10 'Next Big Thing' Movies That Completely Flopped

7. Mr. Payback: An Interactive Movie

Now, there is probably no reality in which Mr. Payback: An Interactive Movie was going to be an Avengers-level success, but it's here as the face of every movie that ever tried to make viewers an active part of the experience, or create a choose-your-own-adventure film.

With Mr. Payback, a select few theatres were actually retrofitted with joysticks, and audience members (or I guess 'players') could choose how they wanted the titular character to get payback on the movie's villains.

It sounds dumb, but that's only one example of cinema's long pursuit to cash in on interactive gimmicks. Examples like this are less subtle, but others, such as Clue shipping to cinemas with a bunch of different alternate endings that would show depending on the screening, looked like they could have a chance of changing how we watch films.

However, it's probably for the best that pretty much every single one of these trends has failed to catch on.

Advertisement
Contributor

Josh has over 11 years of experience as a published writer, having worked nine of those years as a full-time content producer at WhatCulture. In that period he has created hundreds of articles, videos and podcast episodes for multiple WhatCulture channels, specialising in gaming, horror and film & TV. He now primarily works as a senior content producer and presenter on WhatCulture Gaming where he co-hosts the WhatCulture Gaming Podcast, a top 3 UK most listened to gaming podcast that he co-created in 2018. Over the years he has reviewed several high-profile gaming releases, covered industry events with on-site reporting, opined on breaking news, and even kicked off his interviewing career by chatting to childhood hero, Tommy Wiseau.