Boba Fett

I was looking at some of the more widely released films of the year to see which movie flopped hardest.

It looks like Delgo has the distinction of making under $750,000 over it's entire run, and costing $40,000,000 to make.

Solid Snake

Delgo came out in 2008....so maybe last year's yeah.

Release date(s) December 12, 2008

Drexl

Imagine That cost 55 million to make, and grossed about 16 million US.

Land of the Lost cost 100 million to make, and grossed about 49 million US.

zekeburger1979

Amelia - $40 million production budget + ??? prints and advertising.

$11 million so far at the box office. Ouch.

TGM

When is Avatar due to be released?

Brent L

Wasn't Avatar's budge something unholy, like $500 million?

If that's actually true, then I'm just not sure about it. Right now the top flick of the year at the box office is Transformers 2 at only $402 million itself.

Drexl

That one's tougher to call a bomb at this point, because it was given a limited release in hopes of building up buzz and gradually expanding for the awards season.

However, reviews have been mixed, so it may not get much expansion. Still, if Swank ends up being nominated for Best Actress, it could get a bit of a boost.

Lateralus

Yeah and that is what happens when you start a thread a month and a half to early.

Boba Fett

Oops. My mistake.

Looks like Outlander is a good contender for it.

~$166,000 at the US box office on a $50,000,000 budget.

It did make $6.2mil worldwide though.

A shame, as it was a fun film.


Unless A Christmas Carol has some staying power, in the long run it might be a commercial disaster. A $30mil opening weekend for a Disney movie starring Jim Carey that cost $200mil+ is pretty bad.

Drexl

I think it will have staying power. I bet a lot of people aren't in the mood to see a Christmas movie just yet. Plus, like The Polar Express, it may be shown again in future years.

It's like Lewis Black said, "When I was a kid, Halloween was Halloween, and Santa wasn't poking his ass into it!"

BJacks

The budget's supposedly around 200-300 mil. The rest comes from P&A. But that 500 mil number was a guesstimate from the NY Times, who knows what it really is. But yeah, if Avatar doesn't kick ass at the theater it's gonna go down in flop history.

Groucho

Biggest flop of 2008: Delgo
Biggest flop of 2009: Delgo 2: Avatar

Dubya

Avatar is shaping up to be one of the all time flops.

Tom Creo

Wow, I didn't know Avatar was playing already.

JumpCutz

I think Avatar will have a hard time cracking 200 million domestic unless word of mouth is off the charts. Then again with international BO and DVD/BD sales etc...this could indeed turn a tidy profit.

On the other hand, if it's slammed by the critics and word of mouth is poor, 'Heaven's Gate' type floppage could be it's destiny.

The Bus

Only dan30orly knows for sure.

JumpCutz

dan30

Shannon Nutt

People said the same thing about Titanic all the way up to opening weekend.

Astroboy was a pretty big flop...it cost about $70 million to make. Then again, A Christmas Carol is probably only going to gross about $75 million (domestic), but it cost a whopping $200 million...so "flop" is all relative. For example, most people think Jennifer's Body bombed, but it more than made it's money back...same with Saw VI.

Solid Snake

There's no proof to that yet. Based on my personal surrounding of individuals and the people that flock the theater I go to..which is next to my college. Seems like a lot of them wanted to see it. NOW....that's just where I live. And DVDtalk seems to in mixed feeling towards so...who knows.

riley_dude

I think they said that about that movie Titanic before it was released.

dan30oly

Nice.

Avatar will soon be seen as the biggest flop of any year.

That is, until Watchmen 2: Watch Harder is released in 2013.

Josh-da-man

Nothing I've seen from Avatar so far makes me want to see it.

And nobody I know IRL shows much interest in it either; I doubt most have even heard of it.

tanman

Funny about that. People always remember the 1 exception amongst a see of rules.

Ash Ketchum

Nobody I know is talking about AVATAR, not even my film buff nephews. Plus, most of the young people I know (nephews excluded), including a couple dozen media grads I work with, don't even watch stuff in theaters anymore. They download movies and burn them onto disc and pass them around that way.

While the 3-D curiosity factor will draw many young people to the theater for AVATAR, I suspect that the adult audience, who made TITANIC such a hit, will ignore AVATAR. I remember everyone going to see TITANIC, even to the point of finally pressuring me to go see it, and then incessantly talking about the story and characters. The word of mouth was quite strong on it. As much as I disliked the movie, plenty of other people were moved by it. They didn't go see it because of Cameron--most of them couldn't care less who Cameron was--they went and saw it for the story and characters. I don't see anything remotely like that happening with AVATAR. The blue-skinned aliens will only attract the sci-fi/animation/techie geek crowd, but not the "average" people who will be needed to make this a hit. TRANSFORMERS 2 was a huge hit because it attracted: a) all the fans of the first TRANSFORMERS film, plus b) the kids who get off on giant robot action. Will AVATAR have that same appeal for kids? I somehow doubt it. Can the marketing whizzes pull off a miracle and get everyone talking about AVATAR in time for the Dec. 10 premiere? Will word-of-mouth, once it's opened, be so strong that it will keep the film in theaters as long as TITANIC was held over? We'll see.

majorjoe23

I thought the driving force for Titanic was the teen girls who saw it a dozen times in theaters. Not that I see Avatar really appealing to them either.