10 Movies Everyone Wanted (But Nobody Went To See)
4. The Golden Compass
When it comes to fantasy books, you can't ask for much better than Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials series.
Set in a world where human beings are accompanied by shapeshifting dæmons, the three Dark Materials books are firm favourites amongst readers young and old and continue to sell well many years after their first run.
These books are tailormade for a film adaptation. There's a great cast of characters, an engaging world, and it's got armoured polar bears in it! What more could you possibly want?
Director Chris Weitz had a go at bringing Pullman's world to movie theatres with 2005's The Golden Compass. Inspired by the first book in the series, The Golden Compass boasted an all-star cast including Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig, Christopher Lee, and Ian McKellen.
Was this enough to entice people into the cinema? Well, it's on this list, so...
Even though it did well globally - £372 million at the box office - the film failed to perform in the key US market. It did so badly there, production company New Line Cinema were forced to undertake an entire corporate restructure to cope.
If fighting polar bears can't sell a movie, then nothing can.