10 Movies Nobody Saw In Cinemas (But Everyone Watches On TV)
3. Numerous John Carpenter Movies
In 1978's Halloween, John Carpenter has a movie that spent decades classified as the most profitable film in all of cinema history.
Away from Halloween, however, it's a tad bizarre to realise that shockingly few people flocked to cinemas to see some of Carpenter's other works - even though so many hold much of the iconic Horror Master's work in the highest of regard, and said pictures will forever be watched time and time again when found playing on TV.
When you think of Big Trouble in Little China, The Thing, and They Live, they're all films that most of us will happily sit and watch whenever they're on TV. The thing is, all three of those weren't watched by all that many people when they were released theatrically.
In the case of Big Trouble, that 1986 release cost up to $25 million by the time all was said and done, yet the box office haul from the picture was just $11 million.
For The Thing and They Live, those movies fared better at the box office, but still fell way below what 20th Century Fox and Universal Pictures, respectively, were expecting - particularly in the case of The Thing, which picked up $19 million from its $15 million budget.
The Fog and Escape from New York fared well during their cinema runs, but Starman, Prince of Darkness, Memoirs of an Invisible Man, In the Mouth of Madness, Village of the Damned, Escape from L.A., Vampires, Ghosts of Mars, and The Ward all stuttered - and some of those even struggled to grab a TV audience.