Making movie magic isn't cheap, and some films live or die based on their box office receipts.
But does not making money mean they suck? Not always! These sci-fi bombs are the bee's knees.
The first "Judge Dredd" film starring Sylvester Stallone is a fun sci-fi
experience, but it's so far removed from its source material that the fans hated it.
"Subtle."
"Mm, hmm."
It took 17 years, but everyone's favorite Judge from Mega-City One
received a faithful adaptation with 2012's "Dredd," starring Karl Urban.
"Dredd" shows a typical day in the life of its main character,
setting him on a mission to deliver justice to criminals inside a 200-story slum tower,
where a local drug lord runs her empire.
"Fire."
Unfortunately, the film's faithfulness to the comics and its gripping action
didn't translate into box office success. For a comic book movie,
"Dredd" was relatively inexpensive, costing only $50 million to produce. However,
after raking in only $41 million at the global box office, hopes of a "Dredd" sequel fell apart,
and the franchise found itself in familiar territory with no expansion on the horizon.
"Titan A.E." was the last film director Don Bluth released under the Fox Animation banner,
and the movie bombed so badly it killed the studio. There are
several reasons for its failure, but ultimately,
a movie that cost $75 million only pulled in $36.7 million internationally. Regardless,
the film is a spectacular achievement in early CGI combined with traditional hand-drawn animation.
"Titan A.E." was ambitious, and while it didn't attract audiences,
it remains a cult classic beloved by those who watched it.
"Who's your daddy? Gune's your daddy!"
The film centers around Cale Tucker as he's thrust into the middle of an
interstellar conflict that began with the destruction of Earth and continues
as he hunts down a planet-creating spacecraft designed by his father.
"Wow, have you ever seen anything like it?"
"Once."
It's a true adventure film that follows Cale as he works with various alien allies
in his quest not simply to save the world but also to recreate it
from scratch. "Titan A.E." has its fans, but it's relatively obscure
these days, having been buried by far more successful contemporary animated content.
Robert A. Heinlein's "Starship Troopers" is one of the author's most well-known books,
a sci-fi novel that explores themes of militarism and propaganda. Director Paul
Verhoeven's 1997 adaptation shares the same themes as the novel while being narratively
different from the book in almost every way.
Despite this, "Starship Troopers" is everything you want out of a
sci-fi action movie — soldiers deploy to alien worlds and take on gigantic,
deadly "bugs" capable of effortlessly tearing people apart.
"Starship Troopers" uses lots of CGI, complex sets, and complicated costumes,
making its $105 million production cost understandably high. The film only made
$121.2 million at the box office. A box office return that's higher than production costs
sounds like a win, but it's actually a loss once you add in marketing and distribution costs,
and the fact that studios don't get all of the box office haul.
"Starship Troopers" is a cult classic these days, and while it failed financially, it managed to
spawn a franchise consisting of four sequels, two TV series, and multiple video games and comics.
"Tron" holds an indelible place in popular culture thanks to its early
adoption and integration of 2D CGI coupled with practical effects, backlit 2D animation,
and live-action. "Tron" wasn't the first movie to use these technologies,
but it's the most famous early example. Unfortunately, the film's ambition got in
the way of box office dominance, and while it broke even, it was a financial disappointment.
"Who asked you?"
In an era when a video game cost a quarter, the real-life "Tron" arcade game made more
money than the movie. Despite this, "Tron" holds a special place in peoples' hearts,
as it's considered a classic that ultimately spawned an equally unsuccessful but no less
beloved sequel 28 years after the first movie's release. "Tron" is undoubtedly
dated in the visual effects arena, but upon release, it was a bold experiment.
Even when it hit theaters in 1982,
critics showered it with praise. Roger Ebert gave the film four stars, calling it, quote,
"a technological sound-and-light show that is sensational and brainy, stylish, and fun."
"Did we make it?"
"Yeah."
"Hooray for our side."
Following his sleeper success with "Office Space," director
Mike Judge created a sci-fi comedy that struggled to find a distributor.
"Welcome to Costco. I love you."
"Idiocracy" eventually found an audience, but it took almost two years and a lot of
work. It finally hit theaters in 2006, long after its completion,
and it only made it to seven American cities with no promotional posters, trailers, or press kits.
It played in only 130 theaters on its first weekend and barely clung
to life for five weeks. The movie cost $2.4 million to produce and ended up with less
than $500,000 internationally. This made "Idiocracy" a financial flop to be sure,
but following Judge's track record, the film became a cult classic.
Judge's tongue-in-cheek view of the growing power of American corporations coupled
with a satirical view of the future's intelligence resonated with audiences.
"What I'd do is just like, you know. You know what I mean? Like, heh heh heh."
"Strange Days" is one of those movies that came and went, and if you didn't see it in
the theaters, you might have entirely forgotten about it. The movie came out
in 1995 and depicts the far-off future of 1999, on the cusp of the millennium.
The film features an all-star cast consisting of Ralph Fiennes , Angela Bassett, Juliette Lewis,
and Vincent D'Onofrio, so there's plenty of talent involved. Add to that James
Cameron's work on the screenplay with Kathryn Bigelow's direction,
and you've got a recipe for a fantastic film. Unfortunately, you've also got a box office
failure that earned under $8 million off a $42 million production budget.
The film centers around black market virtual reality experiences,
specifically those involving murder. It's brutal and honest in its approach to analyzing
the dangers of the burgeoning technology, which, fortunately, haven't come to fruition.
Science fiction often gets little right about the whole "science" part. "Sunshine" isn't one
of these films, as it spends a lot of time and energy getting the science right, even
if the central theme isn't particularly grounded. This is easy to overlook,
as the movie is bound to shock pretty much any viewer.
Without giving too much away, the film's premise is that the sun is
dying and a ship is dispatched to reignite it. Outside of its premise, the spacecraft,
the complexity of flying toward the sun, and the needs of the crew are all grounded
in science. Regardless, the film flips the script halfway through and wanders into an
entirely different genre that's bound to keep you on the edge of your seat.
"It's very strange. I don't, um, I recommend it."
Director Danny Boyle teamed up with Cillian {KIL-ee-en} Murphy again for the picture,
five years after working together on "28 Days Later." The result is a spectacular
science fiction film that almost nobody bothered to see. Its stunning visuals and
elaborate but limited sets meant it could get away with a production budget of $40 million,
but the film only made $34.8 million at the global box office.
"Let the tuning commence."
"Dark City" is a perfect example of an experimental sci-fi film. The film
expertly hides its true nature, leaving the audience questioning
its reality as much as its amnesiac central character, John Murdoch, does.
"There was an experiment. Something went wrong. Your memory was erased. Do you understand me?"
"No, I don't understand. What the hell is going on here?"
Murdoch meets strange men with incredible powers, and as the film progresses, he slowly discovers
that everyone and everything around him isn't what it appears. The film is as dark as its
title implies, and it's also beautiful in its ambition, placing it in the same territory as
1927's "Metropolis" and "The Matrix," which reused some of the sets from "Dark City."
Those sets and the film's unique style cost the filmmakers a modest sum of $27 million, which is
about as much as it made at the global box office. This put "Dark City" far below its break-even
point. It's one of the best science fiction movies of the late 1990s, and deserves a second chance.
Director John Carpenter's "The Thing" is a must-see for anyone who loves science-fiction
horror. The film's creature effects are uniquely grotesque, making for a distinctive and disturbing
cinematic experience. The film came out in 1982 and cost the studio $15 million to produce.
"The Thing" is about a group of Antarctic scientists plagued by
an alien entity capable of assimilating any life form. It tears through the crew
as trust between them erodes, leading to violence and a desperate fight to survive.
Unfortunately, when the film came out in '82, it competed with another sci-fi movie you may have
heard of: "E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial." That box office behemoth, coupled with an ongoing
recession, made for poor box office performance for "The Thing." The film made slightly more
than its budget, coming in at just shy of $20 million and falling short of its break-even point.
Director James Cameron is known for making some of the biggest movies of all time, but his 1989
classic, "The Abyss," is one of the few duds in his filmography. Like any of Cameron's films,
"The Abyss" blends science and fiction into a beautiful story filled with technology, psychosis,
aliens, and more. The film follows a research team that helps recover a Trident missile warhead from
a sunken Ohio-class submarine, but discovers more than they expected deep under the sea.
The film is undoubtedly ambitious, which is true of every Cameron movie. Another familiar theme
in Cameron's work is immense production values, and "The Abyss" wasn't cheap.
The film cost an estimated $70 million and made $90.5 million internationally,
falling short of breaking even. The Academy Award-winning film's failure defies explanation,
but at the end of the day, the movie bombed despite its many merits.
"Annihilation" is as much a psychological horror as it is science fiction, and it pairs the two
genres brilliantly in a beautifully rendered movie that's disturbing to watch. The film revolves
around scientists exploring "The Shimmer," a quarantined zone of mutating plants and animals
resulting from an unknown alien presence. As soon as they enter, they find themselves in
an alien world where time doesn't make sense and seemingly everything is out to kill them.
"Anything interesting in there?" "No, it's been long abandoned, maybe even before—" gets grabbed
The film is risky and innovative, abandoning the usual trappings of the genre to
present something truly other-worldly. "Annihilation" struggled financially,
not because it wasn't positively received, but because of a wonky release. It received
a limited North American and Chinese release, but 17 days later, Netflix
took over streaming in other territories, limiting the movie's theatrical presence.
This resulted in a box office pull that didn't match what the film delivered.
"Annihilation" required extensive VFX, and even its relatively small
$40 million production budget was too much for its $43 million box office performance.
In 2001, Jake Gyllenhaal starred in one of the strangest and most popular science
fiction psychological thrillers ever: "Donnie Darko." It's one of
those films that remains an inescapable element of early 2000s popular culture.
Donnie Darko is a teenager who sleepwalks himself out of a deadly accident. A being
wearing a monstrous rabbit costume named Frank begins visiting him,
telling him the world will end in 28 days.
"Donnie Darko" wasn't expensive, costing only $6 million to produce. Unfortunately,
the movie didn't attract audiences upon release, earning only $7 million at the global box office.
In "Children of Men," a man named Theo finds himself embroiled in global controversy when
he comes into contact with a pregnant woman. This is monumental, seeing as
infertility was at 100% for decades, making the young woman into a near-messianic figure.
"As the sound of the playgrounds faded, the despair set in."
The entire film is beautifully shot, harrowing, and packed with nail-biting sequences thanks to
director Alfonso Cuarón's sense of scale and Emmanuel Lubezki's cinematography.
"Children of Men" is a brilliant analysis of the human condition, but too few humans paid
to see it. The film cost $76 million to produce, but it only made $70.5 million globally. Despite
these poor figures, "Children of Men" was lauded as one of the best sci-fi films of
all time, and it received three Academy Award nominations on top of numerous other accolades.
Surprisingly enough, "Blade Runner," was a financial failure. It's regarded today as one of
Ridley Scott's masterpieces as well as one of the most impactful films in all of science fiction.
And yet, it was a flop, earning only $41.7 million off a budget of $28 million. Thanks
to its lasting legacy, a sequel was released 35 years after the original. Perhaps expectedly,
that sequel, "Blade Runner 2049," also flopped at the box office — though,
adjusted for inflation, it at least outgrossed the original. "2049" went
on to win two Oscars and similarly became lauded as an exceptional entry in the genre.
The films' failures to find large audiences can be attributed to several factors, but at the
end of the day, they share the same fate as "The Thing." In 1982 and in 2017 alike, audiences were
more interested in upbeat sci-fi — be it "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" in 1982 or "Guardians of
the Galaxy Vol. 2" in 2017 — rather than the bleak, rain-battered world of "Blade Runner."