Some movies are such duds that they don't just lose a studio millions, they also put
entire companies out of business.
Here's a look back at some historic mega-bombs that straight up bankrupted studios.
Riding parent company Warner Bros' coattails - and the success that came with the Harry
Potter films - New Line Cinema wanted another massive fantasy hit following their extremely
lucrative and award-winning Lord of the Rings trilogy.
So, it put a version of The Golden Compass, author Philip Pullman's first entry in the
His Dark Materials trilogy, into production.
New Line pumped $200 million into the project, more than it had spent on anything - including
The Lord of the Rings.
To offset production costs, the company pre-sold the overseas rights to Compass, meaning that
when the film hit theaters outside of North America, it wouldn't recoup a dime.
That made profit virtually impossible… as did the film's relatively small $70 million
domestic take.
This fiasco was the main reason Warner Bros. absorbed New Line into its existing film production
divisions in February 2008, ousting chief Bob Shaye and 90 percent of New Line's employees.
As one of the most popular sitcoms of the 2000s, the American version of The Office
led to movie careers for several of its stars, notably Steve Carell, John Krasinski, and
Ed Helms.
While Rainn Wilson, who portrayed Dunder Mifflin weirdo beet farmer Dwight Schrute, has graced
the big screen plenty of times in his own right, he arguably hasn't had the same mainstream
appeal as his Office co-stars.
Wilson's first shot at leading man status came courtesy of the 2008 comedy The Rocker.
Despite the stellar cast - which also included Emma Stone and Teddy Geiger as Wilson's young
bandmates - audiences didn't think The Rocker rocked.
It grossed just $2.6 million over its opening weekend, at the time the worst performance
ever for a widely released movie.
It quickly disappeared from theaters, and soon thereafter, so did the division of Fox
that released the film.
Fox Atomic had been created in 2007 to bring out cool comedies and edgy horror movies.
In early 2009, thanks in part to the spectacular failure of The Rocker, Fox shut down the group.
"How dare you!"
"Excuse me?"
"How dare you call yourself a musician."
In 1994, Carolco Pictures had two projects in the works: the pirate adventure Cutthroat
Island and the Arnold Schwarzenegger epic Crusade.
Short on funds, Carolco decided to not waste another penny on Crusade, essentially throwing
away the $13 million it had already spent on the movie, placing all its eggs in one
basket - the pirate movie.
A foolhardy move for sure - the only successful pirate movie in the previous decade or so
was Hook.
But Carolco thought that this genre would be just the thing to return the company to
financial solvency.
On screen, Cutthroat Island looked like a million bucks… which is about one percent
of how much it cost to make the movie and a tenth of what it earned.
Carolco spent an astounding $98 million on Cutthroat Island, only to watch the movie
sink at the box office with a $10 million haul.
The studio ultimately had no faith in its expensive last gasp - the company filed for
bankruptcy in November 1995, six weeks before Cutthroat Island hit theaters.
From Tekken to Postal to Super Mario Bros., movies based on video games are almost categorically
awful.
One of the better ones, according to critics?
Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within.
One of the first computer-animated movies, it's an absolutely stunning piece of work
and a technical achievement, as it's the first movie to render everything digitally, including
largely realistic human characters.
Starring the substantial voice talents of Ming-Na Wen, Alec Baldwin, and Ving Rhames,
The Spirits Within is based on a long-running, thoughtful, and mystical series of video games.
With 142 million units sold overall, Final Fantasy is among the best-selling game franchises
ever, but that's still a small cross-section of the moviegoing public.
The film apparently lacked crossover appeal, because despite all that amazing animation,
Final Fantasy brought in a weak $32 million in North America.
That wouldn't be so terrible if filmmakers hadn't spent $137 million to bring it to the
screen.
The film was the first ever produced by Square Pictures, an offshoot of gaming company Square.
It was so expensive that it would also be the division's last, as the parent company
soon absorbed it into the newly formed Square Enix.
One of the biggest emerging markets for movies is China, and Global Road set out to get in
on that potential box office while also making movies that North American filmgoers might
enjoy.
It failed both segments.
Desperately in debt to creditors like Viacom, Disney, and NBCUniversal in the summer of
2018, Global Road started laying off staff and selling the distribution rights to movies
not yet released.
One of those unreleased films was City of Lies, about the murder investigation of Notorious
B.I.G.
City of Lies certainly couldn't earn any money sitting in a vault somewhere, but the movies
Global Road did release were financially disastrous.
Despite a cast that included Jeff Goldblum, Dave Baustista, and Jodie Foster, the weird
sci-fi drama Hotel Artemis grossed just $6.7 million domestic.
Another major release, the family film Show Dogs, caused some controversy and cost the
studio a lot of money when it had to be re-cut to eliminate some inappropriate scenes about
a dog getting its, ahem, privates fondled.
Surprise, surprise - it still bombed.
"You waited for me to get back here for that, didn't you?"
“Haha”
Israel-based Bank Leumi, which had fronted Global Road a lot of City of Lies' costs,
filed suit when the studio defaulted on a $10.8 million payment.
In September 2018, Global Road filed for bankruptcy after a rough year didn't produce the mega-successful
hits it needed to stay afloat.