Worst Big Film Ever

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The Sydney Morning Herald's 8.1. byline-free piece about the five biggest stinkers of all time -- Elaine May's Ishtar, Michael Cimino's Heaven's Gate, Paul Verhoeven's Showgirls, Oliver Stone's Alexander; and Kevin Reynolds' Waterworld -- finally decides that Showgirls is the worst of all.

I say it's Waterworld because of two things. One, the decision to shoot in 1.85 instead of 2.35 Scope -- part of the idea, obviously, was to convey the vastness of a world covered in water, and the widescreen aspect ratio would have certainly given audiences a better feel for this. And two, the fact that Waterworld's huge budget and all that location shooting off the big island of Hawaii led to almost nothing memorable. Alfred Hitchcock did a better job of capturing the magnificent energy, terror and turbulence of the ocean in Lifeboat, which was shot in a studio tank with rear-screen projection.

Of course, these five are only the bad or calamity-ridden films that got the most press. There have been many films more painful to watch than these.

My Damn Channel<< previous | next >>Nicholson and "Showgirls"

Posted by Jeffrey Wells on August 1, 2007 at 4:00 PM

comment #1

corey3rd says ...

Why no hate for CutThroat Island? Osmosis Jones? Monkeybone? Town and Country?

Posted by corey3rd at August 1, 2007 4:32 PM

comment #2

Rob says ...

I could watch Showgirls once a week and not get sick of it. It's the greatest bad movie ever made.

Posted by Rob at August 1, 2007 4:32 PM

comment #3

Sean says ...

Of those five, I would personally say that the worst has got to be 'Alexander', no contest at all. Oliver Stone has had to re-cut it twice just to gain any credibility.

However, I like your thinking that 'Waterworld' is the worst because it defines 'meh'. I wouldn't say it's all that bad a movie, but it's never interesting or memorable. 'The Postman' is interestingly bad and memorably awful at times, so I like the idea that that's better in a way. At least you feel like it was trying.

I enjoy parts of 'Ishtar' (especially Hoffman's performance) quite a bit, and I would say that 'Showgirls' is successful on the level it attempts. It's just a very low bar.

Posted by Sean at August 1, 2007 4:33 PM

comment #4

Sean says ...

corey - those movies are memorable flops if you follow movies, but most people only follow what the news tells them about movies. Those five movies were sunk by various reports prior to release, and thus have always been tarnished with that brush.

Of course, the news is not always accurate; 'Titanic' was panned as a sure-fire failure before it came out.

I'm curious why 'Cleopatra' wasn't considered on the list, though.

Posted by Sean at August 1, 2007 4:36 PM

comment #5

Mr B says ...

I have to agree with 'Alexander'. Forget the acting, dialogue, and everything else that was bad, it looks like it was lit by a high school drama class.

Posted by Mr B at August 1, 2007 4:37 PM

comment #6

Z_Dog says ...

I always loved Ishtar. I think is been extremely overlooked. The songs are especially hilarious.

Posted by Z_Dog at August 1, 2007 4:42 PM

comment #7

corey3rd says ...

Cleopatra holds a unqiue standing since besides being a box office bomb, it was also the biggest ticket seller the year it came out.

Posted by corey3rd at August 1, 2007 4:43 PM

comment #8

Lloyd Dobler says ...

Waterworld...cost $175...made $225
not exactly a bomb.

Posted by Lloyd Dobler at August 1, 2007 4:49 PM

comment #9

corey3rd says ...

The Postman - now that's a Costner dog.

Posted by corey3rd at August 1, 2007 4:50 PM

comment #10

thezipper says ...

The porridge-bland Evan Almighty will lose more money than any of them. Its cost was something like $175-225 million plus P&A and it will struggle to crack $100 million domestically.

Posted by thezipper at August 1, 2007 4:56 PM

comment #11

ROTC says ...

My vote for worst big film ever goes to Spielberg's "Hook." I'm generally a big Spielberg fan, sometimes even an apologist, but that hunk of shit really pissed me off.

Posted by ROTC at August 1, 2007 4:57 PM

comment #12

jeffmcm says ...

I have literally seen hundreds of movies worse than any of these (Okay, I've never seen Ishtar) but a list like this is pointless because it's just rehashing the same bad vibes that hit these movies when they were released. Get over it, I say, and don't complain until you've sat through Psyched by the 4-D Witch.

Posted by jeffmcm at August 1, 2007 4:59 PM

comment #13

drbob says ...

Two words. Pluto Nash.

Posted by drbob at August 1, 2007 5:02 PM

comment #14

JeffGP says ...

Showgirls and Heaven's Gate are fantastic movies.

Posted by JeffGP at August 1, 2007 5:13 PM

comment #15

MilkMan says ...

Showgirls is entertaining. Elizabeth Berkely was bonerific. Verhoeven thinks America is a vulgar joke and who are we to argue?

How could Waterworld be a worse movie than Brett Ratner's Red Dragon, or Along Came Polly? Or The Two Jakes? Or Jack? Or anything by James Fotopolous? The people who make these lists haven't seen enough movies to know any better. They're just regurgitating what they've heard.

Picking on Cimino is too easy.

Matrix 3 (or whatever it was called) was an abortion. But I guess it made money, and in the end, that's what all these dumb lists are about; who lost money. And that's why there is the constant need to pinch these films in the buttcheeks; because you're not allowed to lose money, regardless of the aesthetic merits of your film. Heaven's Gate is a worse film than Deuce Bigelow? Okay.

But then again, we live in a world where grown men slap themselves on the back for reading books meant for their children.

Posted by MilkMan at August 1, 2007 5:26 PM

comment #16

Undercover Brother says ...

This list is a little screwy because aside from Ishtar and Heaven's Gate, I doubt any money was lost on some of these, and by this time most have become quite profitable. Hell, Alexander was a farily successful movie over seas. List like this are really just about coverage. Which one of these duds have we TALKED about more than the rest. Movies like Monkeybone, Town & Country & Pluto Nash are the genuine disasters here. Movies that cost anywhere from $75-90 million and made back maybe a tenth of that. And these films are far worse too. I'll take Waterworld, Godzilla and Showgirls in a back to back marathon for days on end before I even begin to consider watching Pluto Nash or Monkeybone.

Posted by Undercover Brother at August 1, 2007 5:39 PM

comment #17

buckzollo says ...

FINAL CUT is a great read about the biz and the making of Heaven's Gate.

Posted by buckzollo at August 1, 2007 5:40 PM

comment #18

buckzollo says ...

23 %^&*ing sucks balls.

Posted by buckzollo at August 1, 2007 5:42 PM

comment #19

Hopscotch says ...

Waterworld does stink to death. It's essentially a bad action movie on water and in the future.

Never seen Isthar.

Never seen Heaven's Gate.

I've seen one scene in Alexander (and they looked magnificent).

Pluto Nash doesn't get nearly the shit it deserves. Neither does another little flop called The Majestic with Jim Carrey, and I'm curious why Meet Joe Black isn't on the list. Horrid.

Posted by Hopscotch at August 1, 2007 5:58 PM

comment #20

Hopscotch says ...

I hate Hook too.

Posted by Hopscotch at August 1, 2007 5:59 PM

comment #21

le corbeau says ...

"I always loved Ishtar. I think is been extremely overlooked. The songs are especially hilarious."

Ishtar wouldn't be on the list if it cost half as much and wasn't the only movie an Academy Award winner managed to make in an entire decade. It's pretty funny, just way too small and quirky to justify the fact that it cost about as much as D-Day.

Posted by le corbeau at August 1, 2007 6:02 PM

comment #22

Griff says ...

"Nothing But Trouble." Dan Ackyroyd, John Candy, Demi Moore, Chevy Chase. It was the Ed Gein romantic comedy...although John Candy did a great non-verbal acting job as some large chick. It was wretched, and at the time, cost a lot of money.

Posted by Griff at August 1, 2007 6:04 PM

comment #23

Pelham123 says ...

"Cleopatra" is the one that really interests me as a classic "bomb". I've only seen parts of it and it seemed like a real snooze (a movie of a dying era dragged into the next), but I read somewhere that it took three YEARS(!!!) to make. Is that true?

Posted by Pelham123 at August 1, 2007 6:19 PM

comment #24

le corbeau says ...

Heaven's Gate is great if you just tune out the flimsy, confusing proletariat-vs.-cattlemen storyline (which is like something out of a Soviet western) and simply soak in the production design, cinematography and music. For those of us who love the West and Victorian stuff, Heaven's Gate is absolutely the best job of that ever put on film, the people really look like the uncomfortable folks with scraggly hair and scratchy clothes that you see in old tintypes, Zsigmond's cinematography is on par with Days of Heaven and the score by David Mansfield is lovely. If only it had a story and characters, it'd be a great movie.

Posted by le corbeau at August 1, 2007 6:21 PM

comment #25

bmcintire says ...

I cought maybe 45 seconds of ALEXANDER on HBO a couple of nights ago: A bloodied Colin Farell wanders through a camp of wounded men, and everywhere he turns is another guy in the same pitiful dark Chico Marx wig. I couldn't stop laughing until I changed the channel.
And Jesus Christ, they are running PLUTO NASH now as well. Why? Why? Why?

Posted by bmcintire at August 1, 2007 6:31 PM

comment #26

Unison says ...

Pluto Nash seems the biggest in recent memory...

Hudson Hawk?

Posted by Unison at August 1, 2007 7:07 PM

comment #27

lazespud says ...

This is another case of never the letting the facts get in the way of a good story. I know everyone just "knows" that Waterworld was a flop, and the Syndey paper says it is "generally regarded as one of the most expensive flops in movie history," but if you go to Box Office Mojo it says that it cost $175 million (a ridiculous expensive figure for 1995 to be sure) but made $264 million. On what planet is that a flop?

Pluto Nash cost $100 and made 7 million. Now THAT'S a flop. I think it's time to retire the idea that Waterworld was some gigantic flop. It demonstrably wasn't.

Posted by lazespud at August 1, 2007 7:14 PM

comment #28

atticusrex says ...

I agree that Showgirls is the kinda bad that's good i.e. midnight showings and having on at parties. I would also nominate Battlefield Earth as one of the all time great bad bad stinkers that should find new life as a mindnight snack. I used to think that Rocky Horror was the worst movie ever in terms of B.O. I remember when it opened back in '75. It was yanked from theatres by Wednesday. It wasn't till years later that it became a mindnight sinsation. But picking Waterworld over The Postman?! Come on... at least Waterworld is kinda sorta watchable. Postman is groan inducing at every turn... "Ride Postman Ride..." I mean come on.

Though for $$$'s spent and B.O. returned... I gotta say the worse flick my eyes have seen is Pluto Nash. For lesser $$$'s spent I would say Rollerball (The remake). But B.O. is a strange way to gauge... i.e. Bringing Down the House made buckets of moola and had maybe one joke where I laughed... same with Runaway Bride... yuck city... but then again one of the great flicks of the '90's and in my top 20 of all time is True Romance and that only made $2 million at the B.O. and that was after Res. Dogs had already opened. Go Figure!

Posted by atticusrex at August 1, 2007 8:06 PM

comment #29

erniesouchak says ...

I guess by "big" you mean expensive? I would put anything by Henry Jaglom and Ed Burns in the stinker category.

Posted by erniesouchak at August 1, 2007 8:23 PM

comment #30

T. S. Idiot says ...

I enjoyed Waterworld when it was released, the only time I've seen it, and was puzzled by the hostility to it. Most of the reviewers seemed to be reviewing its budget more than what was on the screen. Of these five, all have their moments--except Alexander. I agree that Hook is much worse than any of them. Not a single scene or performance works.

Posted by T. S. Idiot at August 1, 2007 8:33 PM

comment #31

lipranzer says ...

I also don't get the Waterworld hate. It's certainly got problems, but it's also got a sense of humor, and Costner's not bad in it. He's much worse in The Postman, which is a real stinker. Although I'm a big fan of Oliver Stone, I didn't care for Alexander at all. I never saw the other three.

I think the reason these movies get name-checked over and over on the flops issue is because they're all examples that studios can point to as saying, "This is what happens when artistic ambition is left unchecked!" Particularly in the case of Heaven's Gate, which was attempting to be a grand-scale Western. No one talks about Pluto Nash or any movie like that which may have bombed at the box office, but had zero artistic intent.

Posted by lipranzer at August 1, 2007 9:01 PM

comment #32

Josh Massey says ...

On Rotten Tomatoes, Waterworld gets a 75% rating from the "Cream of the Crop" critics. And the film grossed $265 million worldwide and much more on video, which has put the film into the black.

And I liked it too. So there.

Posted by Josh Massey at August 1, 2007 9:35 PM

comment #33

Zimmergirl says ...

Ishtar is hilarious. Totally underrated.

Posted by Zimmergirl at August 1, 2007 10:04 PM

comment #34

Doug Pratt says ...

Ishtar B
Waterworld B-
Alexander F
Heaven's Gate D+
Showgirls C+
Cleopatra A-
Lifeboat B
Cutthroat Island B
The Postman B-
Hook F
Pluto Nash D
The Two Jakes D-
Town and Country B+
Hudson Hawk B
Matrix Revolution D
Raise the Titanic D
Traffic D
Lucky Lady C-
Paint Your Wagon B-
Doctor Dolittle (original) C-
Star! B
Intolerance A+
One from the Heart A
At Long Last Love C-
Gangs of New York C+

Posted by Doug Pratt at August 1, 2007 10:17 PM

comment #35

Patrick says ...

"Alexander" was a very, very good film and MADE
money! End of story!

Now, I can't say the same for "The Adventures of
Pluto Nash" - Truly AWFUL! And, a HUGE BOMB! Why
that disaster wasn't given any mention is beyond
me.

"Town and Country" - AWFUL! Lost TONS of money!

Oh, people, please stop attacking "Alexander".
Every time you do, you just show how shallow
you truly are!

"Cleopatra" MADE money. I'm sick of people saying
what a bomb it was. God, just how STUPID and
SHALLOW most people are always surprises me.

Posted by Patrick at August 1, 2007 10:22 PM

comment #36

bagelfilm says ...

ROSEBUD by Preminger

Posted by bagelfilm at August 1, 2007 10:25 PM

comment #37

le corbeau says ...

""Cleopatra" MADE money."

Not true. It cost $40 million and returned about $15 million in domestic rentals in its first year or so (which undoubtedly is most of the total). I don't know what it made overseas but in those days it would have, at most, equalled domestic rentals overseas. So, it certainly lost at least $10 million of its production cost, plus figure in promotional expenses and it was probably a $20 million or more loss. There was no real way it could ever have made money, because its production cost was equal to the highest grosses ever achieved by that point. (It cost exactly $1 million more than Ben-Hur made, for instance.)

Hard to come up with precise equivalents today because movies have so many more ways to make money, but imagine a movie that costs $800 million to make and takes in $400 million worldwide... that's the kind of thing we're looking at, where it sold a hell of a lot of tickets yet still lost money by the barrelfull.

Posted by le corbeau at August 1, 2007 10:33 PM

comment #38

BurmaShave says ...

I'm sorry but none of these movies are that bad. SHOWGIRLS is certainly the "worst", HEAVEN'S GATE is really not particularly bad, definetly the best of this group. This was a lazy-ass list, if you ask me.

Posted by BurmaShave at August 1, 2007 11:03 PM

comment #39

Dzayson says ...

Whoa whoa whoa Doug Pratt. You aren't possibly listing Soderberg's Traffic among all these stinkers? You aren't trying to say that WATERWORLD is a better film than Traffic?? You wouldn't... this is a mistake, right? I AM thinking of another film, right?

Posted by Dzayson at August 2, 2007 12:31 AM

comment #40

Dan Revill says ...

I only ever saw Waterworld when I was 13, and I remember enjoying it for what it was. I didn't even know everyone hated it until much later. I do remember that Spielberg was on Larry King saying he thought it was entertaining. Maybe he was just being nice, but he recounted the troubles he had filming in water during Jaws.
I never did finish The Postman though. Not many films I can say that about.

Posted by Dan Revill at August 2, 2007 2:04 AM

comment #41

otownroger says ...

Inchon. Battlefield Earth. Moonies vs. Sci-Tols.

Posted by otownroger at August 2, 2007 5:56 AM

comment #42

Doug Pratt says ...

Triffic is the Reefer Madness of its day.
Its a ridiculous film with bad cinematography, laughably bad acting, and a very dumb and illogical plot

Posted by Doug Pratt at August 2, 2007 6:02 AM

comment #43

DavidF says ...

Haven't seen Ishtar in a while but remember it being not THAT bad.
The Postman sucked but Waterworld is merely bad. I wouldn't say it produced NOTHING memorable. I haven't seen it in years and years but I still remember the great scene where Hopper is kinda worshipping his picture of Joseph Hazelton. Just weirdness.

I actually kinda like Hudson Hawk. It's a guilty pleasure that has some great, silly moments.
Showgirls can only be watched with irony. How can you not love Berkley thrashing in the pool, the way she pronounces "Versace," the bit where she puts lipstick on her nipples, the bit where Harold Perrineau doesn't believe she's really on her period and, of course, the "Ice!" scene.
At least Berkley looked good in it and one can enjoy that before the sheer volume of nudity creates a buzzkill. I don't think it aimed for a low bar at all - I think the great joke is that it thinks it is really saying something but giving you a bit of T&A to placate you while the deeeep message is being delievered.

The list is a bit confusing because it's not clear if they are supposed to be bad movies, bad movies that lost a lot of money or just movies with bad reps. People love to forget how bad the buzz was on Titanic ("the next Waterworld") before it came out.

Oh, and the original Casino Royale should be on there. I don't know how much it cost but I would never have imagined it would be possible to bring so many amazingly talented people into a single project and produce something so weak.

Posted by DavidF at August 2, 2007 6:38 AM

comment #44

corey3rd says ...

One from the Heart? That film dies from the opening duet between Tom Waits and Crystal Gayle - which comes off like a Saturday night spoof - were Mel Torme and Mrs. Miller too busy to return the call to Francis?

Posted by corey3rd at August 2, 2007 6:40 AM

comment #45

johnc says ...

Cleopatra wasn't mentioned because to most people, "of all time" means 1980 on.

Posted by johnc at August 2, 2007 6:49 AM

comment #46

Griff says ...

By the way, great graphic, Jeff!

Posted by Griff at August 2, 2007 6:57 AM

comment #47

Rich S. says ...

Kevin Costner fighting Godzilla on his futuristic/steampunk sailboat? Now THAT I would pay to see.

Posted by Rich S. at August 2, 2007 7:26 AM

comment #48

BurmaShave says ...

"No no it's not Godzilla, it's more like the Kraken! We've never had something quite like it before. Costner would be perfect! It's THE GUARDIAN meets MR. BROOKS! I'm not saying we won't get our hair mussed up, but 10, 20 million, tops!"

Posted by BurmaShave at August 2, 2007 8:21 AM

comment #49

JapAdapters says ...

Amen, Doug Pratt. I hate Traffick with every fiber of my being.

What about Gigli?

Posted by JapAdapters at August 2, 2007 8:37 AM

comment #50

scooterzz says ...

if it weren't for 'cleopatra' there would be no century city..... so, in that way, the film may have been the biggest money-maker fox ever created.....

Posted by scooterzz at August 2, 2007 9:06 AM

comment #51

WJ says ...

Showgirls succeeded on the level of cinematic soft-core porn and it kept my attention. Even Waterworld had its moments, though Kevin Costner is one of the most boring actors to be on screen. Somehow I've been spared the other three, though I know Elaine May has some talent based on A New Leaf with Walter Matthau. It seems she never got a fighting chance in Hollywood.

Posted by WJ at August 2, 2007 4:57 PM

comment #52

Mr B says ...

Patrick, Alexander is not "a very good movie". Oliver Stone has made very good movies, which is why this one is such a disappointment. And the dialog is sidesplitting bad even within the first 10 minutes.

Posted by Mr B at August 2, 2007 7:36 PM

comment #53