YMMV / Dick

• Audience-Alienating Premise: It's a comedy set in the 1970s about two teenage girls who develop a crush on Richard Nixon 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 depicts Woodward and Bernstein as a pair of morons), so the film died a quick death at the box office. However, it has become a cult classic over the years.
• Retroactive Recognition: Early starring roles for Kirsten Dunst and Michelle Williams, plus a small part for a still-unheralded Ryan Reynolds.
• Uncertain Audience: It's a comedy aimed at teen girls, but also revisionist Historical Fiction. Most teens at the time wouldn't really have had the necessary knowledge about The '70s or Richard Nixon to get all the jokes and references, while the people who would've been interested in a comedy about Watergate would've perceived it as a lightweight teen farce. This was a major reason it became a Box Office Bomb.
• Unintentional Period Piece: Somewhat ironically considering that the film is a period piece (a 1999 film set in the early 1970s), but the Historical In-Joke that the protagonists were the Watergate informant "Deep Throat" clearly dates the movie as being made before FBI deputy director W. Mark Felt admitted he was the true identity of "Deep Throat" in 2005.

---