Some of the greatest movies in cinema history began as a box office disappointment. There are several factors that go into whether films become blockbuster hits or box office bombs. Film history has proved that some of these factors have worked against great films, resulting in a poor box office performance.
These factors could vary, such as poor marketing efforts, as seen in the case of The Iron Giant, a badly made theatrical cut like the Blade Runner theatrical cut, or unfavorable circumstances like in the case of Donnie Darko.
However, these films were lucky because the audiences gave them a second chance, and they are now considered cult classics. From Alfred Hitchcock’s classic to IMDb’s top-rated film, here are the films that were initially ruled out of the box office but later deemed to be the best films ever made.
15. Vertigo (1958)
Vertigo did not receive the recognition that some of Alfred Hitchcock‘s later works received. The box office result was disappointing as the film just managed to break even. Apart from its seminal work in cinematography, the film also has a plot that grabs your attention right from the beginning.
For some reason, the initial reception of the film was mixed. Some of the negative reception got to Hitchcock, who pulled the film from circulation for many years. However, a later analysis of the film deemed it Hitchcock’s magnum opus (via The Guardian).
The biggest achievement of the film came in the 21st century when it replaced Citizen Kane as the greatest film ever made in the Sight & Sound polls in 2012 (via BBC).
Vertigo is now available for rent on AppleTV.
14. Zodiac (2007)
Despite having Robert Downey Jr., Mark Ruffalo, and Jake Gyllenhaal on the cast, Zodiac could only garner $84.7 million against a $65 million budget. One of the major issues lies with the marketing of the film. Some believed that they were going to experience a slasher thriller based on a real-life serial killer.
Others expected a typical Hollywood mainstream mystery thriller, which would reveal the Zodiac killer at the end. Both of these assumptions were wrong. The David Fincher film didn’t exactly fit the bill for a typical mystery, horror, or crime film. Instead, Fincher intended to show the protagonist’s obsession with catching the killer.
The ending was more realistic, with the film leaving the case as it is in real life—unsolved. The film’s reception didn’t meet Paramount’s expectations. However, years later, fans started seeing the film for what it was and even deemed it one of the best films from Fincher. It has a cult following, and many continue to shower praise on the attention to detail in the film’s story.
Zodiac is now available to stream on PlutoTV.
13. Hugo (2011)
Hugo is perhaps one of the most underrated Martin Scorsese films ever. It was his first film shot in 3D, and he ventured into the world of fantasy with this film. The film was well-received among critics, unlike most of the other entries on this list. It was even bestowed with eleven Academy Awards nominations, of which the film won five.
However, neither the critical acclaim nor the awards season success translated into box office success. The film was made on an estimated budget of $150 million, but it earned back only $185.8 million from its theatrical run. Not only did the film not break even, it caused significant losses to its production house.
According to a THR report from 2012, Graham King’s GK Films, which financed Hugo, underwent significant financial stress due to the film. It was reported that King’s professional relationship with two of his partners was strained.
Hugo is now available to stream on Paramount+ with AppleTV.
12. Heathers (1989)
Daniel Waters wrote Heathers as a spec script and intended to contrast the more positive teen films made by John Hughes during this era. Beetlejuice writer Michael McDowell came across the script and slipped it to Winona Ryder, who was impressed with the unique premise. She took on the role of Veronica Sawyer in the film.
The dark teen material wasn’t well received by the viewers initially. The film failed at the box office, only grossing $1.1 million against a $3 million budget. Once fans got to see the artistic value in the film, it began receiving a lot more love. It has since been adapted into a musical and a TV series.
Ryder believed that the film was a masterpiece in every sense. She shared during an interview with Harper’s Bazaar that it was a revolutionary film that showed “teenagers were a lot more complex in good ways and terrible ways.” She also shared that even though the film received critical acclaim, no one saw it in theaters.
She recalled that she and Christian Slater were met with protesters when they were touring to promote the film. However, she was happy that the film attained a seminal status and praised Waters, who created a “new language” in films.
Heathers is now available to stream on Prime Video.
11. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010)
Edgar Wright was given a larger budget to adapt Bryan Lee O’Malley’s graphic novel Scott Pilgrim after the success of his films Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. Michael Cera was cast as the titular character, and Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Ramona Flowers. The ensemble cast also included Chris Evans, Aubrey Plaza, Kieran Culkin, and Anna Kendrick.
Despite receiving great critical reviews, the film didn’t receive much love. It raked in $51.7 million against a $60 million budget and was nowhere close to breaking even. Wright’s visual style and humor later garnered a cult following among fans, and the film is currently on the favorites list. It spawned the animated TV series Scott Pilgrim Takes Off.
The film was likely tanked by Sylvester Stallone’s The Expendables and Julia Roberts’ Eat Pray Love. Cera touched upon this during an interview with EW, sharing, “We got annihilated by Sylvester Stallone.” Michael Moses, the then marketing president at Universal, shared that it may have been “truly a movie that was ahead of its time.”
Scott Pilgrim vs the World is now available to stream on Max.
10. Donnie Darko (2001)
Donnie Darko is one of those rare sci-fi psychological thrillers that leave the viewers with more questions than answers. Richard Kelly’s film had a star-studded cast led by a young Jake Gyllenhaal. However, a poor review at Sundance came as the film’s first major issue, and Kelly found it hard to find U.S. distributors for the film.
The film was released around the time of the 9/11 attacks and the Columbine school shootings. The studio felt that the darker material of the film involving teens and promotional material featuring a plane crash was inappropriate for the time. The film was scarcely advertised, and the initial theatrical run just grossed $517,375 (via The Numbers).
However, the film’s reissues were more successful. According to The Guardian, it was the release by Metrodome in the UK that proved to be a game-changer. The film received a cult following, and it eventually grossed $7.5 million at the box office against a $4.5 million budget.
According to Variety, the film earned $10 million in home video sales. Kelly released Donnie Darko: The Director’s Cut in 2004, garnering the film a larger fanbase.
Donnie Darko is now available to stream on Prime Video.
9. Blade Runner (1982)
Blade Runner‘s theatrical version was not everyone’s favorite, and critics bashed the film left and right. Popular critics, including Roger Ebert, opined that the theatrical version of the Harrison Ford film was a failure in every aspect. Ford’s film underperformed at the theaters, grossing only $41.8 million at the box office (via Box Office Mojo).
However, the director’s cut and the subsequent final cut contributed to it becoming a cult classic film in the sci-fi genre. The theatrical cut of the film had lots of little mistakes, including bad audio sync at places and visible limitations in practical effects. Some viewers found the voiceover in the film, provided by Ford, to ruin the flow.
This cut also had a different ending where things ended happily. The criticisms led to a lot of improvements in the director’s cut, which notably removed the happy climax and the voiceover. Ridley Scott‘s preferred version is the final cut, which corrected the color grading and sound, in addition to some VFX cleanups.
While Blade Runner went on to become a sci-fi classic, its sequel from Denis Villeneuve suffered the same fate in theaters as the original. Blade Runner 2049 also failed to break even at the box office.
Blade Runner is now available for purchase on AppleTV.
8. Citizen Kane (1941)
Orson Welles grabbed the attention of mainstream Hollywood with his Broadway success and his narration of The War of the Worlds on the radio. RKO Pictures signed him for a movie, and in an unusual move, it gave him full freedom to develop his own story and use his own cast and crew.
Welles came up with the script of Citizen Kane alongside Herman J. Mankiewicz. Welles’ Charles Foster Kane was a composite character based on American media moguls William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer and Chicago tycoons Samuel Insull and Harold McCormick.
Welles had to threaten a lawsuit for his film to see the light of day. Hearst prohibited his newspapers from mentioning the film, and some even tried to boycott the film altogether. Despite earning nine nominations at the Oscars, the film only won for Best Writing for Mankiewicz and Welles.
It failed to recoup its budget at the time and slowly faded from memory. The film has to thank French critics for discovering it and giving it masterpiece status in the 1950s. And it is an all-time favorite of the current U.S. President, Donald Trump.
Citizen Kane is now available for rent on AppleTV.
7. Children of Men (2006)
Alfonso Cuarón‘s Children of Men stars Clive Owen as a civil servant in a dystopian society with human infertility. He tries to help a refugee, Kee, played by Clare-Hope Ashitey, who is the first woman in two decades to get pregnant. It is essentially a chase movie where Owen and Ashitey’s characters run from both the government and a group of revolutionaries.
Cuarón came up with some impressive action sequences in the film, including the innovative single-shot action sequences. The film is considered one of the seminal works in dystopian films, but it didn’t enjoy much financial success when released in theaters. You can blame it partially on the studio’s bizarre decision to release it as a Christmas film.
According to Box Office Mojo, the film’s budget was $76 million, and its box office collection was just $70.5 million. The film received love and appreciation when it was released on video and went on to become a cult hit. It was nominated for three Oscars and won two BAFTA Awards for Best Cinematography and Best Production Design.
Children of Men is now available to stream on Starz with AppleTV.
6. Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory (1971)
Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory had a troubled production from the beginning, and the film barely managed to write the film’s final scene before the $3 million budget ran out. Roald Dahl, the author of Willy Wonka, was removed from the project after he didn’t agree to the plot changes. He wasn’t a fan of the musical approach, either.
The troubles caught up to the film as it failed to garner good numbers from its theatrical release. Even Gene Wilder‘s stardom couldn’t bring viewers to the theater for a musical film. The film ended up grossing just $4 million and is considered a box-office disappointment.
Upon home video release, the film received some due recognition. Fans found Wilder’s quirks to be hilarious, and the musical numbers also received appreciation. The story received modern adaptations in the form of Johnny Depp’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Timothée Chalamet’s Wonka.
Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory is now available to stream on Max.
5. Clue (1985)
The film Clue was an ambitious attempt for the time. Based on the board game of the same name, the comedic murder mystery had a great script that ended in three well-executed climaxes. Just like in the game, the decisions of the guests determined the end result, and the film featured three different endings at different theaters across LA.
The intention of the film was for the audience to pick the one that satisfied them. However, the viewers were left confused, and they dismissed the unique structure of the film as a gimmick. The film failed to break even at the box office, grossing $14.6 million against its $15 million budget.
However, when the film was released on home video, where the viewers could experience all three endings, they began appreciating the film. Clue is now considered one of the best comedy murder mysteries ever. Due recognition also reached Tim Curry, who was phenomenal in his role as the butler in the film and guided his guests as well as the viewers.
Clue is now available to stream on Fubo.
4. The Thing (1982)
The Thing suffered badly at the box office after the critics immediately dismissed the film for its repulsive visuals and violence shown on screen. Viewers at the time had Steven Spielberg’s ET to turn to, which made the chances for this John Carpenter film even more scarce.
The critics weren’t fans of Carpenter’s slasher genre of movies and criticized them for focusing on gimmicky violence over storytelling. While ET dominated the box office, The Thing had to settle for $19.9 million against a $15 million budget. For the viewers, ET was a more optimistic film compared to the nihilistic nature of The Thing.
However, the film received a cult following when it was released on home video. Fans praised Carpenter’s filmmaking, Kurt Russell’s performance, and Rob Bottin’s special effects in the film. The film spawned a prequel in 2011 with the same name. Despite taking a hit on Carpenter’s career for a while, the film has since influenced many other films in the genre.
The Thing is now available to stream on MGM+.
3. The Iron Giant (1999)
Before making blockbuster animated hits like The Incredibles and Ratatouille, Brad Bird first directed the animated film The Iron Giant. The story revolves around a nine-year-old befriending a giant alien robot and attempting to prevent the U.S. military from destroying the robot.
Tim McCanlies wrote the script from Ted Hughes’ The Iron Man novel, with some input from Bird. Traditional animation was largely used to animate the film, with CGI used to animate the Iron Giant. It cost only half the time and budget of other animated films from that time.
However, Warner Bros. wasn’t too keen on marketing an animated film after the failure of Quest for Camelot (via LA Times). The lack of marketing significantly affected the box office, with the film collecting only $31.7 million against a $50 million budget. Brad Bird explained WB’s role in the film’s failure during a documentary (via LAist):
They spent a lot of money on a lot of not-very-well conceived projects, and they were kind of exiting the stage. And it was cheaper to have us finish our film than to scrap it. So we were finished — but they didn’t really have any expectations for us. So the great thing when we were making it was that, as long as we produced it efficiently, they left us alone. And the terrible thing about it is that when it came time to come out, they [laughing] kind of left us alone.
The film was, however, praised for its story, animation, and the voice performances of Eli Marienthal, Vin Diesel, Jennifer Aniston, Harry Connick Jr., and others. It received a cult following and is widely regarded as a modern animated classic. WB truly fumbled on this project.
The Iron Giant is now available for rent on AppleTV.
2. Fight Club (1999)
Fight Club was a polarizing film, just like its novel version, written by Chuck Palahniuk. Palahniuk’s story came from the frustrations of a man struggling to make it in the modern world. And this man’s lashing out wasn’t exactly popular in America at the time. Although made on a budget of $65 million, the film grossed a total of $101 million and failed to meet the studio’s expectations.
Most of its collection came from the international market. However, when it was released on home video in the U.S., the film established its place as a cult classic. Fans began to recognize David Fincher‘s masterful storytelling and the performances of Edward Norton as the narrator and Brad Pitt as Tyler Durden.
Critics wrote bad reviews for the film, and many were frightened by the film’s attack on capitalist culture and consumerism. Roger Ebert called the film “macho porn” and shared that the film was “a celebration of violence.” When Norton appeared on PeopleTV’s Couch Surfing in 2019, he blamed the failure of Fight Club in theaters on the studio. He shared (via EW):
I think there was a reluctance on the part of some of the people who were actually marketing it, to embrace the idea that it was funny, and honestly I think they felt indicted by it. I think if you felt more like the guy who plays my boss in the film, then you tended to not like the film. But also, it just was a tough one to distill.
Norton was disappointed by the film’s initial run at the theaters. However, he was grateful for DVDs, which enabled the “powerful second conveyance” of the film’s message.
Fight Club is now available for rent on AppleTV.
1. The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
IMDb’s best film of all time was a major box office disappointment and failed to make an impact in theaters when it was released alongside Pulp Fiction and Forrest Gump. Many fans didn’t even know that the film was based on a Stephen King story as Columbia Pictures decided not to use his name.
At the time, the movie was deemed just another prison drama, a genre that was declining in popularity. However, the movie explores more complex themes, including friendship and hope. Tim Robbins once described the film as “a uniquely non-sexual love story between two men” (via IMDB).
The lack of female characters in the movie also largely affected the film’s appeal to a wider audience. The name of the film also confused audiences. Although the name of King’s novella was edited out to avoid people confusing it as a biopic, the confusion remained. Tim Robbins shared about the issue with the film’s name during an interview with EW:
Well, it’s the title, no one can remember the title. And that makes sense too, because, for years after that film came out, people would come up to me and say, ‘You know, I really liked you in that film Scrimshaw Reduction or Shimmy, Shimmy, Shake or Shankshaw’
The film, made on a budget of $25 million, was only able to gross $16 million during its initial theatrical run. It was later re-released, and the film went on to earn $73.3 million. Today, it is a favorite for many viewers across the world.
The Shawshank Redemption is now available to stream on AMC+.
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