5. DARK SHADOWS - $235m Worldwide / $150m Budget
Look at me! I'm Johnny Depp, being weird in a Burton movie! That'll bring in cash, right.....right?!
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I suppose that it was kind of silly to expect too much of an adaption of a niche Gothic soap opera from the '60s, even if Burton and Depp were involved in it. That was probably the movie's only true saving grace, too. The film's marketing campaign started late (the trailer came out in March) due to Warner Bros' Confusion as to how to market the bloody thing. (No pun intended) Once the trailer came out, however, a slew of tv spots were everywhere, probably boosting the marketing budget marginally. The film ended up with mixed reactions from both critics and moviegoers, due to its inconsistent tone and its messy ending, causing it to fade from the charts. Worldwide, it saved some face, though, due to the appeal of Burton's name, but not enough to cancel out the massive budget.
4. TOTAL RECALL - ~$150m Worldwide / $125m Budget
Can you make me forget that I signed on to do this movie?
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Not even a girl with three breasts could save this bona-fide stinker. The remake of the hit 1990 film of the same name with Ah-nold Schwarzenegger didn't come close to its total when unadjusted let alone the opposite. Colin Farrel couldn't copy the same magic that he did there. The action film did little to stick out for itself in a frame where The Dark Knight Rises was still going strong, and The Bourne Legacy and The Expendables 2 were just around the corner. (These two films caused this to drop like a rock, especially with audiences not giving it remarkable word of mouth) It woudn't have been such a big problem if the budget weren't so high. (There were reports that the budget was $200m!) Though it's been confirmed to be a relatively reasonable $125m, Sony Pictures won't be seeing a large share of that money any time soon.
3. THE WATCH- ~$40m Worldwide / $68m Budget
Oh my god! We're losing to a freaking pot smoking teddy bear!
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This film once had potential. Ben Stiller was a generally bankable comedian. Jonah Hill was fresh off the good will from 21 Jump Street. Richard Ayoade has a small, but dedicate number of fans from "The IT Crowd" I'm sure that Vince Vaughn also has fans somewhere, too. The R-rated comedy faced trouble when people drew ties to it and the Trayvon Martin incident earlier this year, forcing Fox to change the title from "Neighborhood Watch." Now, they hardly had to worry about that, even though a few people were still turned off because of it. It ended up tanking due to simply not appealing to general audiences. The ads simply weren't that funny. The film became dead on arrival, likely causing serious losses for 20th Century Fox. Still, they're counting the foreign grosses of Ice Age 4, so they won't be worrying anytime soon.
2. THE FAILURES OF THE FIFTEENTH: ROCK OF AGES AND THAT'S MY BOY: ~$50m Worldwide / $70m-75m Budget
I guess audiences stopped believing.
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Most people re-acted the same way to the actual movie, Andy.
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Is it cheating to have an extra film on this list? Who cares? Besides, everything about these two films is nearly identical. They both are comedies, came out on June 15th, are led by stars probably past their prime, had high expectations, precedents set to justify these expectations, budgets around $70m, and final grosses of...well....not that much. Rock Of Ages was an adaption of the hit Broadway show, a jukebox musical of songs from the 80s, led by Tom Cruise being ultimate rock star Stacee Jaxx. Despite the successes of Hairspray & Mamma Mia, this film was an utter disaster. The ads did little to appeal outside of those who liked the music, and even then, the ads failed to spark a whole lot of interest. That's My Boy cast Sandler as a slacker who crashes his son's wedding. Oh, and his son was brought into the world as Sander had an affair with his Middle School teacher - while he was in Middle School. The main problem with this was its R-rating. Sandler had a lot of fans that were pretty young, and the reason movies like Grown Ups were successful, is that they were accessible to these younger audiences. The r-rating pushed away these younger moviegoers, leaving only a number of grown ups and teens that actually wanted to see this. Both movies fell off the map after a few weeks.
1. BATTLESHIP - $300m Worldwide / $209m Budget
Cue the countdown for "Taylor Kitsch = Guaranteed Bomb" posts in 3, 2, 1...
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At least it had an abnormal 79% share of tickets purchased overseas, where it was released early in April to strike before anything else was able to. This is pretty ironic, considering how the movie just screams: "America!" The 131 minutes of jingoism and Bay-style explosions failed to catch on. For one, people were laughing at the movie. The fact that it was a movie based off a board game simply caused people to ridicule it rather than want to see it. I'm not sure what Universal was thinking here. Secondly, there was this little film called The Avengers, and it pretty much create a black hole that sucked up every other film that came with it. Battleship was one of its major victims, as well as the previously mentioned Dark Shadows. The cast is actually pretty hilarious. Liam Neeson, the only really respectable person here. Rihanna, in her first major film role. Finally, there's Taylor Kitsch, straight off the hilarious bombing of John Carter. It's sad that even Savages won't make its budget back. Nothing will compare to this gargantuan bomb, though.
Winners coming tomorrow!
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