10 Recent Box Office Duds Destined To Become Cult Classics
These are the movies you tell all of your friends to watch ASAP.
This might be stating the obvious, but not every movie gets to turn a profit, regardless of how good it is. There is that much content available to audiences these days through cinema, streaming and TV that plenty of projects slip through the cracks, only to find a second life as cult classics once their theatrical run is over.
The term 'cult classic' is often interpreted as 'box office failure', but it can also be seen as a badge of honor. The term has been applied to the likes of Blade Runner, Plan 9 From Outer Space, Big Trouble in Little China, The Room, Donnie Darko, The Big Lebowski, Sharknado and countless others over the years.
Some of these movies are terrible and others are incredible, but each one of them has a dedicated and passionate fan-base that can quote dialogue from memory, will flock to special screenings and inspire a devoted following years after their cultural cache should have long run out.
Studios have been accused in recent years of attempting to artificially create cult movies as a marketing tool but no matter how hard they try, it simply isn't something that can be manufactured. Suits in boardrooms don't decide what movies get to enjoy the longevity of being a cult favorite, it's entirely up to the fans.
10. Mother!
Darren Aronofsky's Mother! will probably find a second life as a cult classic simply because of the sheer what-the-f**kery to be found over the course of the 121-minute runtime. One of the strangest movies to come out of the studio system in years, it's a wonder this thing even managed to get made at all.
The deliberate vagueness of the story and the sheer number of ways it can be interpreted mean that people will likely be studying and dissecting the minutae of Aronofsky's vision for years to come, and even then they'll probably come no closer to understanding just what the hell the filmmaker is trying to say.
Psychological, philosophical, allegorical and weird as sh*t, Mother! certainly represents the singular vision of its director in all of its baby-eating, heart-removing strangeness. Audiences certainly didn't know what to make of it, rewarding Mother! with a dreaded 'F' Cinemascore, which was a huge factor in the movie only earning $44m at the box office during its theatrical run.