Top 10 most expensive movie flops ever.

Top 10 most expensive movie flops ever. If you think that "The Dark Tower" was a flop, taking only $113m from a $60m production budget (yep, that counts as a major flop), just wait till you see these bad boys.

Movies take a very large amount of money to make, to the point that a budget below $50 million is considered mid- or even low-budget. It usually works out in the end, since movies also make a staggering amount of money, but not all movies are so lucky. 

Here are the top ten movies which not only bombed but in some cases destroyed companies and careers...

1. "King Arthur: Legend of the Sword"

 

Production budget: $175 million | Loss: $150 million

Probably best known for featuring a woeful appearance from former footballer David Beckham, Guy Ritchie's turkey came with a surprisingly high budget.

Warner Bros were keen to kickstart a new franchise based on the Arthurian legend with actor Charlie Hunnam fronting, but this was not to be their sword in the stone.

King Arthur: Legend of the Sword opened in the US to just $15 million and received a clunking 28% on Rotten Tomatoes. Maybe they should get Beckham to bend those figures.

 

2. "Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas"

 

Production budget: $60 million | Loss: $125 million

The combined Hollywood weight and talent of Brad Pitt and Michelle Pfeiffer couldn't save this 2003 Dreamworks animated movie from drowning.

Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas wasn't received too poorly. In fact, it did garnish some positive comments but audiences weren't interested in old-fashioned cartoons after the massive ripples caused by Pixar's Finding Nemo, released just months previously.


As a result, Dreamworks Animation almost sank without trace. The company abandoned traditional hand-drawn films and sought safe harbour in computer-generated animation; their next offering was Shrek 2 and the Madagascar franchise began soon after.

 

 3. "John Carter"

 

 

Production budget: $263 million | Loss: $122 million

There are only a few films to top this slice of Disney sci-fi from 2012 in terms of costs: two instalments of Pirates of the Caribbean, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Justice League and, of course, superhero epic Avengers: Infinity War.

John Carter's pedigree – solid cast (though its lead, Taylor Kitsch, was perhaps out of his depth), Oscar-winning Andrew Stanton (Wall-E, Finding Nemo) on directing duties and celebrated source material (from Edgar Rice Burroughs) – didn't save it from a critical pasting and poor audience turn-out.

The Mars-based franchise failed to happen for Disney, who then decided to look elsewhere for their science-fiction fix. By the end of the year, they owned Star Wars.

 

4. "Monster Trucks"

 

 

Production budget: $125 million | Loss: $115 million

Kids are problematic for the film industry. The majority of this list is made up with failed children's movies and this one, based purely on a pun, is typical of its genre.

2016's Monster Trucks was to launch a new franchise from Paramount but, after the opening barely scraped over $10 million at the box office, the flimsy premise crashed.

 

5. "The 13th Warrior (1999)"

 

 

Production budget:  $160 million  | Loss: $61.7 million 

The 13th Warrior is an adaptation of Eaters of the Dead, a novel by Michael Crichton (of Jurassic Park fame) that loosely adapts the myth of Beowulf. While the film earned some recognition for its expensive set pieces, those costly moments ended up ballooning the film's budget to $160 million, not a low price in 1999. The box office returns were only $61.7 million, leaving the film with a loss of almost $100 million.

 

 

6. "Titan AE"

 

 

Production budget: $90 million | Loss: $100 million

An entry that killed a company, in this case Fox Animation Studios, which bravely ventured out into space but collapsed just ten days after Titan AE's release in 2000.

The talent involved is impressive – directors Don Bluth and Gary Goldman,writers Joss Whedon and John August, and the voices of Matt Damon, Bill Pullman and Drew Barrymore – but not enough to save Titan AE from lukewarm reviews.

 

 

 7. "Mars Needs Moms"

 

 

Production budget: $150 million | Loss: $100 million

Mars Needs Moms was an experiment in motion-capture performance, co-produced by legendary director Robert Zemeckis and marketed by Disney, a company fairly well-known for its animated movie acumen—all of which is why it's so weird that the movie ended up being equal parts disturbing and entirely toothless. 

The story follows a 9-year-old trying to save his mom from being murdered by aliens who want to use her "mom-ness" to power their "nannybots," and the film's effects technology (cutting edge at the time) gives an uncomfortable eeriness to every character's facial expressions.

 

 

8. "The Lone Ranger"

 

 

The Lone Ranger is a classic part of American pop culture. In the same way that there is no need to be a fan of "Superman" to know that he stands for "Truth, Justice.

The Lone Ranger's catchphrase of "Hi-ho, Silver, away!" has become ingrained in the lexicon. Unfortunately for the makers of 2013's The Lone Ranger, that didn't make much of a difference at the box office, where the film barely made $89 million domestic against its $215 million budget. It eventually recouped another $171 million worldwide, but that didn't make it any less of a failure in the United States.

 

 

9."Stealth"

 

Production budget: $135 million | Loss: $96 million

You might not recognize Rob Cohen by name, but you may remember his movies or their star, Vin Diesel. Cohen directed both The Fast and the Furious and XXX which were blockbuster on box office, but when Stealth flopped, potentially it may became the end of Cohen's movie career.

The movie follows a group of trained Air Force pilots as they try to take down a corrupted AI-controlled jet, and reads more like a science-fiction parody of Top Gun than the guileless, masculine-driven tone of Cohen's more successful movies. It grossed $76 million, but the price tag of $135 million meant it needed to bring in a lot more than that. Maybe with Diesel on board it might have fared better; as it is, Stealth seems to have snuck by moviegoers.

 

 

10."The Adventures of Pluto Nash"

 

 

Production budget: $100 million | Loss: $96 million

It might be hard to imagine now, but there was a time when Eddie Murphy's presence in a movie was basically a cheat code to box office success. The man made Trading Places, Coming to America, and even The Nutty Professor a success, and his stand-up movies were also incredibly popular. Those days were over long before The Adventures of Pluto Nash arrived. Still, the high concept sounded great—"Eddie Murphy as Han Solo" could have been a slam dunk. The movie just didn't connect with audiences, however, earning back only $7.1 million of its reported $100 million budget.

It's not hard to see why the film fared so poorly. It's a complete mess for everyone involved—mediocre special effects, a confusing and unfunny script, and a nonsensical future setting. Hoping that a science-fiction comedy could be successfully anchored purely on Eddie Murphy's ability to attract a crowd was a big gamble, and ultimately that $100 million budget was too much to wager.