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| 2 | %% Please keep in mind that, for individual creators, examples cannot be added until ten years after the work's release. The only exception is if the creator passes away, since it is obviously impossible for a comeback to happen in that circumstance. For studios or production companies, an official confirmation counts as an example, regardless of timeframe. |
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| 5 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 6 | |
| 7 | [[folder:Major Studios and Labels]] |
| 8 | * The failure of the 1956 "Creator/JohnWayne as UsefulNotes/GenghisKhan" epic ''Film/TheConqueror'' is often said to have been TheLastStraw in the demise of Creator/RKOPictures, one of the "Big Five" major studios of UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfHollywood. Its previous owner Creator/HowardHughes didn't know what he was doing, leading to it getting sold to a tire company (!), and while they made an effort to turn things around, ''The Conqueror'' (produced under Hughes' management) failing to recoup its bloated budget just pushed it over the edge. RKO made a few films in the 1980s, and now, it exists mostly to sanction remakes of its films (occasionally, original productions are made by the company, such as ''A Late Quartet'' and ''Barely Lethal''). Because the movie was also filmed downwind from an above-ground nuclear test site (with Hughes even reportedly shipping back some of the sand from the filming area for studio shoots), some believe it to have been a literal career killer, responsible for the cancer deaths of a number of people involved in the shoot, Wayne included, [[BetterToDieThanBeKilled and the suicide of another who had been diagnosed]]. |
| 9 | * [[Creator/TwentiethCenturyStudios Twentieth Century Fox]]'s genre film label Fox Atomic never really took off in its first two years of existence and the failure of ''The Comebacks'' prompted them to scale down productions and close their marketing divisions. The combined failures of ''Film/MissMarch'' and ''Film/TwelveRounds'' proved to be the straws that finally broke the camel's back as the label was folded outright and their later projects were sent to other Fox labels. |
| 10 | * Creator/{{Universal}}'s animation unit, Universal Animation Studios (formerly Universal Cartoon Studios, which was built from the foundations of Creator/WalterLantz Productions) decided to take a shot at getting into theatrical films with ''WesternAnimation/CuriousGeorge2006'', after over a decade of producing DirectToVideo fare (mostly [[{{Sequelitis}} endless]] ''WesternAnimation/TheLandBeforeTime'' sequels) and various successful animated shows, such as ''WesternAnimation/BackToTheFuture'', ''WesternAnimation/{{Exosquad}}'', ''WesternAnimation/EarthwormJim'' and ''The New WesternAnimation/WoodyWoodpecker Show''. Unfortunately, the film received mediocre box office returns (despite decent reviews), which combined with poor video sales of ''The Adventures of Brer Rabbit'' resulted into UAS entirely ending any further in-house productions, choosing to outsource its animated properties to other animation studios instead. The success of Creator/IlluminationEntertainment[='=]s ''WesternAnimation/DespicableMe1'' displaced UAS as Universal's main animation arm, and the Creator/DreamWorksAnimation acquisition effectively sealed the studio's fate; with its television animation operations[[labelnote:*]]or at least, what remained of them; the division were only overseeing the ''Curious George'' Creator/{{PBS}} animated series by that point[[/labelnote]] being merged into those of [=DreamWorks=] and existing as an InNameOnly unit of Universal for properties not under the Illumination or [=DreamWorks=] banner. Compounding it was the recent announcement that a ''[[Film/TheFastAndTheFurious Fast and the Furious]]'' animated series was being produced by DWA for Creator/{{Netflix}}, with more series based on Universal properties in the pipeline. |
| 11 | * Creator/MetroGoldwynMayerAnimation hasn't done another movie or TV series after the critical failures of ''WesternAnimation/TheSecretOfNIMH2TimmyToTheRescue'' and ''WesternAnimation/TomSawyer2000''. An adaption of the children's book ''Punk Farm'' was announced in 2011, [[DevelopmentHell but nothing has come out of the project ever since.]] |
| 12 | * Creator/MarvelKnights was a branch created by Creator/MarvelComics to distribute some more mature comic materials. The subsidiary eventually went into film production, but only two films were released under the brand; the first, ''Film/PunisherWarZone'', [[BoxOfficeBomb bombed at the box office]] and led to rights reverting to Marvel proper. This led to a hiatus of several years before the next film to use the brand, ''Film/GhostRiderSpiritOfVengeance''. The same thing happened again, and the brand was put in indefinite lockup immediately afterwards. |
| 13 | * Acquired by Creator/{{Disney}} in 2011, UTV Motion Pictures served as the company's film production and distribution label for Indian films and Disney titles in that region. UTV was successful with UsefulNotes/{{Bollywood}} blockbusters such as ''PK'' and ''Chennai Express'', and Disney began developing Indian films under the Disney label. Unfortunately, UTV couldn't keep up their momentum, and in 2016 they released ''Mohenjo Daro''. Despite boasting stars such as Hrithik Roshan and the director of ''Film/{{Lagaan}}'', ''Mohenjo Daro'' garnered negative word-of-mouth for [[TroubledProduction the multiple problems it faced during production]]. When the film proved to be a financial and critical failure upon its eventual release, [[http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/disney-india-confirms-focus-hollywood-924929 Disney decided to pull out of Bollywood film production, placing UTV Motion Pictures on the chopping block, merely only used as a distributor for Disney theatrical titles in that region.]] Disney wouldn't try to get back to the Bollywood market until it acquired Star India as part of its takeover of 21st Century Fox, giving Disney a much stronger presence in the market and a perfect opportunity to take a second crack at it. |
| 14 | * Creator/{{Disney}} purchased effects company Creator/DreamQuestImages ([[UsefulNotes/AcademyAward Oscar]] winners for both ''Film/TheAbyss'' and ''Film/{{Total Recall|1990}}'') in 1996, which was later renamed The Secret Lab, and also given a shot at feature animation with ''WesternAnimation/{{Dinosaur}}''. Its tenure under Disney was short-lived, however, and the studio was shut down in 2002 after the box-office failure of ''Film/ReignOfFire'', which was released by Disney under its Touchstone label. |
| 15 | * Creator/DreamWorksAnimation entered an agreement to be acquired by Creator/NBCUniversal after a string of box office failures in the early 2010s, namely ''WesternAnimation/RiseOfTheGuardians'', ''WesternAnimation/{{Turbo}}'', ''WesternAnimation/MrPeabodyAndSherman'', and ''WesternAnimation/PenguinsOfMadagascar''. The latter two caused a loss of $106 million in box office gross ($57 million for ''Peabody'', $49 million for ''Penguins''), making it unviable for the animation studio to operate without a major studio backing. They also caused Pacific Data Images, who helped produce both films and the studio's famed ''Franchise/{{Shrek}}'' series, to shut down as part of a restructuring of the company. |
| 16 | * Creator/NewLineCinema ended its independence under Time Warner (now Creator/WarnerBrosDiscovery) following the high-profile BoxOfficeBomb of ''Film/TheGoldenCompass'', which was actually the final nail in the coffin after a series of flops during the TurnOfTheMillennium. The company was inherited by Time Warner as a result of its merger with [[UsefulNotes/TedTurner Turner Broadcasting]], which had purchased it back in 1994, but was allowed to operate independently from Creator/WarnerBros The aforementioned box office bomb resulted in New Line being folded into the major studio, and now it exists as a subsidiary. |
| 17 | * The box-office failure of ''Film/HeavensGate'' was a major blow to Creator/UnitedArtists, which destroyed their reputation with then-parent Transamerica, who sold them to the Tracinda Corporation and then were merged with Creator/MetroGoldwynMayer. The company spent the 2000s as an arthouse studio, but when MGM filed for bankruptcy in late 2010, UA seemingly went kaput; MGM promised to make new films under the UA brand after reacquiring their 100% in the company, but that never came to be. Afterwards, MGM would use the UA name in 2014, with the launch of United Artists Media Group (which would be folded into MGM Television in 2015), and again in 2018 with United Artists Digital Studios (which would be folded into MGM in 2020). The 2019 launch of United Artists Releasing, a rebrand of MGM's Mirror joint-venture with Annapurna Pictures proved to be a return of the UA name to feature films, but not even this would last long, as Amazon would shut down its operations in 2023. |
| 18 | [[/folder]] |
| 19 | |
| 20 | [[folder:Mini-Majors]] |
| 21 | * Some have suggested that ''Film/CantStopTheMusic'' ended up killing music label Creator/{{EMI}}'s film studio, but ''Honky Tonk Freeway'', released just a year later, was in reality the bigger perpetrator. The film's scathing reviews from critics for its stereotyping of American culture, combined with revelations that the film was financed by executive producer Roy Tucker through tax dodging schemes with assistance from a banking cartel (which prompted EMI to sell the film rights to investors to clean their hands of the matter), led to audiences staying away from the movie in theaters and was taken out of the screens after only a week. The film flopped instantly as a result and EMI Films spent its final five years producing or financing a string of moderately to poorly successful films, before EMI sold the studio to businessman Alan Bond (who would end up becoming the target of press controversy for scandals that same decade), who in turn sold the remaining assets to Creator/TheCannonGroup. Its film catalog was sold a year later to film producer Jerry Weintraub through his Weintraub Entertainment Group (which was also ill-fated), and are now in the hands of Creator/StudioCanal. |
| 22 | ** Meanwhile, Lord Lew Grade, head of UsefulNotes/{{Britain}}'s [[Creator/ITCEntertainment ITC]] and producer of many Creator/GerryAnderson series plus ''Series/TheMuppetShow'', had film aspirations, which led him to team up with EMI (which was headed at the time by [[RealLifeRelative Grade's brother]], Bernard Delfont) for the American joint venture ''Associated Film Distribution''. At first it seemed like good things were in store, with ''Film/TheMuppetMovie'' performing very well. But then, ''Film/RaiseTheTitanic'' staggered into theaters. Having a TroubledProduction beyond belief, it couldn't make back its ''$40 million'' budget -- Grade himself commented "it would've been cheaper to lower the Atlantic". Then ''Film/CantStopTheMusic'' happened. Grade realized that this wasn't working and cut a deal with Creator/{{Universal}} to release the remaining ITC/AFD backlog. Another blow against him occurred with one of the ITC/AFD films he sold, ''Film/TheLegendOfTheLoneRanger'', caused controversy when ITC tried to force [[Radio/TheLoneRanger classic Lone Ranger]] actor Clayton Moore to stop making public appearances as the character as he had been doing for decades. This caused extremely negative publicity for the film and the studio, particularly in the UsefulNotes/UnitedStates, where Moore was considered to be a national treasure. The general public overwhelmingly took Moore's side and stayed away from the movie; As a result, it [[BoxOfficeBomb significantly underperformed at the box office]]. ITC never really recovered from this, and thanks to the loss of their sister ATV in 1982 (which had been semi-replaced in the Creator/{{ITV}} network by Central) and Grade selling the company that same year, they went into freefall, trying to get by producing TV movies for American television (through their Marble Arch division) and signing questionable distribution deals (they distributed the 1990 version of ''Series/TicTacDough'', which only lasted one season). They were sold to [=PolyGram=] in the mid-'90s, and Grade himself (after having left in the early 80s) was brought back as an advisor, but it wasn't enough. ITC was essentially closed and kept on as a distribution label within [=PolyGram=] until the whole company was purchased by Seagram and broken up in 1998; since then, the library has passed between multiple owners, eventually landing at ITV Studios[[note]]the product of a merger between Carlton and Creator/{{Granada}} in the early 2000s[[/note]]. Lord Grade died in December 1998, just months after ITC and [=PolyGram=] were sold. Ironically, many of the films AFD sold to Universal ended up being hits and/or cult classics, including ''Film/TheGreatMuppetCaper'', ''Film/TheDarkCrystal'', ''Film/OnGoldenPond'' and ''Film/SophiesChoice''. |
| 23 | * Vestron Pictures had a huge success in 1987 courtesy of ''Film/DirtyDancing'', a film they had originally planned to release in theatres for only a weekend, and then send straight to home video, since they had originally been in the video distribution business long before entering film production. Unfortunately, instead of capitalizing on the film's success with more mainstream films, they instead continued with their normal brand of B-movies, a good chunk of which flopped. One of these was ''Film/EarthGirlsAreEasy'', which massively underperformed at the box office despite mixed-to-positive reviews. These flops, coupled with the fact that many of their former clients were now forming their own home video divisions and thus no longer needed their services, caused Vestron's titular parent company to go bankrupt in 1990. |
| 24 | * The critical and box office disaster of the 1979 {{disaster movie}} ''Film/{{Meteor}}'' led to the rapid downfall of Creator/AmericanInternationalPictures (AIP). Their new owners, Creator/{{Filmways}}, folded them over merely a year later after a few more forgettable movies (''Film/MadMax1'' being the lone exception). Filmways themselves got hit by box office duds and financial issues, and only escaped bankruptcy by selling off some of their assets. They were then bought by Creator/OrionPictures in 1982. |
| 25 | * Executives at Creator/OrionPictures declared bankruptcy in 1991, blaming their destruction on ''Film/{{UHF}}'', a wacky comedy starring Music/WeirdAlYankovic which they considered the fork in the road for the studio. The film tested so well that it went to their heads, and they pit it against a murderer's row of blockbuster franchises, including ''Film/IndianaJonesAndTheLastCrusade'', ''Film/LicenceToKill'', ''Film/StarTrekVTheFinalFrontier'', ''Film/GhostbustersII'', ''Film/LethalWeapon2'' and ''Film/Batman1989''. While ''UHF'' would later be VindicatedByCable and become a cult classic, the loss of money (as well as the loss of critical favor which they had been building throughout the 80s) seemed to mentally break the studio's already-disheveled management: aside from ''Film/DancesWithWolves'' and ''Film/TheSilenceOfTheLambs'', the entirety of Orion's post-''UHF'' releases were one poorly-thought-out disaster after another. [[WhatCouldHaveBeen How things could have turned out differently if]] ''Film/{{UHF}}'' [[WhatCouldHaveBeen had been released during a different season]] is debated to this day.[[note]]Orion's demise could also be attributable to LaserGuidedKarma, since they had killed Streamline a couple of years earlier.[[/note]] |
| 26 | ** [[Creator/MetroGoldwynMayer MGM]], who acquired the studio after exiting bankruptcy in 1997, revived Orion as a genre unit in 2013 with their first release being ''Grace Unplugged''. In 2020, MGM revived AIP as well. |
| 27 | * Creator/TheCannonGroup. By the mid-'80s, the heads of CG - Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus - decided to go big and establish Cannon as a major studio. They purchased rights to several different franchises: ''Franchise/{{Superman}}'', ''Franchise/MastersOfTheUniverse'', ''Franchise/SpiderMan'' and ''Franchise/CaptainAmerica'', along with several other projects, and released a total of ''43'' [[OneManArmy movies in 1986 alone]]. Most of them flopped heavily, but it was the failures of ''Film/SupermanIVTheQuestForPeace'' (which had budget cut severely to a meager 17 million and still bombed heavily), ''Film/TheBarbarians'' (released in 1987 when the brief frenzy caused by the ''Franchise/{{Conan|TheBarbarian}}'' movies faded completely) and ''Film/MastersOfTheUniverse'' (which brought a small profit [[UsefulNotes/HollywoodAccounting only when Mattel was conned on the copyright issues]]) that completely ruined the attempt by Cannon Group to become a legitimate film studio. Not too surprisingly, Cannon closed up shop by the dawn of the 1990s. |
| 28 | * Overture Films didn't make the splash parent company Creator/{{Starz}} was hoping for as it was beset with flops like ''Film/{{Pandorum}}'' and ''Film/CapitalismALoveStory''. Even more successful titles like ''Film/LawAbidingCitizen'' were not enough to diminish a potential sale. What really did Overture in was when Creator/RelativityMedia took over their distribution and marketing operations and intentionally [[InvisibleAdvertising sabotaged the advertising]] for ''Film/LetMeIn''. In spite of rave reviews, [[AcclaimedFlop it bombed hard at the box office]] and Overture was sent to their grave by the end of 2010. Their final film was ''Stone'', which also flopped. |
| 29 | * Creator/AtlanticReleasingCorporation was one of the bigger indie film studios in the 70s and 80s, and while the company didn't pull out massive hits, the company did score success with films like ''Film/ValleyGirl'', ''Film/NightOfTheComet'' and ''Film/TeenWolf''. Unfortunately, things came crashing down when the company decided to distribute ''Film/TheGarbagePailKidsMovie''. Costing anywhere from $1 to $30 million to make, the film only raked in $1 million at the box office and is considered one of the worst, if not ''the'' worst, movies of all time. Parents complained about the film's [[WhatDoYouMeanItsForKids rather adult content for a kids' film]], and wound up successfully pulling the film from theaters only a week after its premiere. Director Rod Amateau never took helm of another major project after this film. After this film came a truly amazing streak of flops; with the exception of ''Film/TeenWolf Too'' (which even then was critically panned), nearly every movie released by Atlantic after ''Garbage Pail Kids'' flopped at the box office. The amount of losses from the film and other {{Box Office Bomb}}s released during the time caused the company to sell themselves to Island Pictures, and the Atlantic library later went to Creator/MetroGoldwynMayer through a long series of acquisitions. |
| 30 | * UsefulNotes/TedTurner Pictures was unable to produce another movie after the critical and commercial calamity that was ''Film/GodsAndGenerals'', which also killed prospects of [[FranchiseKiller a third Civil War film]] that began with ''Film/{{Gettysburg}}''. This was an ignominious end to Turner's media career, having ended any involvement with the networks he founded a year before the film's release amongst the wreckage of the [[Creator/WarnerBrosDiscovery AOL Time Warner]] deal; he has been focused on philanthropy and his chain of bison restaurants ever since. |
| 31 | * Founded by Wall Street billionaires Daniel and Gabriel Hammond in 2014, Broad Green Pictures was poised to be the next mini-major in Hollywood. Unfortunately, their image became nebulous as they kept changing their focus when they got hit by a [[BoxOfficeBomb bomb]]. At first, they specialized in acquisitions but after the failure of ''The Infiltrator'', Broad Green switched their gears to in-house productions. While they had many projects in development, the films they were able to produce like ''[[Film/BadSanta Bad Santa 2]]'' and the bungled documentary ''Buena Vista Social Club: Adios'' also didn't fare well at the box office. After their horror hopeful ''Film/WishUpon'' underperformed financially and became widely mocked by both critics and audiences for being a SoBadItsGood horror movie that completely failed to be scary, Broad Green shut down their production division, sending over 50 projects in [[ChannelHop turnaround]], and laying off 15 employees. They tried to pull a new leaf by [[HereWeGoAgain seeking acquisitions]] at film festivals, but that amounted to nothing. With two shelved films being sold to Creator/{{Netflix}}, they only had one film to potentially turn their fortunes around. The critical and commercial disaster of ''Just Getting Started'' was ultimately the straw that broke the camel's back. Broad Green has since ceased operations and their headquarters were taken over by workspace operator Serendipity Labs. |
| 32 | * Even before Creator/TheWeinsteinCompany was taken down by Harvey Weinstein's [[RoleEndingMisdemeanor sexual harassment]] [[OvershadowedByControversy scandal]], they had a bad track record of divisions getting shut down: |
| 33 | ** Our Stories Films was a joint venture between the Weinsteins and Robert L. Johnson to produce films for African American audiences. They only made one film together, the critical and commercial disaster ''Who's Your Caddy?''. The division was consequently spun-off as an independent company and made one more film, ''Film/JumpingTheBroom'' (which actually did well at the box office and got okay reviews). In 2012, Johnson purchased Image Entertainment and transformed it into [=RLJ=] Entertainment, effectively rendering Our Stories Films dormant. |
| 34 | ** [[Creator/DimensionFilms Dimension]] '''''[[PunctuatedForEmphasis EXTREME]]''''' [[Creator/DimensionFilms Films]] was an offshoot of the genre label to release foreign and indie horror films [[DirectToVideo straight to video]]. It was never heard from again after the [[{{Pun}} extremely]] negative responses to its AshCanCopy sequels, ''Film/ChildrenOfTheCornGenesis'' and ''Film/HellraiserRevelations''. |
| 35 | ** Third Rail Releasing was a joint venture between TWC and Genius Products (their UsefulNotes/{{DVD}} distributor at the time) for theatrical distribution of lower-budgeted fare. It only lasted for a year and was quietly deactivated after the commercial failure of ''Film/{{Outlander|2008}}'' (which was not a low budget production). |
| 36 | ** Creator/TheWeinsteinCompany's Kaleidoscope-TWC label was killed off a total of ''two'' times. First, it was originally formed to distribute direct-to-video family films. Unfortunately for them, the poor sales of the 2008 CGI version of ''Film/TheNuttyProfessor1963'' led to the label being shelved for a couple of years, with further family releases (like ''WesternAnimation/UnstableFables'' and ''WesternAnimation/HoodwinkedTooHoodVersusEvil'') being released under the company's normal name. Then, in 2013, it was relaunched and released its first theatrical film, ''WesternAnimation/EscapeFromPlanetEarth''. Its negative critical reception and mediocre box office take-ins proved that it would be its last. The company's next family release, ''Film/Paddington2014'', was instead released under the TWC-Dimension banner, and it looked unlikely that Kaleidoscope-TWC would be releasing another film soon... until 2016 when the oft-delayed ''[[WesternAnimation/{{Metegol}} Underdogs]]'' finally made its way to Creator/{{Netflix}} and DVD. |
| 37 | [[/folder]] |
| 38 | |
| 39 | [[folder:Indies]] |
| 40 | * In 1968, failed aviator Edward L. Montoro founded Film Ventures International (FVI), an independent studio specializing in [[BMovie B-movies]], usually in the horror genre. They were notorious throughout The70s for releasing films [[TheMockbuster derivative of the big studios' blockbusters]], making them Creator/TheAsylum of their time. Still, these films racked up huge profits keeping them afloat. All this success was not to last. In 1982, FVI churned out ''[[Film/TheLastShark Great White]]'': a [[SerialNumbersFiledOff blatantly obvious]] ''Film/{{Jaws}}'' knock-off from Italy. When Creator/{{Universal}} got wind of this, they sued FVI for plagiarism and won, [[ScrewedByTheLawyers screwing the film out of release]]. This was a huge blow on FVI's part as they spent $4 million to promote the film and the withdrawal of ''Great White'' snowballed into major financial issues. The studio hoped that ''Mutant'' would turn over their fortunes, but it ended up being a BoxOfficeBomb. The last straw came when Montoro nabbed a million dollars from FVI to bail out of his divorce and [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere flee the US]], forcing the company to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. INI Corporations, a TV syndication company, acquired the now defunct FVI studio in 1985 and revamped them into [[NoBudget an even lower-budgeted]] distribution firm. Their output consisted of [[LoopholeAbuse questionable]] rereleased/retitled films with new, yet cheap, title sequences, often incorporating clips from other movies! FVI's "films" wound up on ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'' where their opening titles became a prime source of mockery. The studio was laughed out into oblivion by the end of The90s. Around 2011, FVI resurrected themselves and attempted a comeback of their glory days, but their website was seized two years later, so it's safe to say that they're gone for good. |
| 41 | * RCR Media went into distribution with the Creator/EdHarris[=/=]Creator/DavidDuchovny flop ''Phantom''. Is it any wonder that this is their only release?[[note]]The company only produced one more film, ''The Girl is in Trouble'', before dissolving in 2015.[[/note]] |
| 42 | * German studio Senator Entertainment tried their hands at making American films, with ''The Informers'' not only being their first US production but also their first foray into distribution. The film had a disastrous premiere at Sundance, but Senator went ahead with the release anyways. That turned out to be more ruinous as it [[BoxOfficeBomb tanked]] with a ''$300,000'' opening weekend against an $18 million budget and it was pulled from theaters after only a week. The failure of ''The Informers'' was so great, Senator had to cancel the releases of ''Film/{{Splice}}'' and ''Film/AllTheBoysLoveMandyLane'', effectively spoiling their ambitions; while ''Splice'' was picked up by Dark Castle Entertainment, ''Mandy Lane'' sat on TheShelfOfMovieLanguishment for years before it was dumped DirectToVideo. Their distribution arm shut down and the company as a whole filed for bankruptcy. |
| 43 | * ''[[Film/NationalLampoon National Lampoon's]] Gold Diggers'' had the dubious honor of killing two companies after its spectacular [[BoxOfficeBomb box office bust]] in addition to further tarnishing the brand's reputation. It spoiled financer Delfino Entertainment's film ambitions as they failed to obtain additional investments for future projects. The film's distributor P&A Releasing was also never heard from again thanks to the embarrassingly low numbers that came in. |
| 44 | * ''Bobby Jones: Stroke of Genius'' was a biopic centering on the titular golf player as played by Creator/JimCaviezel. Producer Rick Eldridge not only raised the money through private investors, but he also released the movie himself through his new distribution company Film Foundry Releasing. They had high hopes that ''Bobby Jones'' would hit a hole in one at the box office and gave it a big marketing push. Unfortunately, audiences ignored the film resulting in [[BoxOfficeBomb atrocious box office numbers]]. To make matters worse, sponsors hit Eldridge and his team with lawsuits up the ass over unpaid advertising costs. All these suits and loss of money rest assured that Film Foundry would never release another film again. |
| 45 | * The initial commercial failure of ''WesternAnimation/TheLastUnicorn'' was a major blow to independent distributor Jensen Farley Pictures. After other subsequent flops, they fell into bankruptcy and ceased operations by the end of 1983. |
| 46 | * ''Film/TromasWar'' in 1988 derailed [[Creator/{{Troma}} Troma Entertainment]]'s attempts to grow into a larger independent film studio, forcing Creator/LloydKaufman to scale back the company's ambitions. All of its films since have gone DirectToVideo. |
| 47 | [[/folder]] |
| 48 | |
| 49 | [[folder:Production Companies]] |
| 50 | * The failure of ''WesternAnimation/AstroBoy'' at the box office resulted in Imagi Animation Studios going dormant, including the production of a ''Anime/ScienceNinjaTeamGatchaman'' film in the works, as well as an ''Astro Boy'' sequel. |
| 51 | * ''Film/BattlefieldEarth'' was such a terrible film that Creator/FranchisePictures lost huge amounts of money. However, the final nail in the coffin was when Franchise was hit by a lawsuit from investors who accused the company of [[UsefulNotes/HollywoodAccounting deliberately inflating the film's budget to pad their coffers]]. Franchise lost the lawsuit and declared bankruptcy. Creator/JohnTravolta's reputation got enough of a bad rap due to this movie that [[StarDerailingRole he has never been able to fully write off the stain it left on his career]]. ''Battlefield Earth'' also killed moviegoers' chances of taking any Creator/LRonHubbard or Scientology film seriously. |
| 52 | * ''WesternAnimation/LegendsOfOzDorothysReturn'' had the unfortunate effect of killing off Summertime Entertainment, who shut down a year after the film was released. The company planned on giving the film two sequels and a TV adaptation, all of which have gone into limbo. |
| 53 | * Although the magazine was suffering from slumping sales by the late 1980s, it has been argued that the film ''Film/VegasVacation'' was this to what remained of the original ''Magazine/NationalLampoon'' magazine. After reaching high marks with film adaptations such as ''Film/AnimalHouse'' and the first film in the ''[[Film/NationalLampoonsVacation Vacation]]'' series, the magazine's humor started dying off and so did the humor of their film adaptations by 1986, when the magazine ended up getting issued ''six times a year'' instead of every month. Once ''Vegas Vacation'' was released, it was widely mauled by critics and fans of the ''Vacation'' series, mostly for its bland, aging humor, poor writing and its lack of punchlines, and was especially noted for featuring no involvement from Creator/JohnHughes, who wrote the screenplay for the first three movies and produced the third one. It's been said that ''National Lampoon'' disliked the film so much that they demanded that their label not be placed in it. While the film itself was a moderate box office success, it became the lowest-grossing film of the ''Vacation'' series and wasn't enough to convince J2 Communications, owner of the magazine since 1991, to continue the once-treasured publication that defined American humor when it first started in 1970. Its final issue was published in November 1998. |
| 54 | * The British film company Goldcrest never really recovered from the one-two punch of 1985's ''Film/{{Revolution|1985}}'' (a massively expensive movie about the American Revolution with the singular casting of Creator/AlPacino and Creator/NastassjaKinski - which may explain why [[GenreKiller it was 15 years until]] [[Film/ThePatriot2000 there was another one]]) and 1986's ''Film/AbsoluteBeginners'' (a hugely expensive musical set in the 1950s which [[StarDerailingRole derailed star Eddie O'Connell's career]] (his Website/IMDb page is very skimpy after the film, and he has nothing after 2003), and served as a speed bump for Patsy Kensit's). See the book ''My Indecision Is Final'' for the whole sordid story. |
| 55 | * ''Anime/FinalFantasyTheSpiritsWithin'' killed Square Pictures and nearly killed the merger between Square and Enix (the companies did eventually merge into Creator/SquareEnix in 2003), and pressured Hironobu Sakaguchi, the guy who came up with the idea for ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'' (probably saving Square from shutting down entirely back in [[The80s the 1980s]]) into resigning from the company[[note]]He left in 2003 to form Mistwalker, creators of ''VideoGame/BlueDragon'', ''VideoGame/LostOdyssey'' and ''VideoGame/TheLastStory''[[/note]], since the film was his [[BoxOfficeBomb 100-million-dollar-losing project]]. To put this into perspective, this was during the TurnOfTheMillennium, a time when Squaresoft was one of ''the most'' successful and dominant video game companies. Square has had many success stories in the years that followed, but it still has never completely reversed the backslide it suffered from the failure of ''Spirits Within''. Whereas at the turn of the century Square was seen as ''the'' single greatest RPG maker in the entire industry of gaming, and they still have enough {{Cash Cow Franchise}}s that they're not going anywhere anytime soon, their position of complete dominance brought about by groundbreaking games such as ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'' has long since faded. |
| 56 | * Creator/FrancisFordCoppola's ''Film/OneFromTheHeart'' is often compared to ''Film/HeavensGate'' as a great financial disaster. A small art film that went seriously overbudget, it led to the demise of Coppola's revolutionary and state-of-the-art Zoetrope Studios, which he put up for auction not long after the film lost money. Coppola's career didn't take a major hit as ''Heaven's Gate'' director Michael Cimino did, but he ended up spending the next two decades directing more commercial fare and less artistic ones to pay off the massive debt this film had caused. |
| 57 | * A bad fall followed by a fast recovery: Alan Ladd, Jr. was perhaps one of the top, if not ''the'' top, Hollywood executives during his tenure at [[Creator/TwentiethCenturyStudios Twentieth Century Fox]], having overseen the production of ''Franchise/StarWars'' and ''Film/{{Alien}}''[[note]]the former of which actually ended up saving the studio -- Ladd green-lit the expensive ''Star Wars'' thinking it'd be one of the last films Fox, then nearing bankruptcy, would likely produce[[/note]], but after the latter was released he left the studio to start his own company, and while it did produce some blockbuster hits, like ''Film/PoliceAcademy'', and ''Film/ChariotsOfFire'' for Creator/WarnerBros (plus ''Film/BladeRunner'', which wasn't a smash upon release, but did well enough), he could not really survive on his own and ended up producing three high-profile flops in 1983-1984, ''Film/TheRightStuff'', ''WesternAnimation/TwiceUponATime'', and ''Film/OnceUponATimeInAmerica'' (such a shame too, since these films have since been [[AcclaimedFlop recognized as classics]]). After these flops Ladd shuttered his studio and was left unheard of for a while, before going to Creator/{{MGM}} in 1985 and bouncing back to the top. After his tenure with that company, he re-established his studio in 1993 and again went alone, [[Film/AVeryBradySequel with moderate]] [[Film/{{Braveheart}} to high]] success. He stayed there until his death in 2022, with Creator/BenAffleck's film adaptation of ''Literature/GoneBabyGone'' being the last film Ladd was involved with. |
| 58 | * Up until 2015, the ''Franchise/{{Terminator}}'' franchise had bad luck with this, with the first four films in the series having the involvement of production companies (Hemdale (as well as Creator/{{Orion|Pictures}}), Creator/{{Carolco|Pictures}}, C2, and The Halcyon Company) that ended up being dead or dormant. |
| 59 | ** Hemdale Film Corporation, responsible for the first ''[[Film/TheTerminator Terminator]]'', ended up falling into a string of critical and commercial bombs, resulting in the company closing shop by the mid-1990s and assets being sold to [=PolyGram=] then later Creator/OrionPictures, the distributor of this film. It holds a consolation prize of being lucky enough to hang around at the time Carolco's ''Film/Terminator2JudgmentDay'' was released. |
| 60 | ** Carolco themselves later got torpedoed by the big disaster that was ''Film/CutthroatIsland'' a mere few years later, which drove them into bankruptcy (more on that can be read [[CreatorKiller back on the main page]]). Film producer Alex Bafer bought out the Carolco name and logo two decades later, under the intention of relaunching the brand with his own production company. Unfortunately, Creator/StudioCanal (the current owners of the original Carolco film library) eventually brought these plans down due to a legal dispute over the Carolco trade mark. In 2017, [=StudioCanal=] acquired the Carolco name, logo and the new company was renamed to Recall Studios. Earlier, the disappointing performance of ''Rambling Rose'', resulted in Carolco breaking with Creator/NewLineCinema and terminating its Seven Arts Pictures division; its last film was the critically-panned ''[[Film/IronEagle Aces: Iron Eagle III]]''. |
| 61 | ** C2 Productions, started by Carolco's co-founders, was intended to be a spiritual successor to Carolco (and Cinergi) and resurrect the ''Terminator'' series. C2 only got as far as ''Film/Terminator3RiseOfTheMachines'' and the first season of the television series ''Series/TerminatorTheSarahConnorChronicles'' before The Halcyon Company purchased the global rights to the ''Terminator'' series, rendering the company defunct, and the death of Andrew G. Vajna in 2019 ensured the company would not be coming back. It didn't help that their only two non-''Terminator'' productions (an InNameOnly film adaptation of ''Series/ISpy'' and ''Film/BasicInstinct2'') were both critically-savaged box-office flops. |
| 62 | ** The Halcyon Company attempted to pick up where ''C2'' left off with the second season of ''The Sarah Connor Chronicles'' and ''Film/TerminatorSalvation'', the latter of which was intended to start a new film trilogy. Despite making a good profit on ''Salvation'' (which received mixed-to-negative reviews and failed to break even), a lawsuit related to the film drove Halcyon into bankruptcy. They only escaped being killed outright by selling the film rights off to a hedge fund that invested in the company, and even then it took the company four years to produce another movie afterwards. |
| 63 | * Creator/CinergiPictures, which was formed following Andrew G. Vajna's departure from Carolco, tried to rival the latter with films featuring big-name stars and a distribution agreement with Creator/{{Disney}}. Unfortunately, the triple-hit knockout of ''Film/ShadowConspiracy'', ''Film/DeepRising'' and ''Film/AnAlanSmitheeFilmBurnHollywoodBurn'' sent the firm into financial meltdown quickly, eventually shutting down after the third film grossed a staggering $52,850 against a $10 million budget. The rights to all of Cinergi's films save for ''Film/DieHardWithAVengeance'' were sold to Creator/{{Disney}} following its closure as a condition of canceling the distribution agreement. Vajna would use the name on an intermittent basis on video games and Hungarian films over the next decade and spend the rest of his life as head of the Hungarian National Film Fund. At least the studio was lucky to have been hanging around several years longer than Carolco. |
| 64 | * Caravan Pictures was intended to be a specialty production banner for Creator/{{Disney}} when it was formed by famous Hollywood producers Roger Birnbaum and Joe Roth in 1992. The label's first movies (''[[Film/TheThreeMusketeers1993 The Three Musketeers]]'', ''Film/AngelsInTheOutfield'', and ''A Low Down Dirty Shame'' to name a few) were moderate to large box office successes, but when Roth left the studio to become chairman of Walt Disney Pictures, a string of ''huge'' {{Box Office Bomb}}s followed and the few films that ''did'' turn up a large profit (''Film/WhileYouWereSleeping'', ''Film/GIJane'', and ''Film/SixDaysSevenNights'') were not enough to convince Disney to repair the label's critically damaged reputation. This led to Birnbaum, who was placed in the chairman's seat following Roth's departure, leaving the studio to form his own company, Spyglass Entertainment, in 1998. Disney shut down Caravan in 1999 following the release of the commercially successful but critically thrashed ''Film/InspectorGadget1999''.[[note]]Perhaps there was a bit of grim foreshadowing in their LogoJoke at the end of that film in which the figure walking down the road in their logo sprouts a propeller (a la Gadget) and flies off, never to be seen again.[[/note]] What remained of Caravan was absorbed into Birnbaum's then-new Spyglass Entertainment. |
| 65 | * Creator/JohnFord and Merian C. Cooper's Argosy Pictures suffered a unique case of a lingering death. Their initial collaboration was ''The Fugitive'' (1947), an adaptation of Graham Greene's ''Literature/ThePowerAndTheGlory'' that proved a colossal box office bomb. Though Ford made successful pictures like ''Film/FortApache'' and ''Film/ThreeGodfathers'' under Argosy's banner afterwards, Argosy never made up the losses from its first feature, and the company merged with RKO in 1948 before being disbanded in 1953. |
| 66 | * ''WesternAnimation/{{Igor}}'' was the only mainstream animated film made by Exodus Film Group. After the film bombed, it took another six years for them to make their next film, ''WesternAnimation/TheHeroOfColorCity'' and, to add insult to injury, that movie was only released to a limited amount of theaters. It was also the only animated CGI film distributed by Creator/{{MGM}} until ''WesternAnimation/SherlockGnomes'' in 2018 (albeit with Paramount), although the financial troubles they were having at the time probably didn't help. |
| 67 | * With Creator/NicholasSparks adaptations reaping in piles of cash throughout the 2000s, the author founded a self-titled production company in 2012 to not only continue turning his books into films but also develop TV projects. Unfortunately, these romance films slowly started to lose their click with audiences with unstable to diminishing returns for ''Film/SafeHaven'', ''Film/TheBestOfMe'' and ''Film/TheLongestRide''. The underperformance of 2016’s ''Film/TheChoice'' proved to be the last straw and Nicholas Sparks Productions [[http://variety.com/2016/film/news/nicholas-sparks-productions-closed-1201796059/ shut down]] later that year. |
| 68 | * In 1995, Jim Henson Productions and Creator/SonyPictures founded Jim Henson Pictures in order to produce a variety of family films, including several [[Franchise/TheMuppets Muppet]] movies. They only made three films: ''Film/{{Buddy}}'', ''Film/MuppetsFromSpace'' and ''Film/TheAdventuresOfElmoInGrouchland''...[[BoxOfficeBomb and they all tanked at the box office]]. The back-to-back failures of the latter two films caused the two companies to end their partnership with the label being used in-name-only for whatever films Henson managed to produce; the Jim Henson Pictures name was finally retired after the lackluster performance of ''Good Boy''. |
| 69 | * Dualstar Entertainment, the production company of Creator/MaryKateAndAshleyOlsen, found itself in an unstable situation following the failure of ''Film/NewYorkMinute'' (which also had the side effect of being the Olsen twins' [[StarDerailingRole last theatrical outing, and the last film showing them together]]), ultimately going dormant in 2007. The company was revived in 2013 but they've shifted gears to fashion instead and have seen better success in that field. |
| 70 | * The English language remake of ''Film/FunnyGames'' was the most expensive project for Tartan Films and due to the film's poor box office gross, the company had to shut down. |
| 71 | * Austrian crystal jewelry company Swarovski decided to go into film production with their first feature being the 2013 version of ''Theatre/RomeoAndJuliet'' with Creator/HaileeSteinfeld. Showing how serious they were with their ambitious plans, Swarovski Entertainment commissioned Oscar-winning costume designer Milena Canonero to design jewelry for the film that would later be sold around release and handled almost all aspects of marketing (Creator/RelativityMedia served as a rent-a-distributor). The film was critically panned for [[AdaptationDecay diverting too much from Shakespeare's words]] and tanked at the box office, causing Swarovski to have second thoughts on their film division. |
| 72 | * The spectacular failure of ''Film/{{Mannequin}} 2: On the Move'' took down Gladden Entertainment, resulting in a messy lawsuit between them and Twentieth Century Fox over losses. Gladden was soon forced into bankruptcy due to unpaid residuals and its founder, David Begelman, [[DrivenToSuicide committed suicide]] in 1995 as a result of his company's ruination. |
| 73 | * [=PentAmerica=] was done in by the dual failures of ''Man Trouble'' and ''Folks'', costing them most of their $60 million investment. Their parent company, Penta, shut them down before the release of their last film, ''Dangerous Game'', which was [[ScrewedByTheNetwork dumped]] by MGM. |
| 74 | * MGM hoped that their Creator/BillMurray vehicle, ''Film/LargerThanLife'', would be a box office splash, but the [[BoxOfficeBomb exact opposite occurred]]. The company responsible for financing the film, Majestic Films, crumbled and their library was sold off a year later. |
| 75 | * Kodiak Films bankrolled the Cold War pic ''The Fourth War'', which dated itself immediately upon release in 1990 as [[UnintentionalPeriodPiece communism had already collapsed in the USSR a year prior]]. It predictably bombed at the box office and Kodiak only made one more film, the ''Film/MadMax'' knockoff ''Neon City'' that went DirectToVideo, before filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. |
| 76 | * Worldview Entertainment was already unstable thanks to general mismanagement and financial shenanigans that not only led to some messy lawsuits but prevented them from investing in further films (their output were mostly duds). The triple [[BoxOfficeBomb whammy]] of ''Triple 9'', ''Rules Don't Apply'' and ''Tulip Fever'' was the straw that broke the camel's back. The company has since gone defunct. |
| 77 | * Codex Pictures shut down after the failure of ''WesternAnimation/{{Ultramarines}}'', and took any chance that ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'' might become a movie franchise in the near future with them. |
| 78 | * The unfortunate failure of the 2004 animated Christmas film ''WesternAnimation/TheLittlestLightOnTheChristmasTree'' has mostly killed the production company Abrams/Gentile Entertainment, since they haven't made anything since then, aside from the second season of ''WesternAnimation/PinkyDinkyDoo'' (which was also animated by the same animation studio as the former). It also shuttered Little Light Productions, as they also haven't made anything else since. |
| 79 | * Universum Film AG (now known as UFA) nearly went bankrupt over ''Film/{{Metropolis}}'' which (depending on which way you figure in inflation) may just be the most expensive German movie ''ever'' made by a private company. Director Creator/FritzLang doing stuff like letting extras stand in cold water for hours did nothing to curb the budget woes. The movie had mixed reviews initially and did so-so in cinemas which led to (later much panned) re-cut which for almost a century would be all that was left from the movie making it a (partial) LostFilm. However, a (nearly) complete print of the film was later found in Argentina giving it a new premier in the 21st century. UFA's financial woes would ultimately lead to German far right publishing magnate Alfred Hugenberg buying them up and as Hugenberg entered the first Hitler cabinet as a minister, his movie and publishing empire were put to use as a PropagandaMachine for the Nazis. |
| 80 | * The financial failure and critical thrashing of ''Film/{{Gotti}}'' was considered the killing blow for [=MoviePass=] Ventures, a subsidiary of former subscription-based ticket service [=MoviePass=], which was itself made as an attempted investment to get themselves out of financial freefall due to unsustainable business practices. While other films they had invested in also didn't do so hot (''Film/AmericanAnimals'' [[AcclaimedFlop reviewed well, but only made a $4.1 million box office draw against a budget of at least $3 million]]), ''Gotti'' lost even more, getting $6.4 million from a $10 million budget, which was actually far worse than it sounds due to 40% of ticket sales ''being bought from [=MoviePass=] itself'' (the service working by buying tickets in exchange for the subscription fee, which itself was not profitable). Worse is that ''Gotti'' ended up in a scandal surrounding allegations of {{AstroTurf}}ing, trying to market the film by invoking CriticalDissonance, with headlines such as "the movie critics don't want you to see" despite the fact [[NotScreenedForCritics the film wasn't screened for critics anyway]] (and not that it stopped the film from joining the [[MedalOfDishonor "0% on Rotten Tomatoes" club]]), which demolished further faith in the whole endeavour, leading the whole company to bankruptcy in 2020. |
| 81 | * ''Film/{{Intolerance}}'' (1916): Despite tremendous reviews, this now-classic film went down in history as the first major BoxOfficeBomb to hit Hollywood, and was a shock to the nascent industry. It single-handedly sunk Creator/DWGriffith's production company, Triangle Films, and ruined both his career and his personal life. The film's failure was due in part to its length (over five hours in the original cut), its then-innovative techniques (which confused the audiences), and poor timing — it was an anti-war film that came out just as the US population was growing in favor of entering World War I. |
| 82 | * Australian studio Energee Entertainment were done in by the losses incurred by ''WesternAnimation/TheMagicPudding'', despite said film containing an AllStarCast boasting the likes of Creator/GeoffreyRush, Creator/ToniCollette, Creator/HugoWeaving and Creator/JohnCleese, and closed for good in 2002. |
| 83 | [[/folder]] |
| 84 | |
| 85 | ---- |
| 86 | %%I don't know why this page should be an index, and there are so many unnecessary potholed links here. So until somebody fix this blasphemy, I'll place this to prevent any link to be indexed. Please don't remove it unless you can fix it. |
| 87 | [[index]] |
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