Friday, November 16, 2007

Moviefone's Top 25 Box Office Turkeys

Thanks to Jeff Meyerson for the link.

Top 25 Turkeys: Biggest Box-Office Bombs Ever - Moviefone
This Thanksgiving, you can eat turkey -- or you can watch a turkey. A cinematic turkey, that is. But just what is a big-screen gobbler? Think about a film that bombs with moviegoers AND with critics and you've got a pretty good start. We waded through the foulest fare ever served up by Hollywood, pulling in budgets and grosses from Box Office Mojo just to be sure. The result is a list that's both fun and astoundingly awful. Now sit back and, um, enjoy.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

What a relief; I thought "The Whoopie Boys" was gonna be on the list. that means it was good and I can tell people I saw it. Whew.

Randy Johnson said...

I"m sorry, but I thought Waterworld and The Postman, while not great films, were not nearly as bad as most thought. Now Battlefield Earth and Basic Instinct 2(not even Sharon Stone in the altogether could save it) were truly awful. The rest I haven't seen. I've studiously avoided A Sound Of Thunder because of my love for the Bradbury tale it was based upon. From what I've heard, I, Robot maybe should have been included. The Asimov stories are favorites of mine also.

Anonymous said...

I ROBOT probably did OK enough at the box office...they're still letting Smith do literary sf adaptations, after all. But this quotation from whoever wrote this ad: "Tom Wolfe's scathing novel about the excesses of the 1980s could have been a brilliant, era-defining movie, particularly with Brian De Palma at the helm." gives us some idea of the writer's lack of critical acumen--or has the writer ever actually seen a De Palma film? I sure have, and will probably avoid the experience in the future. Kevin Murphy, he formerly of MST3K, wrote a book about seeing a movie a day, in a "real" theater whenever possible, and the worst he saw, apparently, was TOWN AND COUNTRY.

Anonymous said...

It's no surprise that Battlefield Earth is on that list.Why Scientologists even tolerate John Travolta being a member of whatever it is they are after his butchery of Battlefield Earth - and stay with me now on this: as a Classic Space Opera novel it was a pretty damn good one - how they tolerate him even being a member tells, me at least, a lot about their respect for their own founder, and his respect for himself if he was alive when that cascading trough of movie-mucous hit the theaters.

Randy Johnson said...

Todd, you're probably right. Most, if not all of the people who saw I, Robot, were just seeing a Will Smith movie and likely had never read any of the Asimov stories. The same might be said for I Am Legend. I do have high hopes for the film based on the trailer I've seen.

Cap'n Bob said...

Randy, if you ignore its source A Sound of Thunder isn't bad. It's just not as good as the EC comic version or the original story.

Gomer, old friend, I tip my hat to anyone who doesn't like the Hubbard Crime Family/cult. Having John Revolting in their midst makes for great PR. Most people want to emulate famous movie people even though these "stars" are usually the most screwed-up people on earth.

Benjie said...

Of the four of these I've seen, I'd have to say the list is probably pretty good. My question is "why couldn't a stinker like Happy Feet honor that list?"

Benjie said...

Oh, and where was Zardoz?

Anonymous said...

Cap'n, you should check out "Nip/Tuck" on Tuesday night. The happy Scientologists (or is that an oxymoron?) from last season have returned as crackheads.

I'm surprised Bill hasn't chimed in to support his fave, Cutthroat Island.

Unknown said...

A fine film. I can't believe it didn't make billions.

Anonymous said...

I guess nobody saw Spanglish. That's why it wasn't on the list. Nobody saw it. If anybody had seen it it would have taken five places. The list would have had only 21 movies It would have knocked four other movies right off. One out of every four of the worst 25 would have been Spanglish. But nobody saw it. Except me. Which leaves me with no backup. No witnesses. No corroboration. This is totally unfair to a really bad movie. Great - Spanglish has just depressed me to an even lower state talking about it than it did watching it. Maybe it should have taken all 25 places

Unknown said...

I saw the trailer. That was more than enough.