10 Biggest Box Office Bombs That Lost Millions

9. Sahara

Production Budget: $160,000,000 Worldwide Gross: $119,269,486 Estimated Losses: $100,365,257 Sahara is one of those films that most people forget even existed... that is, unless you were part of Paramount Pictures in 2005 and lost $100 million on it. Sahara was blatantly positioned as an Indiana Jones ripoff and even copied the tagline from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom ("If adventure has a name... it must be Indiana Jones" became "Dirk Pitt. Adventure has a new name"). Matthew McConaughey starred as the handsome adventurer with Penélope Cruz as his beautiful companion. Breck Eisner was picked to direct the movie even though he never directed a theatrically released film before. He made expensive decisions, like cutting a plane crash scene that cost $2 million to film. Paramount spent over $80 million marketing the film, including having McConaughey drive across America to promote the film at events across the country. But that didn't quell the bad publicity of Clive Cussler, who wrote the book that the film was based on, suing producer Philip Anschutz two months before the film's release because of his dissatisfaction with the final product despite having a significant amount of creative control. The litigation carried on for years. Despite awful reviews, Sahara opened at #1 at the U.S. box office. Interest soon waned, and although Sahara ended up grossing $119.3 million, it wasn't even half of what Paramount needed to break even. McConaughey and Cruz later focused on more dramatic roles, and both ended up winning Oscars.