10 Expensive Movies With Budgets That Spiralled Out Of Control

8. Cutthroat Island (1995)

One of the most notorious flops in Hollywood history, Cutthroat Island's $98m budget is equivalent to over $150m when adjusted for inflation. A box office bomb of epic proportions, the movie grossed a little over $10m domestically and both killed the pirate genre and accelerated the decline of Carolco Pictures. A troubled production saw the budget swell to almost nine figures, an astronomical amount for a movie that boasted very little in the way of star power. No offense to Matthew Modine, but he isn't exactly a big enough name on which to market a studio blockbuster, and he only ended up with the role after Michael Douglas had dropped out and Tom Cruise, Jeff Bridges, Charlie Sheen, Keanu Reeves, Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes and Michael Keaton had all passed. Director Renny Harlin arrived on set to discover that the production design wasn't to his liking and ordered them torn down and rebuilt and a cost of millions of dollars, while his firing of the chief camera operator saw dozens of crew members quit in protest, with the cost of hiring replacements adding yet more expense. Factor in the logistical nightmare of shooting on water on top of all of the production problems, and it seems that Cutthroat Island was doomed from the start. In fact, the husband and wife duo of Harlin and star Geena Davis reportedly asked to be released from their contracts as they knew the movie was going to be a disaster, but were turned down by the studio. The end result for the overly-extravagant production was a financial loss of over $100m, and a reputation as one of the most excessive productions in Hollywood history.