10 Major Blockbusters You Knew Were Doomed Before Release

5. Cutthroat Island (1995)

The movie that effectively killed the pirate genre for a decade and accelerated the bankruptcy of Carolco Pictures remains one of the most infamous financial disasters in Hollywood history. The mind-boggling thing about Cutthroat Island is that everybody knew it was going to be a disaster a long time before it sank without a trace in theatres. With husband and wife team Renny Harlin and Geena Davis directing and starring, Michael Douglas was signed to bring an A-list presence to the cast. He soon dropped out, with Tom Cruise, Keanu Reeves, Jeff Bridges, Charlie Sheen, Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes and Michael Keaton all turning down the role before Matthew Modine was cast. No disrespect to the actor, but he surely wasn't who the studio had in mind to headline a $100m movie. When the director arrived on set, he was unhappy with the set design and ordered extensive rebuilding at great cost, as well as spending a million dollars of his own money on rewriting the script. Problems continued when cameras finally began rolling, as a dispute that saw Harlin fire the chief camera operator saw dozens of crew members quit in protest, as well as the logistical nightmares brought by shooting on water. Fittingly for such a troubled production, Cutthroat Island opened in thirteenth place at the domestic box office with a dismal gross of $2.4m, and quietly disappeared from theaters with a total domestic haul of just over $10m. The movie added just $8.5m from overseas markets to result in a financial write-down of nearly $100m, which came as no surprise to those who had been following the extravagant production.