10 Box Office Failures That Are Actually Brilliant

8. Lolita (1997)

Vladimir Nabakov's most famous novel has twice been adapted to film, the most famous version helmed by Stanley Kubrick. But whereas that '60s telling of the tale aged Lolita up and emphasised the more humorous aspects of the book, Adrian Lyne's 1997 adaptation - starring Jeremy Irons as charismatic pervert Humbert Humbert, no less - made no attempt to play down the sexuality. It's true that both versions excel in their different ways, but fail equally in their attempts to nail the tone of Nabakov's book because they stray to far one way or the other. Kubrick's version was a hit at the box office, of course, whereas Lyne's plummeted - with a budget of $62 million dollars, it made just $1 million. The problem likely stemmed from the fact that the highly "inappropriate" film - with its pedophile plottings - scared audiences away in its strive for realism; the movie had trouble finding a distributor, flopped, and has been relatively forgotten ever since. But there's no denying that there's a strange, bold power to this overtly "romanticised" version; the performance are wonderful (Dominique Swain is arguably the perfect Lolita), the cinematography dreamlike and hazy, and Ennio Morricone's soundtrack is haunting.