Top Flops.

[Harry Lime]

I was watching "Vertigo" this afternoon, now considered one of Hitchcock's very best. It wasn't at the time. Got me to thinking, what other films that are continued tops now were flops originally? Such as:

1) "Vertigo." Considered by many too weird and too dark for the times, even though it was Hitch. Didn't do well in initial release.

2) "It's a Wonderful Life." Too dark and down for post-WW2 audiences at the time of its initial release (1946.)

3) "Night of the Hunter." Brilliant movie, Mitchum at his best. Charles Laughton was so distraught this is his one and only film he directed.

4) "The Magnificent Ambersons" and "Touch of Evil." Doubly cursed Orson Welles. Audiences and studio execs just didn't get him. Re-released versions of both cut to his original detailed director's notes greatly improve both, now recognized as classics.

5) "The Big Carnival" and "Kiss Me, Stupid." Two Billy Wilder "failures." The Big Carnival, an excellent Kirk Douglas movie, was even re-titled and re-released.

What are some of the ones I missed? What are some destined for this status in the future? (Example: "Dark City.")

Harry Lime

 

[Doctor Strange]

"Fantasia" was a HUGE flop in 1940 that came close to bankrupting Disney. (It was too highbrow for the mass audience and too vulgar for the highbrows.) With the European market cut off, it was really only the war effort work that started a couple of years later that kept Disney afloat.

That's the first one that comes to mind. I'll post others as I think of them. (You mentioned some of the best examples!)

 

[Burma Shave]

Any modern film described as "a critical triumph"...

...likely will be viewed as important in the future, though audiences today may not go to the theater in droves to see it.

I'm thinking specifically of just about any movie from Wim Wenders (Wings of Desire, Faraway So Close) and Jim Jarmusch (Mystery Train, Down By Law, etc.), among others. Such is the fate of what we consider "art" or "independent" film.

One of the more mainstream films that will eventually be viewed as important, I think, is the dystopic "Equilibrium," with Christian Bale, which was largely ignored by audiences when it was released in 2003 (or 2002?). It's a classy "the future is now" movie that mixes some of the philosophic meandering and action sequences of The Matrix with the odd-man-out cool of a Batman. (The Batman idea struck me when I first saw Equilibrium, and then they tapped Bale to play The Bat in "Batman Begins." Good casting on that one, I thought.)

 

[Doctor Strange]

I don't think films intended for the art-house crowd are necessarily the same thing. They (usually) don't have the big stars, healthy budget, visible advertising, or expectation of success that I think you need up front to properly be considered flops. If they succeed, they become "cult" films or "sleepers", but if they only do modest biz, well, that's par for the course.

 

[Sefton]

The first one that comes to mind is John Carpenter's The Thing (1982). Carpenter was coming off of the mega success of Halloween. The Thing is a dark and suspenseful horror-science fiction film with great ensemble acting. Smartly written and tightly directed. Unfortunately movie audiences in '82 weren't in the mood for a nasty outer space alien. They spent their money on the kinder-gentler version by Speilberg called E.T! Also the same year saw Ridley Scott's Blade Runner. Although it did moderately well at the box office it wasn't even close to the blockbuster status of E.T. Critics didn't offer much praise for a film that I think is one of the best Science Fiction movies ever.

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Terry Gilliam's BRAZIL, and his ADVENTURES OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN.

Have you all seen BRAZIL? It's exactly what "1984" would have looked like in 1948. (Incidentally, 1948 was the year that Orwell wrote the book.)

 

[Sefton]

Brazil is a great film. I love DeNiro's (small) but funny part. ADVENTURES OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN another wonderful film. Both were just too strange to be big at the boxoffice. Wonderful costumes and sets for Brazil and that theme song really sticks in your head afterwards....

 

[Doh!]

Unfotunately,"The Iron Giant" qualifies. If it wasn't a 100% "flop," it sure wasn't the blockbuster WB had hoped.

It's like people couldn't accept animated entertainment without any songs. Great movie, though.

 

[MudInYerEye]

My favorite Martin Scorsese film and one of my favorites period, THE KING OF COMEDY, flopped so badly that his career was derailed for several years. It's reputation has changed somewhat since then.

 

[Doctor Strange]

Hey, great movies you folks have come up with. Brazil, King of Comedy, and especially The Iron Giant - one of my faves, the great undiscovered animated masterpiece of the late 90s. (At least Brad Bird finally had a big hit with his next film, The Incredibles.) I'm not a fan of Carpenter's The Thing, though - I just love the earlier version too much. I like a bunch of his other films, though - Dark Star, Escape From NY, Big Trouble In Little China, Starman...

 

[MK]

Agreed on all points

The first one that comes to mind is John Carpenter's The Thing (1982). Carpenter was coming off of the mega success of Halloween. The Thing is a dark and suspenseful horror-science fiction film with great ensemble acting. Smartly written and tightly directed. Unfortunately movie audiences in '82 weren't in the mood for a nasty outer space alien. They spent their money on the kinder-gentler version by Speilberg called E.T! Also the same year saw Ridley Scott's Blade Runner. Although it did moderately well at the box office it wasn't even close to the blockbuster status of E.T. Critics didn't offer much praise for a film that I think is one of the best Science Fiction movies ever.

Although not from the golden era, those were the first movies that came to mind. Both are highly under rated.

 

[Jack Armstrong]

I was watching "Vertigo" this afternoon, now considered one of Hitchcock's very best. It wasn't at the time. Got me to thinking, what other films that are continued tops now were flops originally?

Portrait of Jennie, magnificent 1948 "transcendental love" story thematically somewhat similar to the much later Somewhere In Time but orders of magnitude better. Now recognized as a film far ahead of its time, but baffled critics and audiences alike in its theatrical release.

 

[Harry Lime]

You guys are doing a great job. "The Thing" and "King of Comedy" are great additions. A couple more:

1) Martin Scorscese's "New York, New York." Audiences weren't into the cast at the time. I don't think the cast was into the cast either. There's a fight scene in a car that got so out of hand bewteen DeNiro and Liza Minelli that someone went to the hospital. The movie is a lot better when watced today.

2) "Detour." No one saw this cheapie Noir when it fist came out. Now it's considered a classic.

3) "The Machurian Canidate." Tough topic to handle after Kennedy was assasinated. Romor has it Sintra had it buried for years, those he refuted this.

4) "The Shawshank Redemption." No one knew what this movie was about with that title so no one saw it (until video and HBO release.) Really a great film.

5) "The Cotton Club." Bogged down in controversy and compared unfairly to "The Godfather" it's very good in it's own right.

6) "Fight Club." Didn't do what a Brad Pitt movie is supposed to do at the box office but is now regarded as somewhat classic and very influential. There are a lot of interesting ideas in this movie and it really has it's own style.

Harry Lime

 

[Mycroft]

Office Space (not golden era though)
The Blob
Clerks

 

[Harry Lime]

Office Space (not golden era though)
The Blob
Clerks

Office Space is a great one. The Blob as well. Clerks I might dispute because it was made for peanuts and actually did very well. (They're doing a sequel to it right now.)

Harry Lime

 

[Quigley Brown]

I'm surprised no one's mentioned 'Heaven's Gate.' That one is the poster child for Hollywood flops. After his success with The Deerhunter Michael Cimino was given a sort of a carte blanche with that production. But.....its failure was so bad it resulted in the sale of the United Artists studio to MGM.

I didn't mind it. I like all films, good or bad. If it's a bad one then have a good time with it. It's all entertainment.

 

[kools]

From what I remember, Orson Welles' The lady From Shanghai bombed. It had something to do with Rita Heyworth's hair...short & blonde in this film. Great movie, and I've got no problem with Rita as a blonde.

 

[maintcoder]

Speaking of Heaven's Gate... what about the much ballyhooed, but bomb called 'Ishtar'. Do you think Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman still have nightmares about this one?

 

[maintcoder]

3) "The Machurian Canidate." Tough topic to handle after Kennedy was assasinated. Romor has it Sintra had it buried for years, those he refuted this.

I was always under the impression it was 'Suddenly' that Sinatra buried after the Kennedy assassination. Either way, both are great films.

 

[MudInYerEye]

I think HEAVEN'S GATE doesn't really fit the nature of this thread which I think perhaps mistakenly) is dedicated to major flops that were later regarded as classics. While HEAVEN'S GATE, along with WATERWORLD, is a king among flops, it has not yet proven to become a classic (and hopefully our taste will never sink so low that it does).