10 Films Cinemas Refused To Play (And Why)

In the months leading up to its release, Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ received a lot of negative attention from religious groups because of how heavily it departed from the gospels, depicting Jesus as more of a mortal man with human wants, needs and temptations.

On opening day, there were protests in New York, Los Angeles, and other American cities, with police officers forced to keep a watchful eye out for any trouble. People waiting to see the film were even scolded by angry crowds, and on the whole, it wasn't exactly a release that was met with a universal amount of excitement.

It also wasn't a release that was viewable on a nationwide scale, either, because several theatre chains - scared off by the amount of controversy surrounding the film - simply refused to book it. Chains like General Cinema and Edwards Theaters took this approach, meaning that Scorsese's epic missed out on over 3,500 extra screens.

Sadly, this lack of available screenings bled directly into the film's box-office results, and by the end of its run, it only managed to scrape together $8 million worldwide, off an estimated $7 million budget.