Five Notorious Movie Bombs—Where Does John Carter Rank?

[W-olf]

Five Notorious Movie Bombs—Where Does John Carter Rank?

Today 6:00 AM PDT by Joal Ryan
Taylor Kitsch, John Carter Frank Connor/Disney

With John Carter blamed Monday for bleeding nearly as much red ink as Disney spent to make the $250 million behemoth, the box-office chump has officially been branded a failure.

But is the sci-fi epic big enough, bad enough and toxic enough to qualify as one of Hollywood's epic flops? Let's run through some of the all-timers, and see:

RELATED: Did Eddie Murphy Bomb Bigger Than John Carter?







1. Heaven's Gate: The word disaster doesn't cover this disaster. The period drama went over budget, it got pulled from release, it sank a studio (United Artists) and it forever tarnished an Oscar winner (Michael Cimino).

Can John Carter "Top" That? Uh, no—and neither can Disney, which isn't sunk. Its stock actually closed up on Monday.

2. Ishtar: In the 1980s, this pricey Warren Beatty-Dustin Hoffman comedy was synonymous with turkey.

Can John Carter "Top" That? Critically, no. If John Carter hasn't universally gotten the world's best reviews, then it hasn't gotten the world's worst, either—not even close.

3. Gigli: In the 2000s, this not-cheap Jennifer Lopez-Ben Affleck comedy was synonymous with Ishtar. Even more destructive than the Beatty-Hoffman bomb, this one blew up Affleck's career as a leading man, as well as his offscreen relationship with Lopez.

Can John Carter "Top" That? Probably not. The biggest relationship at stake here is Disney's with director Andrew Stanton, and Stanton's run at Pixar (Finding Nemo, WALL-E) arguably has been too stellar to trigger a clean break. Also, John Carter's shortcomings have hardly been blamed on star Taylor Kitsch, who already has Battleship on deck to shore up his box-office average.

4. Mars Needs Moms: This 2011 failure, devoid of tabloid drama, wasn't spectacular except where it counted: at the multiplex, where it awed with its inability to get people into the theater. The Robert Zemeckis family movie, made for as little as $150 million, or as much as $190 million, grossed exactly $39 million worldwide.

Can John Carter "Top" That? It already has. It's made about $180 million worldwide.

5. Waterworld: This 1990s Kevin Costner sci-fi film was so swamped with production troubles and headlines over its then-historic budget that by the time it didn't lose money, it hardly mattered: "Fishtar," as far as the casual moviegoer was concerned, was sunk.

Can John Carter "Top" That? Actually, Exhibitor Relations analyst Jeff Bock thinks John Carter's just about equaled it. "Everyone wanted to call [Waterworld] a huge bomb, and it wasn't," says Bock, who doubts John Carter will end up as the biggest bomb of 2012, much less of all-time.

The Bottom Line: No, John Carter probably won't become the 21st century way of saying Ishtar—except maybe at a certain studio. "Financially," Bock says, "Disney made a huge misstep."

Read more: http://www.eonline.com/news/five_notorious_movie_bombsmdashwhere/302377#ixzz1pfU87hwh

E Online

 

[TroyTheAverage]

Of all those movies listed, the only one I have seen is Waterworld. I stayed away from the rest.

I'm not surprised that John Carter is bombing, the premise looks dumb as hell.

 

[JakeYourBooty]

I have heard it isn't as bad as it seems but a lot of those people read the books

 

[W-olf]

I haven't heard good things bbut I do like the actor so I hope he reels in a better role next movie .

 

[Fuji Vice]

I always laugh when Waterworld gets mentioned in these lists. In theatres alone it made a profit of $89 million and an article I read about it in Variety a couple of years ago speculated it earned more than $100 million in the home video market.

Some bomb.

Heaven's Gate failed because United Artists butchered the film to hell and when they finally released it nothing made sense. I had a chance to see the extended cut with Cimino doing a Q & A afterwards and it was fascinating. However, UA fucked it up, so its only fair that their studio went bankrupt because of it.