10 Flop Movies You Thought Were Huge Hits

10. Fight Club

David Fincher's Fight Club is one of the most iconic films of the 1990s, and such an entertaining, exciting, and brilliantly acted work from a filmmaker at the height of their powers that you probably assumed it was at least a modest box office hit.

Not quite.

Despite the movie's marketing focusing on its adrenalised, hyper-masculine elements - namely, the fighting - and innate sex appeal of Brad Pitt, Fight Club ended up grossing just $101 million against a $65 million price tag, falling far short of immediate profitability.

Fox executives weren't fond of the film and so opted to market it in the most cynical way possible towards predominantly male audiences, rather than offering up an honest representation of the far darker, weirder movie Fincher had actually made.

This isn't to say that Fight Club would've ever been an easy sell to audiences of the time, but it's certainly telling that it became a veritable pop-culture phenomenon via word-of-mouth once it hit home video.

Factoring in DVD sales and its general enduring cultural impact, it's definitely fair to say that Fight Club became a success in the long run, but make no mistake - it tanked on original theatrical release, in part because the budget was so high for a film of this mid-sized scale.