An Ode To Film | Budget Busters: Losing Money in Hollywood Movies
Written by: JP

   The first movies were all inexpensive efforts.  Cinema
was considered a low form of entertainment. It wasn't worth
super-funding for trivial media.  A few Italian imports
changed this around 1912.  A richer experience from the screen
could gather more money from higher ticket prices.  "Quo Vadis?"
(1912) was one such example.

David W. Griffith was inspired by this event.  With his
backers and experience, he made "Birth of a Nation" (1915).  
His movie made millions when a dime could actually buy something in a
bakery.  

Encouraged by this, he started production on "Intolerance"
(1916) which had the biggest set ever constructed for a movie.  
He had a mob of 4,000 extras gathered from the skid rows of the
Los Angeles area.  He worked without a script.  D. W. Griffith
had it all in his head.  Originally the plan was to show the
movie as a series of four hour segments for two days.  Later,
he decided to make it one three hour show instead. There were
delays due to mob injuries, unplanned expenses and cost over
runs due to changes.  The movie hops between four stories set
in four different eras in history. It goes from USA in the 1900's to
ancient Babylon.  

The movie failed to earn much revenue.  The movie has a
pacifist theme, but was released in the middle of World War I
(1916),  making the stories difficult to follow. So D. W. Griffith spent 20 years paying the bills.  There was no money to even remove the movie set.  It was finally condemned by the fire department and razed in 1930.

If there is one thing to learn from that fiasco it might be that, "Movie makers never learn." Movie fiascoes are not done on purpose.  Usually people get
excited about an idea and money is used to solve problems instead of some old fashioned thinking.  Some movies are made and are even never released in order to save money.
 
According to Bad Movie Planet, the movie "An Enemy of the People" has never been officially released. It was made, tested on some college campuses and then shelved.  According to the site:  "...he [Steve McQueen] was under contract by the production company First Artists (a company he now despised) to do another movie for them. However, his contract stated that he
was allowed to pick the project. So to get revenge, and possibly get First Artists to go under (they eventually did, though I'm not sure if this movie was the cause), he decided to pick something extremely uncommercial - hence "An Enemy Of The People."  

There is a movie about Spider-Man that was shelved.  They wanted to re-do it when a bigger budget was available.  When you consider they actually put together some of the TV episodes of Spider-Man and put that out as a movie, you have to wonder how bad was this version.

The Guinness Book of Records lists "Cutthroat" (1995) as the biggest money loser.  It cost over $100 million to make and distribute and earned only $11 million by 1996. "Heaven's Gate" (1980/1981) might be an even bigger loss.   Originally budgeted for $7.8 million, United Artist suggested they lost up to $100 million on the film.  In this western, "Heaven's Gate" is the name of a roller rink.  The title is mentioned here only to save you from seeing the film just to figure out how the title fits.

A movie doesn't  even have to be bad to lose money.  Although "Tora! Tora! Tora!" (1970) did poorly in the US, it was a hit in Japan.  But still lost millions.
"Cleopatra" (1963) cost $44 million.  The advance rentals from the theaters were $15 million.  This made it the highest grossing film of the year before it was even in the theater. As a four hour film, the prices of the tickets were often three times the normal price.  It won several Academy Awards.  It lost over $20 million. This was in 1963 dollars.  Back when tickets costs $1.50 to see a movie. "Reds" (1981) cost over $50 million and took in about $25
million.  It also won several Academy Awards. 

I concentrate on American movies, but squandering money
on movies is not only an American problem.  We many never learn exactly how many millions were spent on the Russian version of "War and Peace" (1968).  Estimates start at $100 million and suggest it may have been more than $150 million. It was dubbed into English, but best of luck in finding a copy.

The movie "Inchon" (1982) cost over $48 million.  Although starring American actors, and distributed by MGM/UA it was financed by a Korean company with ties to the Reverend Sun Moon.  It was not popular and lost money.

Sadly, there are many more examples.  

Keep in mind, that even a bad movie can make money.  If it
stays in budget, develops enough fans, and stays available.  But
movies with big budgets need miracles to break even.  The
Steven Spielberg movie "1941" (1979) costs $31 million.  After
20 years, it hasn't made back half the investment. Even if the
movie has record ticket sales, it is part of the gross
earnings.  The studio needs net earnings to pay for the
investment.  "Annie" (1982) cost $42 million.  It needed $150
million in gross to break even.  It lost millions of dollars.  

As costly as the lessons of movie finances are to learn,
it doesn't seem to hurt at least a few career.  Elizabeth Taylor caused many
of the delays on "Cleopatra."  She went on to star in, "Reflections in a Golden Eye" (1967), "Boom!" (1968), "Secret Ceremony" (1968), "The Only Game in Town" (1970), "X, Y, and Zee" (1971), "Hammersmith it Out" (1972), "Night Watch" (1973), "Ash Wednesday" (1973), "The Driver's Seat" (1975), "The Blue Bird" (1976), and "A Little Night Music" (1977) which were all money losers. 

"Paradise Alley" (1978) starred Sylvester Stallone.  He also scripted, directed, sang the title song, and wrote the novelization.  It lost money.  This did not deter him and he went on to make even more money.  And more movies.
      
But being associated with a money loser doesn't help a career either.  The Directors Guild allows a director to use the name "Alan Smithee." "Alan Smithee" is a common pseudonym for directors whose film was clearly taken away from him and re-cut heavily against his wishes in ways that completely altered the film.

"Stitches" (1985), "Let's Get Harry" (1986), and "Supernova"(2000) are some films directed by Alan Smithee. Actor Klinton Spilsbury was the lead in "The Legend of the Lone Ranger" (1981). The movie lost $10 million.  His one movie career made him the subject of a question in the computer
trivia game "You Don't Know Jack."

     The one thing a big budget guarantees is that the money
will be spent.  But what would "Camelot" (1967) have been like
if it didn't have a $17 million dollar budget?  It lost money
also.