9 Awful Movies That Bankrupted Studios

6. Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (Square Pictures)

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within Square Pictures' first film, the one they'd spent three years developing in secret, was also the one that killed the video game giant's subsidiary company before it got off the ground. The visually stunning Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within is among the most hollow animated films imaginable, admirable for how it looks, but completely devoid of any emotion, making for an extremely dull adventure indeed. Audiences generally felt the same, it seems, as the film made only $85 million against its $137 million budget. The bulk of the problem is that Square clearly didn't know how to budget their ambitious project; it was originally supposed to cost only $70 million, yet overruns at the end caused it to almost double, and the result was a film that never really stood a chance. After finishing up work on a short for The Animatrix, Square Pictures disbanded and they stuck to doing what they do best.
 
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Frequently sleep-deprived film addict and video game obsessive who spends more time than is healthy in darkened London screening rooms. Follow his twitter on @ShaunMunroFilm or e-mail him at shaneo632 [at] gmail.com.