10 Movies With INSANE Budgets (That Didn't Pay Off)
Not every movie with a massive budget makes it big in Hollywood. Some of them fall flat pretty fast.
There was a time when it was considered a pretty big deal if a movie's budget reached as high as $100 million, but these days, that's far from uncommon. It is still a lot of money, however, and much more has been spent over the years on some really big projects.
It seems that movie studios and producers sometimes believe that a movie will do better if it has more money behind it. Put an extra $20 million here, another $15 million over there, and the special effects, beautiful settings, and brilliant cinematography will make up for what would otherwise be a dud.
That arithmetic doesn't usually work since a movie tends to work when the story is good. Even if the actors working on set or the director in the chair happens to be award-winning hit-makers, a movie with a convoluted plot and poorly written story rarely make it big.
Studio investments on big names, massive effects budgets, and heavy marketing will never make up for a bad plot, but that hasn't stopped Hollywood from launching some miraculously expensive flops over the years. While some of these films have merit, they never made enough to justify the massively inflated budgets that went into making them.
10. The Adventures Of Pluto Nash
Eddie Murphy's ability to carry a Hollywood hit was confirmed with his very first movie, 48 Hrs., in 1983. While that movie (and many others) went on to earn a ton of cash, not everything Murphy has worked on paid off. Typically, his films had modest budgets... that is, of course, until The Adventures of Pluto Nash hit theaters in 2010.
Pluto Nash had been languishing in development hell since the mid-1980s, and thanks to a number of costly rewrites, huge elaborate sets, and special effects spread throughout the film, the whole project ended up costing much more than it was worth.
The movie reportedly cost $100 million to make, but when it finally came to theaters, it managed to rake in a measly $7.1 million in the worldwide box office gross. Not only was it a massive financial flop, but it was also one of the worst-rated films the comedian starred in throughout his career.
Pluto Nash maintains a rating of 4% on Rotten Tomatoes with a consensus that the movie failed to deliver on all accounts. The only aspect of the film that somewhat worked was its special effects and seeing as that department got the most money, it makes sense.