Total Cost: $22,000,000 Film Budget + $28,000,000 On Dissolving Contract You know things are grim when an album tanks so badly that the record label that released it spends millions in an attempt to disassociate itself from the artist responsible. Mariah Carey's 2001 release Glitter is the soundtrack album from the film of the same name, both of which were critical and commercial failures. The album marked something of a musical departure for Carey, and given it was recorded in conjunction with a big-budget film (around twenty-two million dollars was spent) the album's budget was also incredibly high. Following a public breakdown in the run up to the film and soundtrack's release (which involved Carey handing out ice cream to an MTV audience, performing a public striptease and subsequent hospitalization), as well as very low album sales, Virgin Records evoked a clause in its contract that allowed them to break from a one-hundred million dollar deal for almost thirty-million dollars, making Glitter one of the most expensive albums ever made purely because of the amount spent trying to forget it.
