10 Sci-Fi Movies Audiences Walked Out Of

This 2008 monster movie faced an uphill battle to live up to its viral marketing campaign. After getting secretly greenlit by Paramount Pictures and carefully kept under wraps even from movie news sites, Cloverfield garnered huge buzz ahead of its release.

Mysterious teaser trailers, plus the film’s association with JJ Abrams, had people flocking to theatres. But while the hype managed to put bums on seats, it spectacularly failed to keep them there.

That’s not to say Cloverfield was bad, necessarily - the film was broadly well regarded by critics - but audiences still found it impossible to sit through. The constant camera movement in this ambitious, found footage creature feature was inducing bouts of motion sickness in moviegoers. No amount of positive reviews was going to stop some viewers from staggering, nauseated, from their seats to find the nearest toilets.

Cinemas soon had to start putting up warning signs about the movie’s potential side affects. AMC Entertainment went so far as to offer refunds to anyone who got sick and had to leave partway through the movie.