As much as they pretend they do, massive Hollywood studios don't have a crystal ball. At the top, the movie business is just a bunch of suits sitting in a room thinking they know what people want. And history will show us that they have no idea a lot of the time. A remake of The Lone Ranger with Johnny Depp as Tonto? A $120-million live-action Speed Racer? A movie called R.I.P.D.? Turns out moviegoers didn't want any of these films. Summer movies are a time for big hits and big misses, and these are some of the season's biggest box-office flops.
The 13th Warrior (August 27, 1999)
Budget: $85-$160 million
Box Office: $61.7 million
Historically, films based on Michael Crichton novels are a pretty big success. That wasn’t the case here in The 13th Warrior, which unfortunately cast Antonio Banderas as a legendary Muslim wanderer Ahmad ibn Fadlan. The film did so badly, in fact, that Omar Sharif briefly retired from acting.
Titan A.E. (June 16, 2000)
Budget: $75-$90 million
Box Office: $36.8 million
After a disastrous production, which included the closing of Fox Animation and firings and a mismanagement of budget, Titan A.E. was eventually released on June 16, 2000, two years after production began.
The Adventures of Pluto Nash (August 16, 2002)
Budget: $100 million
Box Office: $7.1 million
Among the biggest box office bombs in history, Nash stars Eddie Murphy as a club owner on the moon. Fittingly, it’s also considered one of the worst films of this century.
Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas (July 2, 2003)
Budget: $60 million
Box Office: $80.7 million
In some very unfortunate casting, Sinbad filmmakers cast Brad Pitt as a Middle Eastern character despite his Midwestern accent. Even though Pitt was worried his accent wouldn’t fit, the filmmakers insisted that his voice would lighten the mood. Oof.
Stealth (July 29, 2005)
Budget: $135 million
Box Office: $76.9 million
A movie so stealthy no one even saw it. Stealth stars Josh Lucas, Jamie Foxx, and Jessica Biel as fighter pilots who must fight a haywire jet that’s going to start WWIII.
Speed Racer (May 9, 2008)
This story originally appeared on Esquire.com.
* Minor edits have been made by the Esquiremag.ph editors.
