Other Crap

I haven't tried to figure out the biggest financial disaster of the year in the movie biz, but here are some contenders:

• Oliver Twist (2005) was made with a production budget of $60 million. Last week it grossed less in 779 theaters than Capote grossed in 11! It will finish with a domestic box office total below three million dollars.
• A Sound of Thunder has similar numbers with an even larger budget - $80 million budget, two million gross.
• Those numbers look relatively worse than the comparable figures for Stealth, but I think Stealth has to have lost more money. It grossed $32 million (and another $30 million overseas), but had a production budget of $138 million.
• Some sources reported that Son of the Mask had a production cost of $100 million. If so, it is a serious contender, with only $17 million in domestic gross.
• I was surprised to discover that Kingdom of Heaven is not on the list. It took a shellacking at the box office in the USA, but was a mammoth hit overseas. ($47 million domestic box, but $163 million foreign!!)