10 Awful 2014 Movies That Deserved To Bomb At The Box Office

6. Pompeii

Budget: $80 million Box office: $117.8 million Another release this year which could sit uncomfortably alongside Renny Harlin's The Legend Of Hercules is another CGI-laden historical "epic" which similarly squanders the potential of its source material in spectacular fashion. Paul W. S. Anderson probably got the green light on this expensive production off the back of his inexplicably successful Resident Evil movies, which have been released at an alarming pace despite their deteriorating quality. Pompeii offers little in the way of improvement when it comes to the writing standard, and the film ultimately feels like a straight-to-video effort which someone bribed to screen in cinemas. If only Hollywood would throw these sums of money at the other Paul Anderson - Paul W. S. could probably learn a great deal from Paul Thomas, the director of There Will Be Blood and Inherent Vice, about prioritising writing and acting over vacuous spectacle.