Box office bomb

For the album by Dramarama, see Box Office Bomb (album).

The phrase box office bomb (also referred to as a flop) refers to a film for which the production and marketing costs greatly exceeded the revenue regained by the movie studio.^{[citation needed]} This should not be confused with Hollywood accounting when official figures show large losses, yet the movie is a financial success.

A film's financial success is often measured by its gross revenue. Studios expect that a film's "domestic" box office gross revenue, which the American film industry defines as the United States and Canada, and other film industries define as their home country, will exceed production costs. This does not make the film profitable - typically the exhibiting theater keeps 45% of the gross, with the remainder paid to the studio as the rental fee.

Possible success of flops

If a studio recoups the production and marketing costs of a film, then it can be considered a success. Otherwise, if it does not do so by a significant margin, it is referred to as a box office bomb, even though international distribution, sales to television syndication, and home video releases often mean some films that are considered flops in North America eventually make a profit for their studios. Waterworld is an example of a movie that does not appear on lists of box office bombs, despite enormous budget overruns, because of a significant gross. Head, a 1968 film featuring The Monkees was a flop that became profitable for its studio years later when its cult film status led to its sale to Rhino Entertainment and its re-release in various video formats. The popularity and profitability of DVD sales has added further opportunities for films to recoup losses and eventually become profitable, leading to doubts over the significance of US domestic grosses as a predictor of a film's overall success.

The Golden Compass, based on the first novel in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials series, is considered a flop in North America due to its $180 million budget coupled with New Line Cinema's decision to sell all of the international distribution rights, but the unique circumstances of its international success have made the film's overall success a point of contention; it was the first film ever to make more than $300 million internationally but less than $100 million in the United States. New Line studio co-head Michael Lynne (who has since resigned) said "The jury is still very much out on the movie..."^[1]

Different standards of success

Different genres of film are subject to different standards of success. Action movies typically have higher production costs and promotion budgets than love stories. Typically, the most notorious flops are summer blockbusters, which often incur enormous production costs in a highly competitive market. The 2004 film Catwoman was released in July of that year to poor reviews, and went on to gross $40,202,379 domestically against a budget of $100,000,000. Advertising costs are not included in a movie's production costs, and can make a bomb even more harmful to the studio.

Studios pushed into financial ruin

In extreme cases, a single film's poor performance can push a studio into bankruptcy or equivalent financial ruin, as happened with RKO (The Conqueror), United Artists (Heaven's Gate), Carolco Pictures (Cutthroat Island, listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the biggest box office flop of all time^[2]), Fox Animation Studios (Titan A.E.), The Ladd Company (Twice Upon a Time and The Right Stuff), Fleischer Studios (Mr. Bug Goes to Town), and ITC Entertainment (Raise the Titanic). The Golden Compass was seen as a significant factor in influencing Warner Bros.' decision to take direct control of New Line Cinema.^[3]

When a failed attempt to revive a genre is particularly costly, all studios baulk at producing similar films, as was the case with Gold Circle Films' horror-comedy Slither, which made less than a quarter of its $29.5 million budget. Some failures have changed a company's agenda, such as Walt Disney Pictures' decision to make only CG animation, which stemmed from several disappointments, including Atlantis: The Lost Empire, and the disaster of Treasure Planet. However, this decision was reversed a few years later. Similarly, Warner Bros. Animation which went nearly bankrupt in December 2003 due to the disasters of Cats Don't Dance, Quest for Camelot, Osmosis Jones and Looney Tunes: Back in Action, but it continued to operate after reorganizing from theatrical films to television shows, however recently three Looney Tunes cartoons have been released theatrically.

In 2001, Square Pictures released its first film, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, an animated motion picture inspired by the world-famous Final Fantasy series of video games. However, despite relatively positive reviews from critics, it lost over $45 million. In 2011, Mars Needs Moms was released to poor reviews and disastrous box-office returns; as of its second week of release, the film was on track to lose $100 million of its $150 million budget, and its failure led to the closing of ImageMovers Digital.

Causes of a movie's failure

Negative word of mouth

Since the 1980s, cinemas began to drop movies that suffered a poor opening weekend. This made the performance of a film on its opening weekend much more crucial to its perception. With the growth of the Internet during the 1990s, chat rooms and websites enable negative word of mouth to spread rapidly.

Lack of promotion

Promotion is one of the factors in a film's success; however studios sometimes fail to promote certain films. When a studio has the ability to promote a film and does not, it may be due to an earlier management team's having left the studio, leaving a new management team disinterested in the project. January is an infamous "dump" month, when films expected to bomb get premiered without fanfare. (January can also be a "counter-programming" month like the months of October and November, though, with lighter films released to compete with more serious films that are up for awards.)

20th Century Fox and Warner Bros. released many animated films but did little or no promotion for them. As a result of the failures from the films produced by both studios feature animation departments, the WBFA studio shut down after producing Looney Tunes: Back in Action while Fox did so after Titan A.E. Warner's later animated releases, such as The Polar Express, Happy Feet and Billy & Mandy's Big Boogey Adventure, along with Fox's Ice Age series and The Simpsons Movie fared better. The earlier films, however, garnered later praise and cult followings, such as Batman: Mask of the Phantasm and The Iron Giant. Another example of a wide release production failing to see any significant promotion was the animated film Delgo, which despite opening on over 2000 screens, only grossed $694,782 (against a $40 million budget). In certain cases the lack of promotion is due to business circumstances; Cats Don't Dance, a 1997 animated film, made barely a tenth of its budget largely because its production company, Turner Entertainment, was in the middle of a business merger with Time Warner.

The 2006 Mike Judge comedy Idiocracy had its release date changed repeatedly and eventually opened in only 125 theaters in 7 cities, with no trailers, premieres, TV commercials or press kits, and the film was not screened for critics. This led to speculation that 20th Century Fox was not promoting the film due to its subject matter and its mocking of numerous corporations, including Fox and Fox News Channel themselves; the film later gained a cult following after its DVD release.

Competition

Movies may attract low ticket sales if they are released against heavy competition from other movies also in theaters at the same time. For example, both Blade Runner and John Carpenter's The Thing were released in theaters at the same time as mega-blockbuster E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Both films performed very poorly in their theatrical runs as a result, though they became financially successful in later years with the advent of home video release. Further, both films are listed by many critics as among the best science fiction genre films ever made.

External circumstances

While it is rare, films which might have otherwise fared well may fail due to issues unrelated to the film itself, with the timing of the film's release being perhaps the most common. This was one of several reasons for the commercial failure of one of Hollywood's first flops, Intolerance. Due to production delays, the film was not released until late 1916, by which time the widespread anti-war sentiment it reflected had started to shift in favor of U.S. entry into World War I. While the film would later be considered groundbreaking, its failure drove D. W. Griffith's production company, Triangle Studio, out of business.

General economic malaise may cause less disposable income for potential filmgoers, resulting in fewer ticket sales. Also, many movies that opened during times of national crisis such as the attack on Pearl Harbor, the September 11 attacks and events during the Iraq War, may underperform at the box office.^[4] However, movies about these particular events have been known to be box office successes.

High production costs

Sometimes, a film may do reasonably well at the box office, but still be considered a failure due to a large budget. For example, Sahara cost over $241 million to make, due in part to exorbitant production costs. It took in $122 million, usually enough to be successful. However, in this case, this accounted for barely over half of its expenses.^[5]

Independent films

The 2006 independent movie Zyzzyx Road made just $30 at the domestic box office. The film, with a budget of $1.2 million and starring Tom Sizemore and Katherine Heigl, may owe its tiny revenue to its limited box office release—just six days in a single theater in Dallas, Texas, for the purpose of meeting SAG requirements, rather than to attract viewers.^[6][7] According to director Leo Grillo, it sold six tickets, two of which were to cast members.^[8]

Previously, a British film (Offending Angels) became notorious because it took £89^[9] or £79^[10] at the box office. It had a £70,000 budget but was panned by critics including the BBC, who called it a "truly awful pile of garbage",^[11] and Total Film, who called it "Irredeemable".^[12]

In 2011, the film The Worst Movie Ever! opened to just $11 at the domestic box office, playing in a single theater.^[13]

Publicly financed films

The critically acclaimed Canadian film The Law of Enclosures (1999) took in about C$1,000 at the box office due to an extremely limited release in the year 2001. The movie was exhibited in only one theater in Toronto for exactly one week. Costing C$2 million, Law won three Genie Award nominations, including nods to its stars Sarah Polley and Brendan Fletcher (Fletcher won). The film was publicly financed due to Canadian legislation mandating the production of Canadian-content films to compete with product imported from the United States, which dominates the Canadian box office. Despite the praise and the participation of the Oscar-nominated Polley, a major movie star in Canada, the film was a flop at the box office, and was not released on DVD.

See also

• List of biggest box office bombs
• List of films considered the worst
• Lists of box office number-one films
• List of highest-grossing films

References

1. ^ Peter Sanders (2007-12-19). "New Line and Director Settle 'Rings' Suit, Look to 'Hobbit'". Wall Street Journal. 
2. ^ Guinness World Records (archive.org)
3. ^ Cinematical: BREAKING: New Line Cinema Says Goodbye!
4. ^ http://www.boxofficeguru.com/091701.htm
5. ^ Glenn F. Bunting, Jurors hear tales of studio maneuvering, Los Angeles Times, March 5, 2007
6. ^ Faraci, Devin (2006-12-31). "What if they released a movie and nobody came?". CHUD.com. http://www.chud.com/articles/articles/8378/1/WHAT-IF-THEY-RELEASED-A-MOVIE-AND-NOBODY-CAME/Page1.html. Retrieved 2007-01-02. 
7. ^ "The Strange and Twisted Tale of ... The Movie That Grossed $30.00". http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20011268,00.html. Retrieved 2008-01-24. 
8. ^ Mueller, Andrew (2007-01-16). "This film is absolute dross — people are going to love it!". The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1990417,00.html. Retrieved 2007-01-15. 
9. ^ logboy (2006-02-03). "Offending Angels. £70k Budget, £89 Box Office. 8 DVD Sales to Double its Takings". Twitch.net. http://www.twitchfilm.net/archives/005008.html. Retrieved 2007-01-16. 
10. ^ * Offending Angels at the Internet Movie Database
11. ^ Russell, Jamie (2002-04-10). "Offending Angels (2002)". BBC. http://www.bbc.co.uk/films/2002/04/10/offending_angels_2002_review.shtml. Retrieved 2007-01-16. 
12. ^ Harley, Kevin (2002-05). "Offending Angels film review". Total Film. http://www.totalfilm.com/cinema_reviews/offending_angels. Retrieved 2007-01-16. 
13. ^ "The Worst Movie Ever! (2011)". Box Office Mojo. http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=worstmovieever.htm. Retrieved 25 August 2011. 

External links

• The Numbers - Movie Budgets, movie budgets page from The Numbers. Contains charts of biggest money-making and money-losing movies.
• Movies that were box office bombs - Boston.com
• 7 Film Failures That Killed Studios
• Movie Disasters: Historic Box Office Bombs
• GetBack.com: Biggest Film Flops and Fiascoes
• Biggest Box-Office Bombs of All Time - Inside Movies Blog
• Top 10 movie flops of the decade (2000-2009)^{[dead link]}
• Movie History - Why Sahara and The Alamo Qualify as Two of Cinema's Seven Biggest Bombs