8 All-Time Classic Movies You Didn't Know Flopped At The Box Office

Morgan Freeman, Tim Robbins, an old timey prison, and a Rita Hayworth poster. We know this combination to be nothing short of magical. But for some reason, audiences weren't thrilled with the prospect of this story when The Shawnshank Redemption was first released.

So what exactly was turning audiences off? Well, Tim Robbins wasn't quite a household name when Shawshank was released, Stephen King was primarily known as a horror guru, the studio had no idea how to market it, and the film was completely overshadowed its opening weekend by Quentin Tarantino's highly anticipated Pulp Fiction.

That type of movie - the ultra-violent, action-heavy crime movie - was quite the hot ticket in the mid-90s, and is the polar opposite of Shawshank, which is a slow-burning, almost stately drama.

That wasn't the recipe for box office success in 1994, causing the film to rake in less than $1 million of its $25 million budget in its opening weekend. Overall, Shawshank barely scraped out a profit.

Thankfully, hindsight has been much kinder to the movie, and it remains atop IMDB's list of the Top 250 movies. So clearly we all got our act together as it pertains to Morgan Freeman.