As we’ve just rounded the corner into a new decade, we’ve been inundated with everyone and their grandmother’s lists for “Best Of” and “Worst Of.” So it’s not a big surprise that Forbes.com has just released their list of the 15 Biggest Flops of the Last Five Years. Why five years? Maybe the man wouldn’t give them ten. Regardless, what is surprising is some of the films that ended up on it, quality be damned. Also no surprise that two Eddie Murphy films are on the list (only two?) However, this particular list isn’t based on opinion like most others, but rather the cold economics. Forbes explains it as so:
To calculate our list we looked at movies that featured big-name stars (like Penn, Eddie Murphy and Mike Myers) but failed to earn back their budgets at the box office. We used numbers from Box Office Mojo and IMDB to get estimated budgets and earnings. We then figured out what percentage of its budget each film failed to earn back. We’re only looking at box office revenue here, not DVD and TV sales, which can often make up for box office shortfalls. But we’re also not including the cost of advertising, which often adds another one-third or more to a film’s budget.
Here’s how their list breaks down:
- All The King’s Men, 2006: – Cost: $55 million, Take: $9 million, an 84% loss.
- The Express: The Ernie Davis Story, 2008 – Cost: $40 million, Take: $10 million, a 75% loss.
- Stay, 2005 – Cost: $30 million, Take: $8 million, an 73% loss.
- Grindhouse, 2007 – Cost: $67 million, Take: $25 million, a 63% loss.
- Imagine That, 2009 – Cost: $55 million, Take: $23 million, a 58% loss.
- The Fountain, 2006 – Cost: $35 million, Take: $16 million, a 54% loss.
- The Invasion, 2007 – Cost: $80 million, Take: $40 million, a 50% loss.
- The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford, 2007 – Cost: $30 million, Take: $15 million, a 50% loss.
- Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, 2007 – Cost: $35 million, Take: $21 million, a 40% loss.
- The Love Guru, 2008- Cost: $62 million, Take: $41 million, a 34% loss.
- School For Scoundrels, 2006- Cost: $35 million, Take: $24 million, a 31% loss.
- Land Of the Lost, 2009 – Cost: $100 million, Take: $70 million, a 30% loss.
- Meet Dave, 2008 – Cost: $60 million, Take: $50 million, a 17% loss.
- Aeon Flux, 2005 – Cost: $62 million, Take: $52 million, a 16% loss.
- The Producers, 2005- Cost: $45 million, Take: $38 million, a 16% loss.
17 comments
This list is kind of bullshit. Where are Pluto Nash, Riddick, Battlefield Earth, etc? Also, they admit to revising Stay's budget from $50 million to $30 million for no reason other than "benefit of the doubt".
This is maybe the stupidest piece of "journalism" I've seen in a while. All of this is utterly meaningless if you don't factor in marketing costs and dvd / tv sales. It's like saying, we decided it was irrelevant to include all production design costs and the salary of the second lead actor from the budget.
Laughable.
This would make it onto "The Top 5 Laziest Lists" list
They also ignore that the theaters screening the movies get, approximately, %50 of ticket sales; which means that movies have to earn two to three times their production costs just to break even. There are far, far bigger flops than those listed.
I love the photo, by the way.
Vlade, the guy that beat up on the Lakers and was headed to the finals only to have the refs and the NBA take it from him. That's your big flopper?
Vlade made it to the finals though when he was WITH the Lakers, so don't feel too bad for the guy. Of course they lost to Chicago in the finals, but so did EVERYONE in the 90's…
Couldnt think of a better flopper than Vlade. He passed the ball right to Horry for the game 4 winning shot, Schabadoo. Not the refs. Thanks for the assist Vlade.
Ok, so Golden Compass bankrupts a studio and isn`t even in Top 15 bombs of the decade? Bullshit.
Hey, hold on. Where the hell is Speed Racer? That`d be like #4 on the list if you were just doing domestic, #13 or so if you`re doing international. Seriously, this is about the lamest list you guys have run in a while. First, it`s JUST a list. The introduction was longer than the list itself. Also, as myself and others have pointed out, it`s not very accurate. No Delgo? No City of Ember? No Punisher War Zone (which I loved, but still belongs on the list)? Again, School For Scoundrels is here, but there are certainly more "important" films that failed more notably in the last few years…
My mistake, it was the Forbes list. Still, there was no real point of you guys running it too unless you were going to rag on them for not doing more than 2 minutes of research on their list. Sorry for the mix-up CHUD!
#1 didn't read the article (last 5 years mean anything?) #10 summed up the fail of this list..
no bullshit. I like the list. It killed 10 minutes of work. that's what I need. Thanks Chud on Saturday morning. shit, I know you trolls were taking a break from Proust…
Hahah….well played on the image. Reminds me of tha Rass Kass line….'Then you shrug and flop like Vlade Divac…'
The Fountain and The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford are two of my favorite films of last decade and I own both on DVD. It's just really sad that these films did not find their audiences. Grindhouse I loved in the theatre we saw it in. Everybody was into it and laughing their asses off. Once brought home, it just didn't have the same resonance. Oh, well. All the other films on the list are forgettable at best.
The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford should not be viewed in the same way as the other films on this list because it's actually really good. It may have had a 50% loss, but it's an excellent movie that for some reason did not get the support that it should have. Westerns today seem to get no attention or support by the movie industry. They say no one wants to see them, so they don't give attention to them so they don't make money. So when a person comes along wanting to make a western, they say, westerns don't make money. It's a self fulfilling prophecy.
I saw another reference to this Forbes article on Yahoo, and it said this in regards to determining which movies belong on the list: "After eliminating movies without star power, Forbes divided each movie's boxoffice take by its production budget to figure out the shortfall. "All the King's Men" failed to earn back 84% of its production budget, bad enough to earn it first place among flops."- AFTER eliminating movies without star power? So how are they going to determine what goes on the "most profitable" list? Will "Paranormal Activity" not appear because there aren't any stars, despite having made it's budget back 8000 times over?
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