Series/TheBradyBunch'', ''Series/MissionImpossible'', or ''Franchise/StarTrek''. |
| 120 | * ''Film/MilkMoney'': A lighthearted comedy about [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotForKids three young boys trying to see a prostitute naked]]. Then it gets even crazier when the prostitute is introduced to the father of one of the boys as a potential love interest. The premise was too raunchy for kids and too tame for adults (it's rated PG-13), and bombed at the box office as a result. |
| 121 | * ''Film/MishimaALifeInFourChapters'': While the film was and is critically acclaimed, it was an AcclaimedFlop. Most American audiences didn't even know of Creator/YukioMishima or his works outside of the film itself, not even Japanese-Americans, and so didn't really bother watching, [[MinorityShowGhetto not helped by large portions being in Japanese]]. Meanwhile in Japan, where Mishima is far too politically charged to discuss, [[AmericansHateTingle audiences found a film about such political views too off-putting to watch]], to the point it went straight to TV there and with no home release. |
| 122 | * ''Film/MomAndDad'': While there hasn't really been an outcry about the film, it still hasn't been watched by most people. When a film is about [[OffingTheOffspring parents wanting to murder their children]], and the film is relentless, gory and filled with BlackComedy to boot, you can kind of understand why the premise alone gets this reaction. |
| 123 | * ''Film/MommieDearest''. Creator/RogerEbert summed it up pretty well; it’s two hours of [[HistoricalVillainUpgrade a screeching caricature]] of Creator/JoanCrawford beating the shit out of her daughter. Interestingly, the film actually did very well despite the alienating premise... but only because everyone heard how SoBadItsGood it supposedly was and watched the movie to laugh at it, causing the studio to try and save face by [[ParodyRetcon altering the movie’s marketing to make it look like an intentional comedy]]. |
| 124 | * ''Film/MonsterHunter2020'': The [[TaintedByThePreview earliest previews of the film killed almost all interest in it]] right from the start from the primary game fanbase because of two major elements of the film. One is it featured the bizarre introduction of the human military in a TrappedInAnotherWorld plot, a plot device which tends to be highly contentious already, and one that was never in any of the games. Two is it was directed by Creator/PaulWSAnderson, who has gained infamy for his ''[[InNameOnly very loose]]'' and largely reviled ''Film/ResidentEvilFilmSeries'', and was now given the reins of another treasured Creator/{{Capcom}} franchise to shoehorn his [[Creator/MillaJovovich wife]] into as an out-of-place grizzled ActionGirl hero again. Fans of the game were turned off by the unnecessary cross-dimensional military story elements that overshadow the rest of the movie, while general audiences and fans alike would be turned off by the director's entire prior filmography being schlock, and ''Monster Hunter'' obviously being more of the same. These factors, plus a one-off line that was interpreted as a Sinophobic insult and led to the movie being pulled from Chinese theatres and review-bombed by Chinese viewers, and releasing in theatres in the midst of the Usefulnotes/COVID19Pandemic led to the film financially bombing. |
| 125 | * ''Film/MortalEngines'' became the biggest confirmed BoxOfficeBomb ''of all time'' upon release. It is based on a niche YoungAdultLiterature series whose premise of "cities on wheels" seems too ludicrous for mainstream audiences. The cast also lacked popular actors besides Creator/HugoWeaving and Creator/StephenLang, making it difficult to excite its fanbase and attract non-fans. The premise and casting badly hurt the marketing, which had to rely more on the promise of spectacle and Creator/PeterJackson's involvement (even though [[DirectorDisplacement he was only credited as a writer and producer, and not the director]]). And this isn't even getting into the controversial AdaptationalAttractiveness of the facially-disfigured female lead... |
| 126 | * Even for a director who built his career on artsy SurrealHorror, Creator/DarrenAronofsky's ''[[Film/Mother2017 mother!]]'' is pretty out there. A nameless husband and wife find their remote house descended upon by an increasing parade of aggressively quirky characters, all while everyone but the wife as our viewpoint character refuses to acknowledge that there's a single thing remotely out of the ordinary about any of it. Then the last half hour finally gives up any pretense of logical sense and becomes a nonstop parade of nightmarish violence and...more stuff best not elaborated on. Your response to it is highly dependent on when or even if you realize -- and appreciate -- how [[spoiler:the whole thing is a microcosm of the Bible, in an extension of the rather unique view of religion shown in his previous film ''Film/{{Noah}}'']]. And then there's the fact that Aronofsky and his star Creator/JenniferLawrence started dating during production, which creates a quite creepy RealitySubtext to everything. It was a rare BoxOfficeBomb for the director and got an F on Moviescore (reviews were divisive), and the best way to view how it came about is him thinking "I've gotten all the prestige I'm ever going to get, so now it's time to go completely nuts and see just how far I can go before someone stops me." Not helping matters was the marketing selling the movie as a generic home invasion thriller, giving the audiences expecting that kind of film quite a shock. |
| 127 | * ''Film/{{Music|2021}}'' would've been a tough sell even if it didn't face a laundry list of controversies before its release. The plot revolves around a recovering alcoholic taking care of her InspirationallyDisadvantaged autistic sister, which to people that didn't find any of the film's surrounding details offensive, merely sounded like outdated OscarBait. It was only either sent straight-to-VOD or given a limited release outside of [[Music/{{Sia}} the director's]] native Australia (though that was also due to being released in the middle of the UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic), and even there it flopped. |
| 128 | * ''Film/MyBigFatIndependentMovie'' is a broad spoof based on independent films, with a general tone and tenor similar to the post-''Film/ScaryMovie'' era of spoofs where the plot is more or less a succession of references and cameos of characters from other movies held together by VulgarHumor. These kinds of movies were [[CriticProof successful in their time]], but targeted themselves at the lowest of lowbrow viewers, who would recognize maybe two of the films being parodied. Meanwhile, fans of independent films tend to passionately love those films, which are by nature obscure underdogs and often deal with serious and heartfelt subject matter, and would therefore be unhappy to see them get dragged through the mud. In short, the film is aimed at the Venn diagram of people who recognize [[Film/{{Amelie}} Amélie Poulain]], and people who want to see Amélie Poulain get punched in the face (this isn't hyperbole, [[https://i.imgur.com/ZgYFvbD.jpeg it was one of the film's posters]]). The result: on a tiny budget of three million dollars, it grossed 4.6... thousand. |
| 129 | * This is key to why ''Film/{{Newsies}}'' bombed in 1992: A drama about a 1899 newsboys' strike -- and it's a ''musical!'' Creator/{{Disney}} had seen so much success with animated musicals at the turn of the decade that they saw potential in this live-action one; Jeffrey Katzenberg compared it to ''Film/{{Oliver}}'' But there hadn't been a blockbuster, live-action movie musical since 1978's ''Film/{{Grease}}'' that didn't clearly take place in a fantastical context (e.g., the Muppet films). To some viewers, a dramatic, realistic musical ended up coming off as unrelatable, especially when lighter fare like ''Film/{{Beethoven}}'' and ''WesternAnimation/FernGullyTheLastRainforest'' was on offer that particular spring. Moreover, they were likely turned off by the cast lacking in ([[RetroactiveRecognition then-]])name performers[[note]]The only two major stars in the movie at the time were Creator/RobertDuvall and Creator/AnnMargret, who were well-known but not bankable (both at this point being well past the height of their careers) while star Creator/ChristianBale only had ''Film/EmpireOfTheSun'' to his name.[[/note]] (if, again, they weren't turned off by the fact that it was a musical), and for some, its setting didn't have obvious appeal. There is a happy ending here -- while it was a BoxOfficeBomb, it did well in the video aftermarket and became a CultClassic, to the point that it received a successful ScreenToStageAdaptation in 2011. |
| 130 | * ''Film/NightOfTheLepus'': Even if '''Giant Killer Bunny Rabbits''' [[HairRaisingHare can be scary]], it's telling that [[NeverTrustATrailer the trailers go out of their way to not show any of them]], raising the question: if you believe [[NightmareRetardant your monsters aren't scary]], why would you still make a movie about them? What makes this even more inexplicable was that the film was based on a novel which treated "killer bunny rabbits" as intentionally silly, but this film portrays it completely straight. It was so panned it became one of those "legendary bad movies" because of this. |
| 131 | * ''Film/NineLives2016'' was a film revolving around the idea of a guy switching bodies with a cat and learning how to be a good father as a result. The "human inhabits body of animal" shtick had been done to death several times in the '90s and early 2000s (most notably with ''Film/{{Fluke}}''). As a result, people weren't inclined to see the film despite (or possibly ''[[QuestionableCasting because]]'' of) Creator/KevinSpacey starring in it and being directed by Creator/BarrySonnenfeld, and it consequently failed to make back its budget, on top of being deemed a cinematic hairball by critics. To top it off, this was about a year before Spacey's fall from grace, making this movie even harder to enjoy. |
| 132 | * ''Film/{{North}}'' is supposedly [[{{Glurge}} an uplifting tale]] about a boy who travels around the world to find better parents. Unfortunately, this was cancelled out with a parade of blatant racial stereotypes; furthermore, while it's a kids' movie with adult jokes here and there, the "child-friendly" scenes are too childish for adults while [[WhatDoYouMeanItsForKids the "adult jokes" are too raunchy for kids]]. In short, no member of the target audience is pleased. It's now best known for inspiring Creator/RogerEbert's famous "hated, hated, hated this movie" rant. |
| 133 | * ''Film/TheNutcrackerIn3D'' is a lavish, big-budget adaptation of a timeless ballet... with minimal dancing and ''really'' dumb [[WithLyrics lyrics affixed to the classic score]]. That alone might have made it a tricky sell, but then there's the shoddy special effects, the UnintentionalUncannyValley-riddled designs for the Nutcracker and other characters, the fact that the main antagonist is ANaziByAnyOtherName, and the {{narm}}tastic dialogue. Like ''Film/{{North}}'' before it, it's too scary for kids and too unsophisticated for adults. |
| 134 | * ''Film/TheOogielovesInTheBigBalloonAdventure'': As many reviewers have pointed out, the very concept of a theatrical film that encourages small children to make as much noise as possible in a movie theatre is not going to appeal to many parents. Your own children dancing around to a movie at home is one thing; dancing around in the crowded aisles of a theatre with dozens of other children is quite another. Though, considering the box office numbers, 'dozens' turned out to be wild optimism. |
| 135 | * ''Film/OsmosisJones'' is a live-action/animated hybrid, already setting off the AnimationAgeGhetto. Worse, the parts with actors are heavy on gross-out moments, and the cartoon parts full of ParentalBonus and FamilyUnfriendlyViolence [[WhatDoYouMeanItsForKids that certainly aimed more at grown-ups]]. Add the studio underpromoting what was already a hard sell, and it flopped on theaters - though it still originated [[Westernanimation/OzzyAndDrix a spin-off series]] and later became a CultClassic. |
| 136 | * ''Film/PaintYourWagon'': It's a western starring Creator/ClintEastwood and Creator/LeeMarvin. But it's also a musical in which they share a bride! There are very few that would enjoy all of these elements together, and the film would become a laughing stock as a result. No wonder Homer and Bart were shocked when they watched a parodic version of it in ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' episode "All Singing, All Dancing". |
| 137 | * ''Film/Passengers2016''. The premise seemed attractive enough for viewers with A-list casting of Creator/ChrisPratt and Creator/JenniferLawrence, but the plot twist obscured by the [[TrailersAlwaysLie trailers]] was that the male lead essentially kidnapped the female lead from her future life to make his less lonely, and yet they later have a romantic reconciliation. Several critics were so offended that they willingly spoiled the twist in their reviews. That, and word of mouth made this film quickly sink. |
| 138 | * The makers of ''Film/{{Philadelphia}}'' deliberately countered this problem by hiring A-list actor Creator/TomHanks to play the lead out of fears that the 1993 audience would be turned off by the premise, which is about a gay man who has HIV. |
| 139 | * The Mexican movie ''Pink (2016)'' was created by Christian director Paco del Toro (no relation to Guillermo del Toro) to "warn of the grave error of allowing homosexual couples to adopt children." [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rLCy8rUlNc The first trailer made]] it clear that the film was a parade of homophobic stereotypes, causing great controversy between liberals and conservatives in Mexican society. And when the movie was released, it was a total box office failure: people who disagree with his position would not want to see a movie about why they are wrong, while people who do agree with him generally wouldn't like a movie that can be summarized as "two hours of gays behaving in the most gay way possible". It was so alienating and controversial that one of UsefulNotes/{{Mexico}}'s two major theater chains outright refused to screen it. It also didn't help that during a TV debate with Del Toro and the director of Mexico City's anti-discrimination council, the latter ''outright debunked'' the messages of the film. A year after its release, Creator/{{Netflix}} added the movie to their service, only to be faced with massive complaints over the movie's premise, leading them to take it down after only a few days. |
| 140 | * ''Film/Pinocchio2002''. After Creator/RobertoBenigni's [[MediaNotes/AcademyAward Oscar]] wins for ''Film/LifeIsBeautiful'', he chose to use his new clout to create a long-time dream project: a faithful adaption of Carlo Collodi's ''Literature/TheAdventuresOfPinocchio'', which he would write and direct. Unfortunately, he also made the decision to ''star'' as Pinocchio, with the minimal special effects doing nothing to disguise that the famous child puppet was 50 and balding, resulting in mixed reviews but a profit in Benigni's native UsefulNotes/{{Italy}}. Then came the American dub. Realizing this was going to be a hard sell to Americans, Creator/{{Miramax}} proceeded to completely half-ass the dubbing, giving the voice role of Pinocchio to Creator/BreckinMeyer, age 28 and most famous for voicing a teenager[[note]]The second Joseph Gribble on ''WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill''[[/note]]. Between the poorly synched dubbing and a middle-aged Pinocchio with the voice that clearly came from someone much younger, the American version achieved a rare 0% on Website/RottenTomatoes. |
| 141 | * ''Film/PopstarNeverStopNeverStopping'' is a parody of musician documentaries like (as the title implies) ''Music/JustinBieber: Never Say Never''. However, the genre it was satirizing hasn't seen a big hit since the aforementioned film,[[note]]''Never Say Never'' was released five years before ''Popstar''[[/note]] making the subject matter unrelevent among general audiences. This likely explains why the film did poorly enough to be pulled out of theaters after only three weeks despite positive reviews. |
| 142 | * ''Film/ThePostman'': It was difficult for the marketing to explain the movie's ''very'' BoringButPractical premise: a man rebuilding America AfterTheEnd by... delivering the mail. While this actually makes a lot of sense, it takes many long moments to comprehend the idea, thus rendering it almost unmarketable. It was a ''massive'' BoxOfficeBomb, grossing less than $20 million on an $80 million budget. |
| 143 | * ''Film/RadioFlyer'' was a BoxOfficeBomb for one main reason, the ridiculous and off-putting premise. Two kids have a stepfather who is abusive to one of them, but the kids cover it up because their mother loves him. So instead of telling the authorities about the abuse, the abused kid decides to build a machine and fly away. Needless to say, the problematic message (about how it's better to run away from your problems than actually confront them or even tell someone about them) did NOT sit well with most people, especially the critics that savaged the film, arguing that it sent the wrong message to kids who are actually in an abusive situation. The movie appealed to almost no one, as the subject matter was too depressing for kids, and it was too laughable and unrealistic for adults. |
| 144 | * ''Film/RedSonja1985'' flopped for various reasons. There were early scenes of misogynistic torture and slaughter of potential [[ActionGirl action girls]] -- either massacred or thrown in a pit to die and [[DisposableWoman become forgotten]], to the point where only the protagonist Sonja and the antagonist Queen Gedren were the only women for the rest of the film. This disappointed anyone looking for a FeministFantasy, if not outright offending them. Fans of Creator/ArnoldSchwarzenegger were disappointed to see him in a supporting role, reduced to killing mooks in only a handful of scenes[[note]]He was supposed to have only a cameo, but the executives would elevate his role because they had no confidence in the film.[[/note]]. Throw in a mishmash of fantasy elements that appeal to no one when mixed together -- an insufferable KidHero and his bumbling sidekick; a giant mechanical lizard; a ''topless woman'' that exists [[BigLippedAlligatorMoment for no real reason]]; and the result was a ''massive'' box-office flop, [[GenreKiller killing off sword-and-sorcery for at least a decade]], and even Schwarzenegger would later [[CreatorBacklash not speak good of it]]. [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking Oh, and Sonja]] ''never'' wears her iconic ChainmailBikini, instead donning generic fantasy action-girl attire, so even an audience wanting sleaze were disappointed. |
| 145 | * ''Film/{{Revolution|1985}}'' was a historical epic about UsefulNotes/TheAmericanRevolution... made by ''the British'', and painting a very non-romanticized portrait of the Revolution that ran heavily on themes of WarIsHell and GreyAndGrayMorality. American audiences, offended by the very idea of the film and expecting it to [[HistoricalVillainUpgrade villainize the Patriots]] and [[HistoricalHeroUpgrade valorize the Redcoats]], gave it scathing reviews and avoided it like the plague. British audiences were no more eager to see a movie about a war that marked one of their greatest defeats, and they too ignored it. It was the first of several [[BoxOfficeBomb box-office bombs]] that helped [[CreatorKiller destroy]] Goldcrest Films. |
| 146 | * ''Film/RideWithTheDevil'' portrays an African-American fighting on the side of Southern guerrillas in the Kansas border skirmishes of UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar. Although the character had a historically factual precedent, the idea of a black soldier fighting for the Confederacy, an institution widely associated with white supremacy, was so repugnant that the film was delayed, promotional materials were destroyed, and the release was severely limited (in the actual Confederacy most of the black soldiers were slaves forced into service by their masters though, so it's not as if they were all willing anyway). Even in the film, the character possibly only goes with them because he feels grateful for another one freeing him, and suffers from constant racism by the white fighters. This ultimately resulted in the aforementioned extremely limited release of only 60 theaters and it subsequently tanking at the box office. |
| 147 | * ''Film/{{Rollerball}} (2002)'': The 1975 version was a brutal, R-rated sci-fi {{dystopia}}/action film with a message against the glorification of violence, and is considered a classic. The 2002 remake, though, went through a truly epic TroubledProduction[[note]]Among other things, director Creator/JohnMcTiernan eventually did time in federal prison for illegally wiretapping one of the producers[[/note]]. A well-received script focusing on the social commentary was heavily rewritten, abandoning the sci-fi setting and the commentary in exchange for attempting a BloodierAndGorier modern sports film. Afterwards, much of the violence, gore, and nudity was reshot, edited out, and digitally censored to earn a PG-13 rating. The result was a remake hated by fans of the original, and an exploitation film too tame for exploitation fans. Reviews were savage, and the film bombed. |
| 148 | %%* The 2021 film ''Film/SaferAtHome'' takes place in the fall of 2022, when secondary strains of the [[UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic coronavirus]] have led to 23 million deaths in the U.S. and the establishment of a PoliceState. And the protagonists, who are having an online party to entertain themselves, decide to add drugs to the mix, the better to grab the IdiotBall. As if the primary premise was not enough, the characters have not left their homes in ages and the two that do eventually head out are floored by the chaos outside. As if that was not enough, the movie ends with a [[spoiler:character who is a POC being shot by the police]]. |
| 149 | * ''Save the Tiger'' is a low key and highly depressing character study of a failing businessman who descends into alcoholism as he considers torching his store in an insurance scam, while everyone around him is helpless to stop his decline. Creator/JackLemmon strongly believed in the film but knew full well it had extremely limited commercial prospects and so took a significant pay cut to get it made, which paid off with an Oscar win in one of the most ridiculously stacked group of acting nominations in the awards' history. |
| 150 | * ''Film/ScottPilgrimVsTheWorld'' failed to find an audience due to combining too many niches together: comic books, indie rock, and video games from the '80s. Its audience would have to be a particular breed of geek that appreciates all three. Creator/MichaelCera also was not a big enough draw on his own and was in the midst of a HypeBacklash from audiences feeling [[{{Typecasting}} he played the same character too often]], [[NeverTrustATrailer something the marketing did little to dispel (keeping the most Cera-esque bits but leaving out Scott's more jerkass personality)]]. Throw in some weak marketing (the main poster for the film was just Scott rocking his guitar, with a vague tagline of [[BuffySpeak "An epic of epic epicness"]], leaving the uninitiated with zero clue about the movie) and an overreaching budget ($60m for a film with a narrow niche helmed by [[Creator/EdgarWright a filmmaker]] with a devoted but small American following) and the movie was dead on arrival, despite very good reviews from critics and audiences who did seek it out. The movie [[VindicatedByCable did better on home video]], though, and [[CultClassic the ever-increasing goodwill towards the film]] and ''ComicBook/ScottPilgrim'' in general led to the [[AnimatedAdaptation anime adaptation]] [[spoiler:(actually a StealthSequel series)]] ''Anime/ScottPilgrimTakesOff'', featuring Creator/EdgarWright returning as co-producer and 99% of the original cast [[RoleReprise reprising their roles]] in the English dub. |
| 151 | * ''Film/SexLivesOfThePotatoMen'', an obscure British film of the AwfulBritishSexComedy genre devoted to [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin the sexual exploits of a group of potato delivery men]]. This would have been bad enough, but the main characters were made to look as grotesque as possible. A raunchy comedy about hideous people having sex? No thank you. It should come as little surprise that this film actually provoked public debate over whether the British film industry was in severe decline. It didn't help that one million pounds of funding from the film came from the UK's National Lottery - needless to say, this was ''not'' the kind of "good cause" most normal people would expect lottery funding to be awarded to. |
| 152 | * The second ''Film/SexAndTheCity'' film. Even fans were reluctant to see their favorite characters in UsefulNotes/{{Dubai}}. UsefulNotes/TheMiddleEast, with its reputation for repressing women's sexuality with harsh punishments, did not seem like a great setting for a film about sexually liberated women, while the movie's portrayal of the Middle East was criticized as insensitive and stereotypical. The second film underperformed and was savaged by critics. |
| 153 | * ''Film/ShakesTheClown'' didn't do too well in theaters, even though most people would say it isn't that bad. But it just couldn't find its niche. On one hand, it's about birthday party clowns who never take off their makeup even when not working, so despite its R-rated raunchy humor, the premise was too ridiculous for adults. On the other hand, the clowns drink heavily, sleep around (sometimes contracting venereal diseases), snort cocaine, and commit numerous acts of violence, including [[FantasticRacism hate crimes against mimes]] - so it was too dark for kids. The result was a film that wasn't very funny and worth seeing only for novelty value (i.e., "the ''Film/CitizenKane'' of [[OverlyNarrowSuperlative alcoholic clown films]]"). |
| 154 | * ''Film/TheShawshankRedemption'' was initially this in its theatrical release. In addition to InvisibleAdvertising it had a very lukewarm reception due to being adapted from the work of an author whose primary bread and butter is horror and fantasy, as opposed to a gritty, realistic prison drama. It failed to appeal to the horror fans who loved Stephen King's works and its obscurity kept it from appealing to the mainstream. Having found a greater life on home video it is now regarded as one of the greatest movies of all time. |
| 155 | * ''Film/SnakeEyesGIJoeOrigins'' is particularly notable for having two overlapping yet distinct premises that contributed to a BoxOfficeBomb. (Not counting the fact it was released in theaters in the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic.) |
| 156 | ** It’s ''another'' prequel to ''Franchise/GIJoe''. After [[Film/GIJoeTheRiseOfCobra the previous]] [[Film/GIJoeRetaliation two films]] set the stage for the Joes to finally have an all-out brawl with Cobra, seeing this movie [[AbortedArc abandon that plot thread]] was bound to lose faith in the franchise. |
| 157 | ** The defining traits of Snake Eyes himself are being [[TheQuietOne voiceless]], [[TheFaceless faceless]], and being a master {{ninja}}. ''All'' of those traits were removed from this film’s incarnation, resulting in a [[VanillaProtagonist far less interesting character]]. |
| 158 | * ''Film/{{Songbird}}'', produced by Creator/MichaelBay, takes place in a dystopian future where the UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic has worsened to the point where infectees are sent to concentration camps to quarantine, revolving around a contraband courier saving his girlfriend from being sent to one of the camps. Given that the film was released when the virus was ongoing, viewers were turned off by the premise, while viewers interested in a film about the pandemic objected to the romantic subplot and felt the pandemic wasn't handled well, resulting in the film getting critically panned. |
| 159 | * ''Film/Speed2CruiseControl'' was set on a cruise ship, a slow-sailing vehicle and thus something that already misses the point of the title (unlike [[Film/{{Speed}} the first movie]], which was set on a bus that had to keep itself fast lest it get blown up). Add that Creator/KeanuReeves refused to return, and whoever liked the first would think the movie was unnecessary, let alone worth watching. |
| 160 | * Creator/RolandEmmerich's ''Film/{{Stonewall|2015}}'' is a 2015 film about the Stonewall riots that kicked off the modern LGBT rights movement, told through the eyes of fictional teenager Danny Winters, a StraightGay WhiteMaleLead from rural Indiana who bused to UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity after being kicked out of his home. Danny was created to make the story more relatable to straight white audiences, which pleased absolutely no one. Most in the LGBT community felt this was whitewashing the actual history and that it should have been about the real leaders of the riots: black drag queen Marsha P. Johnson [[note]]although Johnson has always maintained to not have been there when the riots began[[/note]], Hispanic drag queen Sylvia Rivera, and/or Hispanic lesbian Stormé [=DeLarverie=] (of these three, only Johnson appears in the movie but her role is minor). As for straight people, the ones with enough interest in LGBT culture to even watch the movie were well aware of the criticisms, and many were also offended by the assumption that they would only care about a generic, white Midwestern boy and not the people that were actually there. Add in a 10% rating from Website/RottenTomatoes, and you're left with one of the biggest flops of the decade. |
| 161 | * ''Film/TheStrangeThingAboutTheJohnsons'' is about a young man who rapes his father for years on end, until the latter kills himself. It's drawn controversy, not only because of the subject matter, but also because the entire cast is African-American. Some people say this adds to the story while others accuse Creator/AriAster, the film's Jewish writer/director, of racism. |
| 162 | * ''Film/TheStuntMan'' was hated by the studio execs, who declared it to be completely unmarketable: a BlackComedy about a criminal who hides out as a stuntman on a film shoot, only to discover that the director is a lunatic who goes to quite disturbing lengths in the name of EnforcedMethodActing. It took two years to find a distributor, and Creator/PeterOToole famously quipped years later: "The film wasn't released, it escaped!" |
| 163 | * One of the main reasons ''Film/SuckerPunch'' was such a divisive movie is that depending on who you ask, it's either a {{Deconstruction}} of [[{{Fanservice}} fanservice]]-driven pseudo-feminist ActionGirl movies, video games, and anime, or a straight example of it that gleefully indulges in mindless violence and fanservice. To make matters worse, there's an element of CluelessAesop to the whole thing, as director Creator/ZackSnyder happily utilizes those tropes in his previous (and later) works. The IndecisiveParody aspect came back to bite it in the ass; most mainstream audiences (''especially'' women) were turned off because of how sexist it looked, while most nerds avoided it because it was allegedly a TakeThat [[TakeThatAudience aimed at them]]. As a result, it was a complete bomb, with Creator/WarnerBros' share of its box office take unable to offset even half of the film's marketing budget, let alone the film's actual production budget. |
| 164 | * ''Film/TheSwimmer'' is another one whose release was delayed for years because no one had any idea how to market it. It's a highly faithful adaptation of a John Cheever short story about a man with vague but obvious mental problems who spontaneously decides to "swim home" through his neighbors' pools, with their reactions gradually revealing what a mess his once fantastic life has become in a vicious attack on the idea of UsefulNotes/TheAmericanDream. One can easily imagine the eventual distributor was counting largely on the MrFanservice factor to get butts in seats, with Creator/BurtLancaster spending the whole movie in swimming trunks and often dripping wet. |
| 165 | * ''Film/SwissArmyMan'' is a movie about a man stranded on an island who discovers Creator/DanielRadcliffe washing up on shore as a farting, talking corpse he nicknames Manny. This premise already drew ire from moviegoers who disliked BlackComedy and VulgarHumor, and Daniel Radcliffe's star power was not enough to salvage what appeared to be a bizarre absurdist comedy. |
| 166 | * ''Film/TerminatorDarkFate'' put off audiences with its focus on [[ReplacementScrappy new characters the fanbase didn't care for]], [[ItsTheSameNowItSucks continuing the trend]] of being a HappyEndingOverride for ''Film/Terminator2JudgmentDay'' that made prior sequels reviled, and fans [[IKnewIt correctly predicting]] that [[spoiler:John Connor would be killed off]] before leaks and early release confirmed it. Thus in spite of the best reviews since [[Film/Terminator3RiseOfTheMachines the third movie]], ''Dark Fate'' was a financial flop. |
| 167 | * ''Terror on the Prairie'' sounds fairly inoffensive from the plot summary: it's a Western about an ActionGirl being hunted by a group of ex-Confederate soldiers. However, that premise is almost entirely irrelevant in the face of its actual purpose, which was to be a CareerResurrection for Gina Carano after she was let go from ''Series/TheMandalorian'' for various offensive remarks on social media, produced by ''The Daily Wire'', a company owned by right-wing commentator Ben Shapiro. That cuts out anyone who isn't at least somewhat right-wing, which wouldn't necessarily be a killer--except that right-wingers (especially the ones Shapiro appeals to) have a strong disdain for female-led action movies, especially ones where women come out on top over men[[note]]the catalyst for Website/RottenTomatoes disabling pre-release ratings and making the "Want to Watch" metric absolute rather than a percentage was misogynistic review-bombing of ''Film/{{Captain Marvel|2019}}''[[/note]]. In short, the conflicting political issues prevent ''any'' appreciable audience from forming; liberals are put off by Carano's views and Shapiro's involvement, and conservatives are put off by the "woke" premise. Consequently, the film grossed ''804'' dollars in its opening weekend, handily outdoing ''Film/UnitedPassions'' as the lowest such gross for a film released in ten or more theaters. |
| 168 | * ''Film/ThreeAmigos'' flopped despite having popular actors (Creator/ChevyChase, Creator/SteveMartin, and Creator/MartinShort) and directed by a respectable director (Creator/JohnLandis) as it has a ridiculous mishmash of concepts that don't quite fit together. It is a comedy, yet has its very serious moments (for example, El Guapo burning down Santo Poco and presumably killing many of its inhabitants), and its comedy ranges from rather grounded ''Film/TheThreeStooges'' style hijinks to farcical fantasy absurdity (the "Blue Shadows" segment, as well as the Singing Bush and the Invisible Swordsman) to the point where audiences have no clue what is what. (It did gain a bit of [[CultClassic cult status]] years later, however.) |
| 169 | * ''Film/{{Tideland}}'' is about a 10-year-old girl who spends several weeks in an abandoned house with her father's bloating corpse. To pass the time, she has increasingly bizarre daydreams about her Franchise/{{Barbie}} heads and befriends a mentally handicapped man, with whom she practices kissing. The DVD automatically plays an introduction by director Creator/TerryGilliam, who admits that the viewer might very well hate the film. |
| 170 | * ''Towelhead'' can certainly qualify. It’s a coming-of-age story about a 13-year-old Lebanese-American girl who's stated to be well developed for her age ({{justif|iedTrope}}ying the DawsonCasting along with legal reasons) coming to terms with her sexuality as she lives with her unsupportive father in UsefulNotes/{{Texas}} after being kicked out of her mother’s house during [[The90s the early nineties]] and [[spoiler: is raped by her neighbor and beaten by her father because of it]]. Plus, it’s called '''''[[IntentionallyAwkwardTitle Towelhead]]'''''. It only got a limited release. |
| 171 | * ''Film/TrashHumpers'': Grainy, camcorder footage of a trio of crazed elderly people that kill people, mutilate baby dolls, and [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin copulate with garbage]]. Director Creator/HarmonyKorine claims to have invoked this with the opening scene, dropping the pretensions of other art films so that anyone prone to walking out early would do so and the rest knew exactly what they're in for. |
| 172 | * ''Film/TulipFever'' was a 2017 PeriodPiece romantic drama starring Creator/AliciaVikander and the premise was tulip mania in 17th-century Amsterdam, but written more like a LifetimeMovieOfTheWeek on a bigger budget. Historical fans didn't like the [[ArtisticLicenseHistory extreme liberties]] that were taken with the film (with tulip mania becoming more a historical backdrop than the focus of the movie the title suggested), and romance fans were turned off by the DarkerAndEdgier tone to the romance as it was more about pregnancy and a nunnery despite it being billed as a sex thriller and romance drama. The movie got a lot of negative reviews largely due to its hard sell and became one of 2017's biggest flops, [[BoxOfficeBomb grossing under $2.5 million on a $25 million budget]]. |
| 173 | * ''The Two Jakes'', the sequel to the 1974 film ''Film/{{Chinatown}}''. As it required knowledge from the first film proper, it was alienating because the audience that liked ''Chinatown'' (especially the TrueArtIsAngsty crowd) found no need for a sequel and thus refused to watch it, while the audience that didn't like it were ''outright disgusted'' by the events of the first film (notably [[spoiler:the monster Noah Cross getting away with everything and we mean [[KarmaHoudini EVERYTHING]]]]) and ''also'' [[MortonsFork found no need for a sequel and thus refused to watch it]], and the sequel was tied to a film whose director Creator/RomanPolanski was convicted of sexually abusing a 13-year old girl. It bombed and was quickly forgotten (though it still has its fans), while the first film is still remembered. |
| 174 | * There's a reason ''Film/UnitedPassions'' is one of the biggest {{Box Office Bomb}}s in cinematic history, grossing all of $900 in its opening weekend.[[note]] No, not $900,000; really, just ''$900''.[[/note]] Regardless of outside influences, an "inspirational drama" about the wealthy sports executives who started the UsefulNotes/{{FIFA World Cup}} instead of the athletes was always going to have a hard time attracting viewers. But when this movie hit theaters the week after [[OvershadowedByControversy the 2015 FIFA corruption scandal erupted and consumed all the attention]], well... |
| 175 | * ''Film/{{W}}'' was always going to be a hard sell, being a biopic about a US President that was originally released while said president ''was still in office''. Not only that, it portrays UsefulNotes/GeorgeWBush--who is a very controversial figure even today--as a moronic but ultimately well-meaning man who only got into politics out of a misguided attempt to [[WellDoneSonGuy make his father proud of him]], getting way over his head into a situation that he didn't fully understand and wasn't equipped for, but still doing so with the best of intentions. Conservatives thought it was too harsh on him, while liberals thought it was too soft on him. Not helping matters is that it was directed by Creator/OliverStone, who is a very divisive filmmaker due to his outspoken political views (leading many viewers to avoid the film because they assumed that it would be biased). All in all, the film ended up bombing at the box office, received generally mixed reviews, and has since fallen out of public consciousness and remains obscure. |
| 176 | * ''Film/WelcomeToMarwen'' floundered for failing to be both a feel-good OscarBait and crowd-pleasing action movie. Trying to make a feel-good story out of ''Film/{{Marwencol}}'' (in which a man is beaten for crossdressing to the point of being mentally-impaired afterward, with the man eventually creating a fictional town as a way of healing from the trauma) is a difficult task in and of itself. Using photorealistic CGI for the dolls of that town is something that can produce [[UnintentionalUncannyValley off-putting results]], as the film's director can attest to with reception to some of his other movies dealing with performance capture. Adding to that are the inclusion CGI-heavy action scenes reminiscent of ''Film/SuckerPunch'' '''on top of that''' is a good way of appealing to absolutely nobody. A lack of critical support for the movie (aside from a few performances) and subsequent awards buzz effectively doomed the movie to be a flop. |
| 177 | * ''Film/WesCravensNewNightmare'' was a self-aware supernatural slasher deconstruction that pre-dated ''Film/{{Scream 1996}}'' by two years, and was released during a time when the horror genre was considered dead. It proved to be a little too ahead of its time, and had difficulty making money at the box office. The film did get good reviews though, but even today, while ''Scream'' enjoys a reputation as a landmark horror film, ''New Nightmare'' has to settle for a smaller cult following. Creator/WesCraven even directed both films. He's also attributed the success of the latter for focusing on horror ''fans'' rather than horror filmmakers. |
| 178 | * ''What Men Want'' being a GenderFlip of ''Film/WhatWomenWant'' is already risky for both the uneven results of such an approach and how the movie was already divisive. But it tries to add in positivity with a message of feminist empowerment (a complete reversal of the original film where Nick's behavior was thoroughly unlikeable and framed as such) and also leaning into male stereotypes hard, and the movie flopped. |
| 179 | * ''Film/WhiteDog'' is VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory about attempts to undo a German Shepherd's conditioning to fatally attack black people by his racist owner. The fact that we see the dog kill two black people and go after more, and in the end [[spoiler:inexplicably seem to reverse his training to now attack white people and need to be killed]] raised serious concerns that the wrong message could be taken, and it was buried by the studio. |
| 180 | * This was the main reason that Creator/SpikeJonze's film adaptation of ''Literature/WhereTheWildThingsAre'' turned out to be a BoxOfficeBomb, where its global take matched its budget (meaning the studio saw about half of what they spent on it, marketing included). Understandably, not everyone was wowed by the premise "The director of ''Film/{{Adaptation}}'' and ''Film/BeingJohnMalkovich'' tries to turn a beloved children's book into a depressing, [[BlackComedy darkly humorous]] fable about growing up...for adults." Lots of parents didn't want to take their children to see it, thinking that it was too adult; lots of teenagers and adults just didn't want to see it, thinking that it was for children. |
| 181 | * ''Film/TheYoungMessiah'' got hit with this not necessarily because of the premise of the story -- a [[Literature/TheBible Biblical]] drama based on the speculated early life of UsefulNotes/{{Jesus}} -- but because of the fact it's an adaptation of a book by Creator/AnneRice. Said book, ''Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt'', was written during Rice's brief born-again period in the mid-2000's, but by 2010, Rice had publicly denounced her faith, become more vocal about her progressive views, as well as critical of conservative Christians, making her extremely polarizing among faith-based audiences that a movie like this would normally be marketed to, heavily tainting box office projections. While receiving mostly average reviews, the movie bombed to the tune of $7.3 million against a $18.5 million budget. |
| 182 | [[/folder]] |
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