Another Top 10 Movies So Bad They Were Pulled From Theatres
The list goes on with even more movies that were such unbelievable box office bombs that they were taken out of theatres early! WatchMojo presents our second list of movies that didn't make enough money to continue the full length of their theatrical run! But which movies will take the top spot on our list? Will it be It's Pat, Postal, or United Passions? Watch to find out!
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Thanks to calvinator2012 for suggesting this idea, and to see how WatchMojo users voted, check out the suggest page here:
http://WatchMojo.comsuggest/Top%2010%20Movies%20So%20Bad%20They%20Were%20Pulled%20From%20Theatres
#10: “A Cure for Wellness” (2016)
Top 10 Movies So Bad They Were Pulled From Theaters
Horror isn’t exactly a genre known for consistent quality. Yes, there are countless superb horror movies out there, but in terms of what makes it into theaters…. there’s also a lot of trash. Which is what makes the failure of this sci-fi psychological horror thriller from Pirates of the Caribbean director Gore Verbinski, starring Dane DeHaan, SO spectacular. A $6 to $8 million dollar opening weekend prediction dropped to $4 million after poor attendance on opening night. By week three, in an almost unprecedented wave of theater dropouts, the film had lost 97.8% of its venues, leaving a paltry 88 theaters to show the film.
#9: “Honky Tonk Freeway” (1981)
With a title like that… the writing was on the wall for this one long before the name was on the marquee. Then again, a film that was allegedly financed as part of a tax evasion scheme isn’t likely to be overly concerned with integrity, is it? At the time of its release, Variety described the flop of a film as “devoid of any basic humorous appeal,” which for an ensemble comedy film, is… not great. Against a then-massive budget for a comedy film of $24 million it made a paltry $2 million and change, leading to it being pulled from theaters after a single week. Yikes.
#8: “Paranoia” (2013)
Roll call! Harrison Ford, Gary Oldman, Liam Hemsworth, and Amber Heard. You’d think this film had something, but theaters and audiences felt differently. This not-so-thrilling thriller about corporate espionage was critically derided as painfully unoriginal and just plain boring. By week three, it had dropped from 2,459 theaters to just 392. For hit-or-miss director Robert Luketic, who has given us such gems as “Legally Blonde”, and misfires like “Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!” this fell squarely within the latter category. It did so poorly that American distributor Relativity Media reportedly fired its head of marketing one week after the film’s release.
#7: “Alone in the Dark” (2005)
Top 20 Movies So Bad They Were Pulled From Theatres
Few names send a shudder down a critic’s spine quite like “Uwe Boll” and it’s not because he’s an effective horror director. No, Uwe Boll is a filmmaker whose work is so despised that a petition for him to retire reached over 350,000 signatures. “Alone in the Dark” was his second loosely-based video game adaptation to infuriate fans, following “House of the Dead”. While the latter managed to make back its budget, this critically reviled film, considered among the worst ever made, only made $10 million against a $20 million budget, and was pulled from theaters after 3 weeks.
#6: “From Justin To Kelly” (2003)
Top 10 Horror Movies So BAD They Were Pulled From Theatres
The first season of American Idol may have been a game changing moment in pop culture history, but that doesn’t mean that it’s final two had the chops to carry a film to box office success. Justin and Kelly may have gone to Hollywood, but should they have? Considered one of the worst movies of all time, their film earned just $4.9 million dollars against a budget of $12 million. Given massive success of American Idol, making so little was a truly remarkable feat. After debuting in 1,969 cinemas, by week three it had suffered an impressive 96.2% drop to just 108 theaters.
#5: “Live By Night” (2016)
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The one-two punch of Ben Affleck starring in a Ben Affleck directed movie has given us the critical darlings and box office successes “The Town” and “Argo”. “Live By Night” was based on a novel by Dennis Lehane, the same writer whose work served as the basis for Ben’s 2007 critical hit “Gone Baby Gone.” So all things considered, in theory, it had the makings of a hit film. In practice however, it proved to be one of the biggest box office flops of Ben’s career as an actor or director and the single worst third week theater drop in cinematic history, with 2,659 theaters pulling out.
#4: “Glitter” (2001)
Unless it's starring Eminem, very few people want to see a musical artist play a character that’s pretty much just themselves in a blatant vanity project. Mariah Carey has tried to blame the film’s failure on the fact it was released on 9/11, even though it was actually released on the much less traumatic 9/21. But, the fact that critics and fans alike loathed the film seems a far more likely explanation. By week two, many of the 1,202 theaters had pulled out. After just 27 days in theaters, it closed having earned back only around a quarter of its $22 million budget. All that glitters clearly ain’t box office gold.
#3: “Postal” (2007)
Uwe Boll strikes again! We've discussed the petition, but were you aware of the whole boxing thing? Uwe Boll got so sick of the critics tearing apart his films that he challenged them to an actual fistfight, and a few accepted. Uwe Boll actually boxed five of his biggest critics! Though he won all five matches, this 2007 action comedy - another video game inspired flick - saw Boll get KO’d at the box office. Though a 1,500 screen release had been arranged, distributors pulled out before it even hit theaters, and in the end, it was shown in a measly 21 locations.
#2: “It’s Pat” (1994)
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SNL has transitioned a number of its sketches to the big screen over the years, with varying results. They rarely receive positive reviews, but often perform reasonably well at the box office and develop cult like followings of fans. No other film in the history of Saturday Night Live however, has failed quite as spectacularly as this 1994 train-wreck. There was so little faith in Pat’s performance at the box office that it only opened in 33 theaters, and even then… it was pulled after opening weekend having scraped together a miniscule $60,822.
#1: “United Passions” (2014)
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Who could’ve predicted that a film about FIFA executives wouldn’t attract an audience? Everyone apart from FIFA executives apparently. The movie, which focuses on the founding of FIFA, was largely funded by FIFA, and saw its US release overlap with the massive 2015 FIFA corruption scandal. Yep, you couldn’t write a more ironic real world premise if you tried. An abysmal theatrical run saw the film make a laughable $918 in the United States and somewhere between $100,000 and $200,000 internationally against a reported estimated budget of $29 million. Unsurprisingly, it was pulled from most markets in a matter of days.
