Top 10 Times Movies Spent Money on Stupid Things

They spent HOW MUCH on WHAT?! Welcome to WatchMojo and today we’ll be counting down our picks for the top 10 movies that spent CRAZY money on useless things.

For this list, we’ll be going over the films that shelled out big cash on unimportant things or just plain overspent.

This zombie apocalypse film had quite the troubled production, with reports of arguments behind the scenes, not to mention a fair amount of controversy due to its complete departure from its source material. Most troubling of all is the fact that the entire ending had to be reshot. The film’s original ending was much more depressing, and saw Brad Pitt’s character conscripted into the Russian military to fight the zombie menace and his wife forced to sell her body for favors in a refugee camp. Although the total cost of filming the original ending, which featured a large scale battle in Russia, is unknown, the reshoots reportedly cost an additional 40 to 70 million dollars (if not more).

Fittingly, “The Goonies” has something of its own urban legend – a scene with an octopus. Fans debated the existence of the scene for years, with some remembering it in the film, and others not. Data even mentions it at the end of the movie. But, like One-Eyed Willy’s treasure, this one was real too! The kids indeed encounter an octopus in a deleted scene, which was added to some TV broadcasts of the film, and that’s why only some people remembered it. As far as the actual cost of the scene, with underwater elements, child actors, an original song and a massive octopus puppet, it set production back for several days of shooting - and while no exact figures have been revealed, a half a million dollars, when adjusted for inflation, has been estimated - all that for something that few people ever saw.

The finale of this divisive film sees the Ghostbusters’ secretary Kevin possessed by the film’s villain, who is able to make other people do whatever he wants. And apparently, at this particular moment, what the villain wanted everyone to do… was dance! The supernatural flash mob sequence reportedly took two days of shooting and cost somewhere in the 7 figures to produce. Ultimately, it was excised from this part of the film because it broke up the flow of its climax. Some of the footage can be seen in the credits, but it by no means feels like the filmmakers go their money’s worth.

Best remembered as a colossal flop and “that movie you saw on cable that one time,” Sahara saw its budget become grossly inflated by a ton of wasteful spending. With outrageous expenditures on everyday things, from bottled water to catering, to alleged and possibly illegal bribes to Morroccan officials, the little things added up quite a bit. But those pale when compared to some of the larger expenses, such as paying nearly 4 million dollars to a group of 10 screenwriters. The most wasteful use of money, however, was arguably the 2 million spent on a plane crash sequence that was ultimately cut from the film. Regardless, “Sahara” itself did more than enough crashing on its own.

Despite how successful and beloved “The Blues Brothers” film is, it definitely had a rocky production. Its initial budget had nearly doubled by the time it wrapped. Part of this was no doubt due to the big name musical cameos, as well as the scheduling problems. Plus that car chase cannot have been cheap! But one of the most bizarre expenditures, later revealed by star Dan Aykroyd, was a dedicated budget for cocaine! Night shoots ensured that many of the people working on “The Blues Brothers” had trouble staying awake, and the white powder apparently helped keep their eyes open. And because drugs can hardly be put on their official books, we may never know just how much of the budget was spent on drugs.

This sequel, prequel and continuation of the original trilogy of films can be hard to wrap your head around. There are various characters to keep track of, and though they’re mostly well managed, it’s easy to lose track and allow for something to fall through the cracks. In Rogue’s case, this happened literally. The character was cut out of most of the movie, and as her storyline was fairly self-contained, she only appears near the end in the theatrical cut. A “Rogue Cut” has since been released with her footage restored, but the actress’s salary (plus the reshoots that cutting her out necessitated) still cost the studio a pretty penny.

This DC superhero movie was not the most lauded in their cinematic collection. Although it isn’t the worst DC film, its behind-the-scenes issues, which included arguments between the director and star Ryan Reynolds, as well as numerous revisions by the studio, are very evident onscreen. The most common criticism though, is the quality of the special effects. Even before release, the visual effects were soundly criticized in the trailers. To fix this, an extra 9 million dollars were spent to improve them before “Green Lantern”’s release. However, the disappointing visuals remained a glaring issue in the finished product - especially the CGI suit. They might as well not have spent that 9 million, right?

Where do we even start with these movies? The marketing campaign was hugely expensive, and honestly, pretty weird. The 3D and annoyingly high frame rate both cost a ton, and were unfortunately resoundingly disliked. The effects are another common target, both for looking unnatural and (worse) inferior to those of “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy, which was released a decade earlier. Oh, and then there’s the fact that around 2 million dollars was spent for each page of the 300 page “The Hobbit” being adapted! At a whopping 745 million dollars for all 3 films, we know they had cash to burn, but still! The original trilogy cost less than half that, even adjusted for inflation! The dwarves’ greed might have been contagious!

This odd duck Superman movie didn’t resonate with everyone, but there are definitely parts of it that fans can appreciate. However, its director, Bryan Singer, found one especially large part of it he didn’t like – the opening. Originally, the film was meant to open on an extended sequence of Superman exploring the remains of his destroyed world Krypton. Although its more somber tone does clash a bit with the rest of the movie, it got pretty far into post-production before being scrapped. The effects look almost finished, so it’s a bit odd that Singer let it get that far, particularly since it reportedly cost 10 million dollars to make!

Before we get to our top pick, here are a few honorable mentions:

The Original Ending

“Little Shop of Horrors” (1986)

Unused Musical Number: “Jitterbug”

“The Wizard of Oz” (1939)

Expensive Floating Set… Without Bathrooms

“Waterworld” (1995)

$500K Full-Scale London Eye Replica

“A Knight’s Tale” (2001)

Half a Million Dollars on an AC/DC Song

“Varsity Blues” (1999)

The DCEU has had several movies with troubled productions, but “Justice League”’s issues are the most apparent. Original director Zack Snyder left the film in part due to a personal tragedy, but the move was also seemingly affected by the poor reaction of higher ups to what he’d shot up until that point. The result was 25 million dollars in reshoots by director Joss Whedon and a movie that’s wildly inconsistent in terms of tone. The reshoots lasting so long also led to actor Henry Cavill’s mustache infamously having to be edited out with visual effects, which was done astonishingly poorly. It could be argued that these controversies actually hurt the film’s box office returns - so by not spending it, they could’ve theoretically made more.