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7 box office bombs that are actually good movies

Money doesn't always equal quality in Hollywood

The Dude
LANDMARK MEDIA / Alamy

Making movies is a business at heart even if fans at home can agree the industry would be better if there were no financial motivations behind cinema. Box office receipts show movie studios and executives what they should concentrate their efforts on. Singular stories are milked into franchises, and films that don’t make enough money are thrown aside never to be returned to by another mainstream director.

The truth is that the amount of money a film makes doesn’t equal always its quality. Sure, when word-of-mouth spreads that a picture is worthy of viewing, people flock to the theater in droves. Legendary films such as those in the The Lord of the Rings series or Star Wars were both financially strong and award-winning epics. But sometimes ticket sales elude incredible movies. These are the nine box office bombs that are actually good movies!

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Citizen Kane (1941)

Citizen Kane
119m
Genre
Mystery, Drama
Stars
Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Dorothy Comingore
Directed by
Orson Welles
Watch on Amazon
Citizen Kane is the epitamy of film history’s significance in American culture, but at the time of its release, it was a thoroughly underwhelming effort at the box office. It took years for viewers and critics to fully appreciate the movie that is now taught in so many college classrooms worldwide. Orson Welles’ iconic story about the life of Charles Foster Kane was a pioneering effort that introduced audiences to advanced techniques and literary devices in film such as symbolism.

The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

The Shawshank Redemption
142m
Genre
Drama, Crime
Stars
Tim Robbins, Morgan Freeman, Bob Gunton
Directed by
Frank Darabont
Watch on Tubi

The Shawshank Redemption conjures instant memories of 1990s movie glory. Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins form a fantastic duo as they traverse the mental toll of living in a prison in Maine. The story teaches audiences to always have hope for the future no matter how bleak the darkness appears and it maintains both a casual and diehard fandom today. The Shawshank Redemption was overshadowed at the box office by other hits like Forrest Gump and Pulp Fiction, and it also got passed up for the Best Picture Academy Award that same year. Director Frank Darabont’s film is arguably the movie that has held up the best in the last three decades, though.

Mulholland Drive (2001)

Mulholland Drive
147m
Genre
Thriller, Drama, Mystery
Stars
Naomi Watts, Laura Harring, Justin Theroux
Directed by
David Lynch
Watch on Amazon
Mulholland Drive made only $20.1 million at the box office, but many David Lynch fans subscribe to the line of thought that it’s the best of the surrealist director’s catalog. The plot is a loose, often confusing amalgamation of incoherence. Naomi Watts and Laura Harring play two women discovering the purpose of Los Angeles in their lives. The setting and tone of the film create one of Lynch’s classic contemplative environments. The contrast between the surface of the film and so much of what is underneath it wasn’t very viewer-friendly and probably was the main reason for its bombing.

Kingdom of Heaven (2005)

Kingdom of Heaven
144m
Genre
Drama, Action, Adventure, History, War
Stars
Orlando Bloom, Eva Green, Jeremy Irons
Directed by
Ridley Scott
Watch on Hulu
One would think that Kingdom of Heaven would have been a successful summer historical epic. With Ridley Scott directing and Orlando Bloom starring (he was riding high off of Lord of the Rings’ fame at the time), the film was an entertaining action and war flick about the Third Crusade in the 12th century. Something didn’t click with audiences, but Scott released a director’s cut later on that helped fill in some of the gaps in the story. Maybe this version would have done better at the box office, but it was incredibly long, at three hours and 14 minutes.

Cloud Atlas (2012)

Cloud Atlas
172m
Genre
Drama, Science Fiction
Stars
Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Jim Broadbent
Directed by
Lana Wachowski, Lilly Wachowski, Tom Tykwer
Watch on Amazon

Cloud Atlas possesses an enormity of star power both behind the camera and in front of it. Tom Hanks and Halle Berry team up as the co-leads in a massive set of stories that span different settings and characters. One minute the viewers are entranced in 1973 San Francisco, the next we see new people played by the same actors in 2144 Seoul. Because of the interconnected plots and vignettes, fans may have been confused about what exactly was happening. The Wachowskis are trusted directors in the science fiction genre, but Cloud Atlas only made about $130 million worldwide and struggled to break even on a budget that is estimated to be between $100 million and $146 million.

The Big Lebowski (1998)

The Big Lebowski
117m
Genre
Comedy, Crime
Stars
Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Julianne Moore
Directed by
Joel Coen
Watch on Amazon

One of the Coen brothers’ most famous crime comedies, The Big Lebowski didn’t exactly bring in a major financial haul. Bringing in less than $50 million, the film has increased tenfold in popularity in the 25-plus years since its release. Jeff Bridges plays the famous “Dude” who must find a special sort of spiritual awakening to get himself and others out of imminent danger after a kidnapping. Offbeat comedy and a cult following have brought this film to wider audiences that continue to rediscover its uniqueness.

The Tree of Life (2011)

The Tree of Life
139m
Genre
Drama, Fantasy
Stars
Brad Pitt, Sean Penn, Jessica Chastain
Directed by
Terrence Malick
Watch on Amazon

The Tree of Life manages to be both existential and relatable as it follows the traumas and joys of the O’Brien family in Texas during the mid-20th century. Director Terrence Malick muses about the complexities of human existence with a sweeping narrative taking place at various points in Pitt’s character’s life. The movie technically made a profit by bringing in about $62 million against a $32 budget and it was nominated for Best Picture, but many expected a movie with Brad Pitt at the front of the billboard to be more successful.

Movie images and data from:
Shawn Laib
Shawn Laib is a freelance writer with publications such as Den of Geek, Quote.com, Edge Media Network, diaTribe, SUPERJUMP…
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