9. Office Space
Despite being one of the very best comedies of the 1990s, Mike Judge's Office Space grossed a meagre $10.8m against a $10m budget, so after marketing costs, it essentially made no money, and probably cost the studio some. The premise, in which an office drone (Ron Livingston) is fed up of his repetitive, thankless job and decides to rip his soulless company off, has a somewhat universal appeal whether you've worked in an office or not; the point isn't that particular line of work, but the soul-crushing drudgery of work that the vast majority of us encounter. It's a wonderfully funny film, though perhaps its quirky sense of humour isn't quite for everyone. However, the primary reason for its failure likely rests with the casting; despite Jennifer Aniston starring as Livingston's girlfriend, the film is otherwise populated with relatively obscure actors, such that it constructing a marketing campaign would require more imagination than studios apparently have. Even studio execs have later admitted how poor the marketing for the film was, but Fox didn't seem to learn their lesson, because Judge's next film, Idiocracy, was near-enough buried upon release. Still, Office Space has enjoyed both strong home video sales and grand cult status ever since.