10 Box Office Flops Much Better Than Their Reputations

7. Rock Star

Budget: $57 million

Worldwide Gross: $19.3 million

2001's Rock Star is inspired by the true story of Tim "Ripper" Owens temporarily replacing Rob Halford as the lead singer of Judas Priest. Mark Wahlberg acts as the stand-in for Ripper while fictional band Steel Dragon is subbed in for Priest. Wahlberg's character is suddenly granted the opportunity to go on tour and record an album with his childhood heroes after slumming it in a tribute band for what seems like forever.

But that's not the part of the movie that's interesting. Sure, it's fun to watch Wahlberg journey through the excesses of the rock star lifestyle for a bit, but eventually the beats of the typical "life on the road" story become predictable.

It's in the first act, when the films dares not to take itself seriously (even as the main character takes himself way too seriously), that the movie shines. For instance, when two rival tribute bands "get into it" in the parking lot after a Steel Dragon concert. The two bands, one led by Wahlberg and the other by Third-Eye Blind's Stephen Jenkins, face off as creepy mirror images of each other, all essentially playing adult dress up as their idols.

They trade barbs while questioning each other's intense knowledge of the Steel Dragon back catalog, with Wahlberg apparently coming away with a victory after chastising Jenkins for having the wrong colours on his replica leather jacket ("The lapels should be blue and there's no green in the embroidery"). OH SNAP!

Rock Star is fantastic when it relishes in the goofy minutiae. And no matter what, it's still way better than that godawful Rock of Ages with Tom Cruise.