Even The Man of Steel isn't exempt from killing his own studio through a bad box office performance.
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00:00Not every movie can be a box office smash, and that's okay. How much money a movie
00:04takes in often has little relation to its actual quality. Plenty of films are just too niche for
00:09a wide audience, and go on to achieve dedicated cult followings once they're released on home media.
00:14But there's a difference between being a box office disappointment and being a box office
00:18bomb. And there's an even bigger difference between being a box office bomb and losing
00:22your studio so much money that they are forced to declare bankruptcy.
00:26And so with that in mind, I'm Ellie with WhatCulture,
00:29here with eight movies that bombed so hard that they bankrupt their studios.
00:35Number eight, the golden compass, New Line Cinema.
00:38New Line was on top of the world back in 2007. Since 1967, the production company had built up
00:45a reputation for taking chances on oddball films that other parts of Hollywood might pass on.
00:50A Nightmare on Elm Street and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles films
00:54were their greatest successes until 2003, when they produced the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
01:00It was easily their most profitable investment yet, with the films grossing nearly $3 billion
01:05worldwide. Riding high on this success, New Line immediately put $180 million towards adapting
01:12another popular fantasy book series for the big screen, Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials
01:17trilogy. Unfortunately, this stillborn film franchise did not perform quite as well as
01:22they hoped. It only took in $70 million in the United States, and while it performed much better
01:27abroad, New Line had sold the overseas distribution rights to fund the film's production. This meant
01:33that they never saw a dime of that foreign revenue. This was regarded as one mistake too
01:38much by parent company Time Warner, and New Line was swallowed up by Warner Brothers Pictures
01:43just two months after the Golden Compass's release.
01:46Number seven, The Lady Vanishes, Hammer Productions.
01:50Hammer Productions and Alfred Hitchcock are two titans of British cinema. Hammer is still known
01:55worldwide for its timeless Hammer horror films, such as the Quatermass experiment and Christopher
02:00Lee's iconic performance in their Dracula adaptation. Hitchcock is, of course, known for
02:05equally well-regarded classics such as Psycho and Vertigo. So you'd think that Hammer Productions
02:11remaking a Hitchcock masterpiece would be a recipe for critical and box office success.
02:16Sadly, what looks good on paper doesn't always work out so well in reality.
02:20By 1979, Hammer's gothic horror films had fallen out of fashion, and they attempted to pivot
02:26towards more serious fare with films like The Lady Vanishes. But critics were lukewarm at best
02:32towards it, and it didn't exactly make a splash at the box office. This final financial disaster,
02:37after a long string of them, forced the studio into a long hibernation. Since a revival in 2007,
02:43they have been lending their name to the odd horror release, but they are undoubtedly a
02:47shadow of what they once were. 6. Looney Tunes Back in Action,
02:52Warner Bros. Feature Animation Remember when Brendan Fraser was the big star of
02:57the moment back in the early 2000s? After The Mummy hit our screens, Hollywood were determined
03:01to push him as the next big leading man, and put him front and centre on most of their posters.
03:07So what went wrong? Well, apparently starring in movies like this one certainly didn't help.
03:12By all accounts, the production was a complete mess behind the scenes.
03:16Warner Bros. initially wanted it to be a sequel to 1996's Space Jam,
03:20but Michael Jordan refused to sign on again. Then they changed it to Spy Jam,
03:25and tried to lure Jackie Chan into playing the title role. This also fell through,
03:29and eventually long-time Looney Tunes fan Joe Dante was brought on to direct what would become
03:34Back in Action. He received absolutely no creative freedom, and the film didn't even
03:39make its $80 million budget back at the box office, only managing to pull in $68.5 million.
03:46Warner Bros. went from planning to release more Looney Tunes movies as soon as possible,
03:51to shutting down its feature film animation division entirely.
03:54Now, just for the record, I personally love this film. It is my childhood,
03:58so I won't hear a negative thing said about it, and that is all.
04:025. It's a Wonderful Life – Liberty Films In the years before World War II,
04:08Frank Capra had earned himself the title of Hollywood legend and three Academy Awards for
04:13Best Director. After returning from the war, he founded the production company Liberty Films in
04:181945, along with three other former servicemen. The very first film of the new company was to be
04:24It's a Wonderful Life. Unfortunately, while the Christmas classic actually did reasonably well
04:29at the box office, it was nowhere near successful enough to recoup its production costs of $2.3
04:34million, and the fledgling studio found itself facing financial ruin barely a year into its
04:40existence. It was quickly swallowed up by Paramount, who locked Capra and his friends
04:44into multi-picture contracts with their studio. Liberty Films would only go on to release one
04:49more film under its label, 1948's State of the Union, before finally being dissolved in 1951.
04:56Capra later wrote of this failed venture that its purpose was to,
04:591. Influence the course of Hollywood films, 2. Make four former army officers independently rich,
05:05and 3. Virtually prove fatal to my professional career. Ouch, truly his own worst critic.
05:114. Battlefield Earth – Franchise Pictures Say the words box office bomb to somebody,
05:17and there's a strong chance that this will be one of the films they think of first.
05:21John Travolta, a devout Scientologist, had been trying for years to get an adaptation of L. Ron
05:26Hubbard's Battlefield Earth greenlit. In 1998, he finally found a financial backer in the newly
05:32founded Franchise Pictures, and things just went downhill from there. Upon its release in 2000,
05:37Battlefield Earth was savaged by every critic alive, amateur and professional.
05:42Everything from the acting to the direction to the special effects was torn to shreds,
05:47and the whole fiasco ended up making only $29.7 million against a $73 million budget.
05:54John Travolta, newly restored to the spotlight thanks to Pulp Fiction six years prior,
05:59found his reputation once again in tatters. The people running Franchise Pictures were
06:04later found guilty of inflating the budgets of the likes of Battlefield Earth and other
06:08features to scam investors and filed for bankruptcy in 2007, leaving behind nothing
06:14more than a legacy of dodgy dealings and awful movies.
06:183. Mars Needs Moms Image Movers Digital
06:22Robert Zemeckis has had a varied career, to say the least. You'll find well-regarded
06:26successes in his filmography such as Forrest Gump or Back to the Future,
06:30but you'll also see more than a few misfires like What Lies Beneath or Welcome to Marwen.
06:35While he didn't direct Mars Needs Moms, it was made by his company Image Movers,
06:40as part of a joint venture with Disney, and his fingerprints are all over it.
06:44The odd motion capture animation that Zemeckis had previously used in A Christmas Carol was on
06:49full display again, and it looked just as unsettling here. In fact, the entire thing
06:54just looks downright ugly. Audiences seemed to think so too, as the movie took in only
06:59$39 million against its $150 million budget, which cemented it as Disney's biggest financial
07:05disaster ever. Even before the film's release, Disney and Image Movers announced that Image
07:11Movers Digital, the division that made the movie, would be closed down. Shutting down your company
07:16after your release fails is one thing, but going bust before the movie is even released? That has
07:21got to hurt. 2. Heaven's Gate United Artists
07:25From the mid-1960s to the early 1980s, Hollywood was a hotbed of experimentation.
07:31Legendary pioneers like Martin Scorsese, Robert Altman, and Francis Ford Coppola were being given
07:36unprecedented freedom to make the kinds of films they wanted to make, free from the studio
07:41restrictions of the preceding decades. This era gave us some of the greatest American films ever
07:46made, but it all had to end sometime. Still riding high from his best picture-winning classic,
07:52The Deer Hunter, director Michael Cimino decided to write a tale about a dispute between land
07:57barons and settlers in 1890s Wyoming. Upon its release in 1980, Heaven's Gate was derided by
08:04every industry publication as one of the worst movies ever made. The critical thrashing was so
08:09bad that United Artists actually pulled it from the theatres after just one week. They attempted
08:14to release it again a year later in a slightly shortened director's cut format, but that also
08:19performed horribly, only taking in $3.5 million against its $44 million budget. Not only did
08:26Heaven's Gate put United Artists out of business, with the failing studio eventually becoming part
08:31of MGM, it brought an end to the freedom that maverick directors had enjoyed in Hollywood for
08:37so long. Number 1, Superman 4 The Quest for Peace, The Cannon Group
08:42When the first Superman feature film hit cinema screens in 1978, it changed the landscape of film
08:48forever. With its groundbreaking use of special effects and genuinely emotional moments,
08:53it was the first indication for Hollywood that superhero movies might be worth investing in.
08:58Naturally, it was followed by three sequels in an attempt to cash in as much as possible
09:03on this new franchise. But being in something only for the money can be perilous. Sometimes
09:08you still luck out and get a halfway decent end product, and other times you get Superman 4.
09:13The film looks noticeably cheap the whole way through, a result of having its $36 million
09:18budget slashed in half. A particularly hilarious example is a scene in which Superman is supposed
09:24to be approaching the United Nations building in New York City. Of course, any viewer with even a
09:29vague idea of what that building looks like can see that Superman is not even in America. The
09:34scene was in fact shot in Milton Keynes, with very little effort made to hide that fact.
09:39The Cannon Group, teetering on the brink of bankruptcy even with the movie's reduced budget,
09:43was brought out by Pathé Communications the following year, and soon ceased to exist
09:49altogether. Not so Superman. And that concludes our list. If you think
09:53we missed any, then do let us know in the comments below, and while you're there,
09:56don't forget to like and subscribe and tap that notification bell. Also, head over to Twitter
10:02and follow us there, and I can be found across various social medias just by searching Ellie
10:06Littlechild. I've been Ellie with WhatCulture, I hope you have a magical day, and I'll see you real soon.