15 Dumbest Things In The Worst Summer Movie Season Ever
10. Not Releasing The BFG As "The Big Friendly Giant" In The U.S.
One of the year's most surprising box office bombs so far is Steven Spielberg's The BFG, which just barely recouped its $140 million budget despite the fact it had the world's most famous filmmaker helming a beloved children's book.
That's what you get for naming the movie "The BFG" when this doesn't mean as much to international audiences. Had it instead been called "The Big Friendly Giant", it almost certainly would've grossed a lot more (if probably still a modest success given the competition it faced upon release).
Why It's Dumb: It's simply astounding that Hollywood, with its array of focus groups and marketing meetings, never considered that audiences might have no idea what a BFG is, or that they might just associate it with the "Big F***ing Gun" from the Doom video games.
Hopefully Hollywood will take the right lesson away from this rather than assuming that it means audiences don't want big budget Roald Dahl movies.