10 Infamous Failed Blockbusters That Cost Obscene Money

With the competition for box office dollars getting fiercer than ever, Hollywood's solution seems to have been to throw even more money at the wall to see what sticks.

Ever since Terminator 2 and Jurassic Park kicked the doors off the CGI revolution three decades ago, budgets have spiraled out of control as the studios rush to mount the next eye-catching blockbuster that will draw in massive audiences, because the precedent had already been set that bigger budgets meant bigger financial rewards.

These days, $200m is nothing to spend on a high-profile summer release, but while it can often result in billions of dollars flowing back into the coffers, it has also created a much bigger sense of risk.

The mid-budget movie is all but dead at this point, with filmmakers increasingly fleeing to streaming just to retain creative control, but the phenomenon of hugely-expensive blockbusters falling flat on their faces after bombing hard isn't exactly a knew one, with countless would-be franchise starters suffering from a similar fate over the years and leaving everyone embarrassed and out of pocket as a result.

Alexander seemed like the right movie at the right time, with Oliver Stone's historical epic arriving just when the genre was at its peak of popularity, with the story focusing on the life of one of history's most remarkable figures for good measure.

However, no matter how many times Stone re-edited and reassembled his passion project, there's no version of Alexander that's any good. Plagued by bad accents and miscasting, it didn't help either that the story was ten times drier than the battlefields that much of the action took place on.

Warner Bros. sunk $155m into Alexander, a figure that went up after Stone had finished with the Director's Cut, Final Unrated Cut and Ultimate Cut, and all they had left to show for it in the end was six Razzie nominations and a huge hole in their pocket.