10 Insane Ways Movies Got Sabotaged
7. Columbia Circulated Only 117 Prints Of The Film In The U.S. - The Adventures Of Baron Munchausen
Director Terry Gilliam certainly has a history of bristling with studios and producers, and his movies also have a tendency to underperform at the box office.
And that's never been truer than with his Oscar-nominated 1988 fantasy film The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, which in complete fairness to studio Columbia went wildly over-budget.
It's been estimated that Gilliam went as far as doubling the original $23.5 million production cost, yet then-Columbia CEO David Puttnam was a major supporter of Gilliam's.
But when Puttnam was replaced during post-production, the new regime lacked the same enthusiasm for Gilliam's ambitious vision and so did the absolute bare minimum to support the movie's release.
In fact, only 117 prints of Munchausen were ever created for U.S. distribution - a number that'd be pitiful for a low-budget indie, let alone a lavish fantasy pic allegedly costing over $45 million.
As a result, it was little surprise to anyone that the film was a colossal box office bomb, grossing just $8.1 million globally.
Of the sabotage, Gilliam said in an interview with IGN:
"We were ultimately the victim of Columbia Tri-Star being sold to Sony, because at that time all they were doing was trying to get the books looking as good as possible. We weren't the only film that suffered, but we were the most visible one... They were not spending any money on advertising to promote any of the movies started by the previous regime - by Putnam's regime. They were burying films left right and center by spending no money on them – and the books looked really good at the end of that."