Hollywood’s biggest turkeys of 2015: The films that flopped

Once upon a time in a land called Hollywood, casting a big star was an investment that paid for itself in box office returns. That financial fairy tale is now pure fiction: The biggest box office flops of 2015 include vehicles fronted by Bradley Cooper, George Clooney and Johnny Depp, among others. Topping the turkey […]

Once upon a time in a land called Hollywood, casting a big star was an investment that paid for itself in box office returns. That financial fairy tale is now pure fiction: The biggest box office flops of 2015 include vehicles fronted by Bradley Cooper, George Clooney and Johnny Depp, among others.
Topping the turkey pile is Bill Murray’s ‘Rock The Kasbah,’ an offbeat and off-colour comedy in which a washed-up tour manager (Murray) finds himself in Kabul trying to turn a young Afghani woman into a TV singing competition winner. The fish out of water story was universally panned by critics and flailed like an asphyxiating goldfish, grossing just $2.9 million on an estimated $15 million production budget. With a dismal 19 percent return on production costs – and just an 8 percent favourable rating on Rotten Tomatoes – ‘Rock The Kasbah’ leads our list of 2015′s biggest flops.
Even a leading man with a Best Actor statue can’t save a bad film. Two-time Oscar winner Sean Penn returned to the multiplex this year with ‘The Gunman,’ a shoot-’em-up thriller he co-wrote and co-produced. With just $10.7 million in box office receipts and a $40 million budget, the expensive misfire produced a 26.75 percent return, second worst this year behind ‘Rock The Kasbah.’
To compile our list of Hollywood’s Biggest Turkeys we used information from Box Office Mojo, IMDB and other sources to find worldwide box office and estimated production budgets. We ranked the films based on what percentage of their budgets they earned back at the theatre as of November 18. We only looked at movies that opened in more than 2,000 theatres to screen out films that had small openings; we did not include films released in November.
Keeping a close grip on purse strings can help movie profitability. But a tight budget didn’t aid ‘We Are Your Friends,’ the Zac Efron-helmed DJ movie, which was made for an estimated $6 million. Despite EDM’s wide audience it failed to find a crowd, taking in $3.6 million at the global ticketing booth. That’s bad enough to rank eighth on this year’s list of movie turkeys.
Even for a film that grosses nine figures, staying in the black can be a tricky business. Take ‘Tomorrowland,’ which grossed $209 million on a production budget of $190 million. At first glance that doesn’t look bad, but studios only keep about half of ticket revenues, so Walt Disney DIS +0.85 percent likely pocketed just over $100 million. And keep in mind that the production budget doesn’t include the cost of marketing, which could easily have matched the declared filming costs for the Brad Bird-directed science fiction adventure. That’s why ‘Tomorrowland’ is a cinematic turkey worthy of 14th place on this year’s list.
Ticket sales are projected to close out 2015 at record levels; with Morgan Stanley MS +0.00 percent predicting the domestic box office will top $11 billion for the first time. Driving that rise is Universal Pictures, which has had an incredible year with hits including ‘Furious 7,’ ‘Minions and Jurassic World,’ putting the Comcast-owned studio on track for record annual profits. But even studios with multiple billion-dollar grosses can misfire: Universal’s ‘Jem and the Holograms’ earned just $2.3 million at the box office. The live-action adaptation of the popular 1980s cartoon was pulled from theatres only two weeks after its release. (It ranks fifth on the list, with a 46 percent return on budget).
Perhaps this year’s most publicised flop was Aloha, the Cameron-Crowe directed rom-com featuring Bradley Cooper and Emma Stone. Long before it hit theatres, rumours swirled when emails leaked during the Sony hack revealed disparaging comments made by then-studio chief Amy Pascal about the film.
“I’m never starting a movie again when the script is ridiculous,” Pascal wrote. “I don’t care how much I love the director and the actors.”
Despite its all-star lineup, the film came under fire for whitewashing after Stone was cast as a character of Chinese and Hawaiian descent. Reviews were mixed and the box office was concurrently tepid – $37 million on a $26.3 million estimated production budget. That 71 percent return is likely not enough to turn a profit for its backers, Regency Enterprises, LStar Capital and RatPac Entertainment.
Thankfully for Tinseltown, audiences are quick to forget flops -especially ones few saw. In the expensive, uncertain business of making movies, that’s as close to a happy ending as the ticket booth can tally.
forbes.com