List of U.S. and Canadian box office bombs

The following is a partial list of U.S. and Canadian box office bombs; films with low box office revenue.

A film's financial success is often measured by its gross revenue. Ideally, studios want a film's "domestic" (which the American film industry defines as the United States and Canada) box office gross revenue to exceed production costs. Only rarely do films become profitable based on domestic revenue alone. Typically, the exhibiting theater keeps 45% of the gross and the remainder is paid to the studio as the rental fee. Nevertheless, if a film has a high domestic gross in relation to its production and marketing costs, it will almost certainly turn a profit once revenue from other sources is included. During the 1980s, the performance of a film on its opening weekend became crucial to the perception of its profitability. Films that had a poor opening weekend were often dropped quickly by cinemas.Fact|date=April 2008

Domestic box office

The domestic box office is the U.S. and Canada box office combined and is the "domestic" market in Hollywood terms. "All grosses published reflect domestic earnings, i.e., United States and Canada, unless otherwise noted." [ [http://www.boxofficemojo.com/about/boxoffice.htm?p=s.htm Box Office Mojo Key Terminology] ] Hollywood distribution considers the U.S. and Canada as one ' domestic' market. Movies released in the U.S. are released in Canada on the same day and the box office receipts are combined. [ [http://movies.yahoo.com/mv/news/ap/20070910/118947120000.html] ] [ [http://movies.yahoo.com/mv/news/ap/20070910/118945704000.html] ]

Qualifications

A film that recoups production and marketing costs can be considered a success. If a film does not recoup those costs by a significant margin, it is referred to as a "box office bomb". However, international distribution, sales to broadcast syndication, and home video releases as well as revenue from other sources (such as toy merchandising) often mean some films considered domestic "box office bombs" in North America do make a profit for their studios, sometimes years after the film's release. For example, "Head", a 1968 film featuring The Monkees, was a flop that became profitable for the studio years later when its cult film status led to its sale to Rhino Entertainment and its re-release in various video formats. The popularity (and profitability) of DVD sales has increased this trend significantly, leading many to doubt the significance of domestic grosses as a predictor of a film's overall success.

Foreign films like "" often qualify as U.S. box office bombs although their international distribution makes it possible to recoup production and marketing costs. For the film Perfume, the US box office revenue of $2,208,939 only accounted for 3.7% of the costs , while worldwide revenues of $100 million accounted for approximately 170% of those costs.

Different genres of film are subject to different standards of success. For example, action films typically have higher production and promotion costs than love stories. Typically, the most notorious flops are summer blockbusters, which often entail huge costs to produce and face a highly competitive market. Advertising costs are not included in a movie's production costs, and can make a bomb's disaster all the more crushing for the studio.

Films that pushed studios into financial ruin

In the most dramatic cases, a film's poor performance can push a studio into financial ruin, as happened with United Artists ("Heaven's Gate"), Carolco Pictures ("Cutthroat Island") and Franchise Pictures ("Battlefield Earth").

Impact on the film's cast and crew

Most box office bombs are not career-ending for the film's main cast and crew. "Ishtar" was a notorious bomb but the careers of both its stars, Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman, continued with little noticeable effect.

The size of a bomb in terms of net loss sustained or by loss percentage

The size of a box office "bomb" can be determined by either the net loss sustained, or by a loss percentage (1 - gross revenue/production costs). By using these two measurements, the biggest U.S. box office bomb listed below is (respectively) "Zyzzyx Road" (2006) with a loss percentage of 99.9985% of production costs. [ [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0429277/business Zyzzyx Rd. (2006) - Box office / business ] ]

List of box office bombs

The X-Files I Want To Believe.Star Trek Nemesis Films with a USA Gross less than 10% of budget are highlighted.

References

ee also

*Box office bomb
*Blockbuster motion picture
*Films considered the worst ever

External links

* [http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/records/budgets.html The Numbers - Movie Budgets] , movie budgets page from The Numbers. Contains charts of biggest money-making and money-losing movies.
* [http://www.boston.com/ae/movies/gallery/box_office_bombs/ Movies that were box office bombs - Boston.com]
* [http://www.omglists.com/article/102645/7-film-failures-that-killed-studios/ 7 Film Failures That Killed Studios]
* [http://movies.yahoo.com/photos/collections/gallery/1005/movie-disasters-historic-box-office-bombs#photo0 Movie Disasters: Historic Box Office Bombs]