10 Films That Should Have Never Flopped At The Box Office

By Chris Librizzi / February 12, 2013

When a film flops at the box-office, there is usually a good reason. That reason is usually that the film is absolutely terrible. Although that's not always the case, sometimes there are outside factors at work which drag down what should be outstanding box-office smash... and as is the case with the following 10 films. The ideas were solid, the concepts strong but somewhere along the line, something went wrong and these films were denied the success they deserved. Some recovered nicely in later years, landing on their feet with a little help from the home video market, though others weren't so lucky and have been counted among the worst films ever. Let's take a look at 'em.

10. Speed Racer (2008)

Budget: $120 million Box Office: $43,945,766 The Wachowski brothers became household names thanks to their visually stunning, ground-breaking Matrix trilogy. However their signature style of special effects heavy filmmaking did not earn them the same success in 2008 with the big screen adaptation of Speed Racer. The Wachowskis take on the classic sixties anime and manga character is a flashy showing of CGI and green screen. With lots of bright colors and fast paced racing action and little else. That's all somewhat understandable - after all it's a story about a race car driver - but where's the spirit of the old cartoons? Speed Racer was pop through and through, a campy thirty minutes of television where good triumphed over evil on the race track. That's what this film really lacked: the campiness. Speed Racer surely has enough fans to have made this movie a mild win, but stripping Speed of what the fans loved can only hurt. Had the Wachowski taken a step back, toned down the effects and lovingly amped up the corny nature of the old cartoons, Speed Racer would have raced to box-office success.