Film critics vs audiences: critically acclaimed movies that bombed at the box office

By Constantinos Psillides

Film critics and cinema audiences don’t always see eye to eye and in the age of the mega-blockbuster, making a dent in the box office is a huge gamble if the movie doesn’t have a ‘Marvel’ somewhere in the poster.

With that in mind, here are some great movies that flopped when they came out but ended up beloved as time went by. An important note here: ‘budget’ refers to the actual production budget but studios spend a lot on promotion and marketing. Promotion budget is not usually known but for big-budget movies it can fall somewhere between 100 and 150 million.

Mother! (Netflix)

Darren Aronofsky has a strained relationship with audiences. While his work is usually lauded by critics, his artistic style and symbolism is more often than not lost on the cinema going crowd. While Black Swan was universally praised, other notable works such as The Fountain with Hugh Jackman and his pessimistic (if not downright depressing) Requiem For a Dream with Jared Leto flopped when they were first shown in cinemas.

Such is the journey of 2017’s Mother!, starring Jennifer Lawrence and Javier Bardem. The movie barely made back its 30 million budget.

Mother! tells the story of a young woman who lives in a house with Him, her husband/partner/God/other religious stand-in representing male dominance. The movie is packed with religious symbolism and an incoherent narrative, making it an extremely difficult watch at the movies. It is after a second and maybe a third viewing that Aronofsky’s brilliance is appreciated, or at least understood to a point that the movie make sense.

Fight Club (Netflix)

I know we are breaking the first rule, but we need to talk about Fight Club. Now considered a cult classic, David Fincher’s supposed anti-capitalist, hyper-violent film came out in 1999 and was not warmly greeted by critics. It was considered a celebration of violence, a rallying point for disenfranchised youth (especially men) that would push them to commit crimes. Legendary critic Roger Ebert even went as far as calling it “fascist”! The film barely made 100 million on its 65 million budget.

Fight Club tells the story of the unnamed Narrator (Edward Norton), an insomniac who trudges through life with no purpose and no goals. That’s until he meets larger than life anarchist soap-maker Tyler Durden who changes his life, by helping him create an underground fighting ring, called The Fight Club.

Fight Club is perhaps the best example of a great movie being undermined by studio execs who fail to understand the movie and thus don’t properly promote it. Fincher’s said his original plan was completely changed by the studio, citing one memorable exchange he had with a studio exec. “Men do not want to see Brad Pitt with his shirt off. It makes them feel bad. And women don’t want to see him bloody. So I don’t know who you made this movie for.”

Shawshank Redemption

Generally considered one of the best movies ever made, Frank Darabont’s timeless masterpiece starring Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman didn’t just flop at the box office; it bombed. With a production budget of 25 million the film barely made 16 million. The studio though really believed in Darabont’s adaptation of the beloved Stephen King novella and made a marketing push for the Oscars. Their plan worked: the movie received seven Oscar nominations (didn’t win any) prompting a second release (which was a thing you could do back in 1994, before internet and streaming platforms) that netted another 60 million. The film still flopped but at least the studio made some money back.

Shawshank Redemption tells the story of banker Andy Dufresne, a man in the 1940s who receives a life sentence after being wrongfully convicted of killing his wife. Andy tries to settle into his new life, helped by a contraband smuggler called Red, though he never loses hope and soon starts hatching plans for the future.