10 Films You Didn't Realise Secretly Bombed
8. Blade Runner
It's difficult to talk about Blade Runner, as it's not really one singular movie. Over a period of twenty-five years, no less than six different cuts of this film have been released. Fans of Ridley Scott's sci-fi detective noir could argue for hours over which is the definitive version, but there is one thing that everyone can agree on: the original theatrical cut is LAME.
This is something that the regular punters of 1982 must have agreed on, as the film only earned $32.9 million on a budget of $30 million. That's not exactly a slam dunk, especially when compared to another particular science fiction film starring Harrison Ford.
Similar to that other film, the director behind Blade Runner seems to have a constant urge to continuously re-release slightly edited versions of the same movie. Ridley Scott was finally able to release Blade Runner: The Final Cut in 2007, the only version that gave him complete artistic and editorial control. This constant re-releasing has kept the film alive and present in film fans' minds for decades, and it is now considered to be a classic of the genre.
When the time came for a sequel in 2017, the studio took the opposite approach but sadly ended up with similar results. Director Denis Villeneuve was reportedly given complete creative control and a virtually unlimited budget for Blade Runner 2049, but it still failed to earn a decent wad of cash.