Summer is when people hit the movies more often, and so Hollywood roll out its glitziest, most expensive, and most crowd-pleasing fare. Sometimes they miscalculate that last part. Here are the movies that looked like huge hits that turned out to be massive bombs.
The Adventures of Pluto Nash
It cost more than $100 million to make this 1930s-style mobster movie that’s also a comedy that takes place on the moon in the year 2087. Eddie Murphy plays an ex-convict who runs a nightclub while trying not to run afoul of criminals while also dealing with wacky aliens and silly robots. Released in August 2002, it disappeared from U.S. theaters after two weeks and earning just $4.4 million.
The Mummy
On paper, The Mummy looked guaranteed. Tom Cruise, still one of the biggest movie stars in the world in 2017, starred in a new, special effects heavy take on the classic monster movie premise in what was supposed to set off a new franchise, Universal’s “Dark Universe” of sophisticated and thrillers about Dracula, Frankenstein, and the like. Universal tried to do too much though, bringing in characters like Dr. Jekyll and turning off family audiences with gruesome gore and scary scenes. Box office returns were so bad that Universal lost $95 million on the movie and then canceled the Dark Universe cinematic universe altogether.
King Arthur: Legend of the Sword
The often-told and adapted legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table were the subject of what was supposed to be the first ever blockbuster-style take on the rich material, essentially the mythology of England. Plans were underway to turn the entire saga into six movies released over a period of many years, launched with King Arthur: Legend of the Sword. With an all-star cast (Charlie Hunnam, Jude Law) and celebrity director (Guy Ritchie) on board, the film received so-so reviews and opened largely unnoticed in a busy summer movie season in 2017. Warner Bros. spent $175 million on the movie, which grossed $39 million in the U.S. The five sequels were never made.
Ishtar
Ishtar tried to be several movies at once. It was a revival of the old Bing Crosby/Bob Hope “Road” pictures, about two guys who travel to an exotic land, but also a complicated Cold War intrigue drama. (The main characters, loser songwriters, go to Morocco and trigger an international incident.) Production difficulties, cast and crew disagreements, and cost overruns — mainly due to the skyrocketing salary demands of stars Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman — made the quirky comedy cost more than $50 million. It took so long to make that it got bumped from December 1986 to a summer 1987 release, where it immediately bombed. Ishtar became synonymous with movie flops, and it earned back a quarter of its budget.
The 13th Warrior
Opening in theaters in August 1999, The 13th Warrior starred Antonio Banderas, just off his successful run in The Mask of Zorro as another hero from long ago: an enigmatic man from the Middle Easting who joins some Vikings to fight a supernatural threat. It was based on the bestselling novel Eaters of the Dead by Jurassic Park author Michael Crichton. And yet The 13th Warrior was a hard sell, as it was historical but also action and also a horror movie. It also cost $160 million to make, and even a decent box office haul of $61.7 made this one of the biggest money losers in Hollywood history.
