10 Insanely Expensive Movies You Forgot Even Existed
5. The Sorcerer's Apprentice
Director Jon Turteltaub re-teamed with his National Treasure star Nicolas Cage in an attempt to see if a detour into magical territory would bring the same kind of success as their adventures in treasure-hunting. Spoiler alert: it didn't.
If adapting a single segment of Fantasia into a $150m summer blockbuster isn't a sign of creative bankruptcy, then casting one of the most demented and endlessly-watchable actors that the business has ever seen as an immortal wizard and then failing to unleash full-blown Cage Rage is arguably an even bigger sin.
Everything about The Sorcerer's Apprentice is paint-by-numbers Mouse House filmmaking, with the family-friendly formula making the entire movie averse to even the slightest hint of originality or risk. We still haven't got a third National Treasure despite the franchise having a huge number of fans, but Disney were still more than happy to sink more money than they did into either of Ben Gates' outings into a project that most people wouldn't be able to name even a single character from.