Box office: $47,664,559 This certified cult classic from Edgar Wright was well-liked when it debuted at Comic-Con, but, according to Michael Cera anyway, there was one major stumbling block at the box office: Sylvester Stallone. It was Stallone’s Expendables and also Eat Pray Love that took much of the attention away from this high-wire action comedy film, with it coming fifth over the weekend of its release. On its release, Michael Moses thought the movie may have just been premature for the audience: “[with] its cult status now I think it may have just been truly a movie that was ahead of its time. So, maybe I would have put it out 10 years later!” Box office: $28,341,469 Despite being top of countless “best movies ever” lists, the now classic film was considered a box office flop when it was released. Tim Robbins, who played Andy Dufresne, believed it was the title that kept viewers away: “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’.” Box office: $45,395,069 Hocus Pocus was seen as a box office failure, particularly by Disney’s standards, earning just $39,000,000 domestic off a $28,000,000 budget. Fast forward to 2020 and it was reported that it was the most-watched Halloween flick on Vudu for five years in a row, and it now ranks among the best Halloween movies for many who watched it growing up. The reason may be because everyone was watching it on Disney’s own channels, as it was often repeated around the Halloween season, and thus became a go-to Halloween classic! Box office: $46,142,637 ($17,451,873 domestic) There are fewer movies with more of a cult following than the Coen Brothers’ The Big Lebowski, but its domestic box office performance was disappointingly low. The international numbers buffed out its total box office takings but the movie was still no way near the success that its eventual following would suggest. Nowadays it’s seen as a cult classic, and has even spawned its own religion; “Dudeism”, which has over 600,000 ordained priests worldwide… Box office: $100,853,753 While nowadays Fight Club certainly splits opinion, it’s still garnered a fanbase that far outweighs its less-than-impressive box office returns. While it did gross over $100m from its $63m budget, the majority of that was from the international box office, and was still considered a disappointing total. Talking to People TV, Ed Norton explained why he thinks it didn’t take off: “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.” Box office: $7,012,321 This movie, which boasts an array of future Hollywood stars, is now considered a pop classic with a certified cult following. The eventual success, however, was a result of the home DVD sales and the UK release, which came a whole year after its disappointing US box office intake. The failure at the box office could perhaps be down to the unfortunate timing of its release, which came in the wake of 9/11. In fact, its initial run in US cinemas only took $500,000! Looking back now, it’s seen as one of the best teen dramas of all time, and sparked the career of current Hollywood incumbents Jake and Maggie Gyllenhaal! Box office: $185,770,160 Sometimes we assume that success at the Oscars equates to decent box office returns, but that certainly wasn’t the case with Scorsese’s 2011 movie Hugo. Despite getting 11 Academy Award nominations (winning five), Hugo barely broke even, and huge losses for GK Films strained their relationship with Scorsese. Box office: $23,159,305 To many, The Iron Giant is a classic animated film – it’s even often included on “best child-friendly films” lists – but for a variety of reasons, its release was a total failure. With the filmmakers worried that if they delayed finishing the project, Warner Bros. wouldn’t release it, they sped up their marketing campaign, even though they probably should have waited. The rushed campaign failed to raise public interest in the film. The movie was also a departure from the animated format that Disney had perfected, which the director thought may have kept people away: “For us to set it in 1957, and have it deal with things like the Cold War, was definitely not considered the kind of thing you do in an animated film. Where is the fairy tale? Where is the magic? And where’s the singing?” Box office: $2,536,242 This team-up between Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro is still overlooked by many casual fans, but critics and film fanatics see it as one of, if not the best of the celebrated director’s movies. At the time of its release, however, it got what was described as “a critical and public kicking” which was reflected in the box office taking a fraction of the budget! Box office: $19,629,760 This classic horror movie is now considered one of John Carpenter’s best works in his storied filmography, but it tanked at the box office on its release, making just over its budget. In fact, the New York Times disregarded it as “instant junk”, and the poor reception put a dent in the carpenter’s career. If you’d have told Carpenter back then that The Thing would be looked back on as his masterpiece, and regarded as one of the top 10 best horrors of all time he’d have never believed you, how things can change eh! Box office: $495,303 Despite being in theatres for five weeks, the futuristic comedy was unable to recoup more than a quarter or so of its budget at the box office. Later on, when the movie was released on TV and DVD, comedy fans discovered it and elevated it to cult status. Mentions of the film skyrocketed again during the 2016 US election, with the screenwriter tweeting: “I never expected #idiocracy to become a documentary.” about Trump’s presidential run. Its relevance is continually being referenced, with the idiotic dystopian future looking more and more familiar. Box office: $34,441,873 This biopic directed by Danny Boyle is another movie that, despite its high praise and positive reviews, failed to make an impact at the box office. The movie was described as an “exhilarating portrait of the visionary tech mastermind” with a “scorching script” and a “commanding performance”, so why did the audiences not come? Danny believed that the poor box office showing was due to the release strategy, suggesting that they released it too wide too early. Box office: $23,308,615 Gavin O’Connor’s MMA film received positive reviews, with Empire calling it a “powerful, moving and brilliant sports-pic-cum-family drama.” Nick Nolte’s performance as the burly coach also won him an Oscar nomination. The poor showing at the box office, however, didn’t reflect the buzz around the film – perhaps because it didn’t boast the Hollywood stars like Cristian Bale and Mark Wahlberg who were in The Fighter that came out earlier that year. Box office: $70,455,770 This harrowing dystopia was and is widely regarded as a superb story with excellent filming, but it was surprisingly a bomb at the box office. Since its release, the movie has amassed a cult following, which has only increased as a result of the films increasing prescience regarding modern society. Box office: $2,302,632 If there was a cult movie showdown, The Rocky Horror Picture Show would be getting my vote any day. Not only did the fans of the show elevate it to success, but they did it organically. Fans would flock to midnight screenings at the Waverly Theatre in New York in 1976, dressing up, singing and dancing along, and creating an immersive cinema experience. So, after being considered a box office flop, the movie, and its highly engaged fanbase, have spawned conventions, clubs, and most of all made the movie and subsequent theatre production major successes. Box office: $1,108,462 As teen movies go, Heathers certainly stand out, but despite its place among many “best teen movie” lists, it couldn’t catch the eye of audiences when it was first released in 1989. Once again, it was the die-hard fans that projected this box office flop into a cult classic, through home video and TV they made the high school dark comedy into a success – one that would go on to have a musical spin-off! Box office: $9,929,135 Terry Gilliam’s Orwellian sci-fi is now regarded as one of the great films of its genre, as its place at #17 on The Guardian’s all-time sci-fi and fantasy list attests to. Even though fans didn’t flock to see it – perhaps due to its lack of an obvious target demographic – the movie has had a lasting impression on Hollywood and has been inspiring filmmakers ever since. Box office: $13,915,874 Even the draw of David Bowie couldn’t give Jim Henson’s wonderfully bizarre movie commercial success, with the film barely making back half of its budget. Perhaps the pull of Bowie, not to mention his excellent performance, was responsible for the film achieving the cult status to match the praise it received from critics. Box office: $20,271,905 David Lynch’s puzzling commentary of Hollywood itself was certainly divisive, but critics were so admiring of the movie that in 2016 the BBC even named it the best film of the 21st century! It wasn’t just critics that admired the mind-bending mystery; the film, which was initially planned to be a TV series, also garnered a cult following. Lynch’s work often finds itself being described as a cult classic, and Mulholland Drive is no different, with the propensity for Lynch fans to theorise about the mysteries leading to vast online discussion, and repeated rewatches!
