What’s Your Favorite Flop?

Trog

Sextette

I like Shymalan films.

At Long Last Love. By the time I got a bluray player it had sold out and copies were going for ridiculous amounts of money.

BAJOUR!

Love Never Dies. I knew I was going to hate it going in, but I had no idea what a feast it would be

The film "New York, New York." Many high points, but didn't hang together well and DeNiro's character could not be redeemed.

Xanadu I like the John Farrar and ELO songs

Mame with Lucy wasn’t very good but it’s entertaining in a car crash way.

The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training was a neighborhood favorite. It’s still reasonably entertaining.

The Apple has to be up there. The score is catchy.

Showgirls

Boom!, the 1968 campfest with Liz Taylor in extravagant Alexandre de Paris hair-architecture

"Pennies From Heaven" with Steve Martin.

Starship Troopers, Blade Runner, Dredd

Grease 2, of course

Stage: Dance of the Vampires. Michael Crawford looking like a fat rooster and the chorus singing "We'll drink your blood and then we'll eat your soul.".

Screen: Lost Horizon. A bunch of non singers in a musical. The scene where they go down the hill singing "The world is a circle' looks like part of the Little House on the Prairie" opening credits. Sally Kellerman is delightfully campy. You want to line Bobby van up and have him slapped like the woman in "Airplane!"

"Mack & Mabel." Has some of the very best songs of all the Jerry Herman scores--"Look What Happened to Mabel," "Time Heals Everything," "I Won't Bring Roses," "Big Time"--despite the unfixably depressing book.

"Henry, Sweet Henry." Almost all the songs for the kids are absolutely terrific: "In Some Little World," "Here I Am," "Poor Little Person," and (most of all) the great "Nobody Steps on Kafritz" (linked). But all the songs for the adults are awful (since the title role was sung by a non-singer, Don Ameche). It also came out in exactly the wrong year: it's about two privileged teenage girls from a fancy Manhattan school (who are in love with Charles Boyer!), but it was produced in 1968, the year of "Hair," so it seemed ridiculously out-of-date.

"Diana: the Musical." so bad it's brilliant. The lyrics may be the worst and least imaginative I've ever heard, and the show's spin on Diana's story is just insane--it's as if it had been all envisioned by a fourteen year-old. Major James Hewitt (who enters shirtless on a mechanical horse that rises from beneath the stage) is treated wholly (and approvingly) as a piece of meat, and an entire song is devoted to the idea that Prince Charles is somehow morally wrong for preferring classical music in the 80s to pop music.

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me

Slither, the movie. I sat there delirious with happiness, loving every second.

I thought to myself, this James Gunn guy is a genius, can’t wait to see what else he makes. But then the movie bombed. HARD.

I was so disappointed. “I guess that’s it for James Gunn,” I thought.

More from "Henry, Sweet Henry": the catchy number "Poor Little Person," featuring the amazing voice and comedy of Alice Playten, the dancing of Baayork Lee (the dance captain, in red-orange among the girls), the showstopping choreography of Michael Bennett, and the insane mugging of Pia Zadora (with dark braids, in the bright blue coat).

The King of Comedy

Waterworld. I love it,yet it seems to be universally detested.

The Pruitts Of Southampton, a sitcom starring Phyllis Diller ... if for nothing else, its great theme song.

100% without question - SHOWGIRLS!

“Dance a Little Closer” (1983) - officially lasted only a single performance. I saw a preview, and realized all the pieces just did not make a cohesive whole. But I didn’t care. The score was incredible: music by Charles Strouse, lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner. There was actually a sung sequence about how ridiculous it would be for two men to marry, but it ended with the sublime ballad, “Anyone Who Loves.” Thank God that beautiful score was recorded.

“Diana” - I only saw this on Netflix, but I also loved it. A rousing comic book about that ill-starred lady. All it wanted to do was entertain, but it ended up somehow transcending its own material, and became quite moving. And I have never seen such instantaneous costume changes in my life, like magic! I only regret I never got the chance to see it live onstage. A much underrated show.

I would never call it my favorite but "Glitter" with Mariah Carey was not that bad, at least not the way critics made it out to be.

Anne Bancroft's "Fatso" with Dom DeLuise.

It's one of the funniest, most twisted movies ever, my whole family loves it.

COP ROCK - I thought it was a great idea, and I love Randy Newman.

Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story

Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping

Tron (the original one, though Legacy is also cool).

Such a visually unique movie.

"Showgirls" and "Lone Ranger."

Love "The Chronicles of Riddick."

Showgirls

The Pirate Movie. It brings back happy childhood memories and still makes me smile.

I'm too young to have seen it, but I can imagine it, and it must have been legendary: Tallulah Bankhead and Tab Hunter together for 5 performances in Tennessee Williams' "The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore" (January 1964).

Pasadena, a FOX TV nighttime soap starring Dana Delaney. They ran only four episodes in the fall of 2001, maybe more on Fox later, but I didn't see the back nine until years later, online. It was the best show Fox had done to that point.

any Ken Russell film.

G's entire career.

So stunning and brave to sustain a flop for so long!

I saw Showgirls opening night, the night before I moved away to college. I went with my mom & a close friend (Jehovah’s Witness no less). I loooved it, all 3 of us liked it, but I did notice people walking out mid-movie.

The next day at college I was in the Burger King drive-thru & saw USA Today had given it 2.5 stars, & thought, see, those predictions about it flopping won’t come true! I was rather cut off from pop culture for a while (internet wasn’t really a thing for me), but was SHoCKED by the reception it got, & thought it was some conspiracy.

To this day I still don’t get the vitriol for this flick.

Wonderfalls.

Swingtown - it was a CBS summer replacement show about swingers in the 70s - it had an early Knots Landing vibe to it. the attention to the 70s houses took me back to my childhood. The show had great music and a great cast - off of the top of my head - Grant Show, Molly Parker, Jack Davenport, Miriam Shor and more whose names aren’t staying in my brain!! I really enjoyed it.

^Such a great show! Loved Lana Parrilla in it. And loved the theme song, by Liz Phair no less!

Flash Gordon

Stage: Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Despite producer Merrick’s wild gamesmanship (inviting Edward Albee to rewrite the book from scratc), the CDs made, what, 20 years later, reveal a Bob Merrill score that is as entertaining as anything else from that year (1966) and a good deal more clever than most of it. And aside from the funny and tuneful songs, the Ralph Burns orchestrations are stupendous. But some shows just can’t get a break (see similarly the delightful Foxy—another victim of faulty Merrick gamesmanship).

Screen: Anything with Carol Channing but most outrageously Skidoo! which grows on you (though I liked it from the beginning). Just listing the co-stars is probably sufficient: Jackie Gleason, Frankie Avalon, Groucho Marx, John Philip Law, Austin Pendleton—that ought to do it. Songs (including sung end credits) by Harry Nilsson, delightful as always.

Did somebody say Walk Hard was a flop? I hadn’t realized. To me it’s an indelible comic classic. Oh well.

Suckerpunch (2011). I love the soundtrack, the hentai costumes and Carla Gugino.

Cloud Atlas. Such an amazing movie.

The Shawshank Redemption.

Nothing comes to mind...(twitch)wire hangers (twitch)

R43 Carol Channing in Skidoo looked like Big Bird in drag. You can't tell from the scene, but she had a yellow hat and matching purse, all feathery. But Carol in "The First Traveling Saleslady" with Ginger Rogers is another guilty pleasure of mine. Years later, Ginger replaced Carol in Hello Dolly!, and something tells me that they joked about the movie when they met up.

Speaking of Tallulah Bankhead whom someone mentioned in another post, I would have loved to have seen her revival of "A Streetcar Named Desire" at City Center. The audience was filled with gay men who laughed hysterically in inappropriate places, like when she spies the liquor cabinet and points it out dramatically and later talks about the seven sisters all being there. Tallulah loved gay men, but during that two week run, I'm sure she wanted to kill them.

Forgot the link for Skidoo.

R33 i like the gay couple in that Happy Ending number 🌈

Diabolique with Sharon Stone and Kathy Bates.

Bonfire of the Vanities.

Drop Dead Gorgeous. I still can't believe how little money it made at the time and how mediocre to hateful most of the reviews were. Very few films have ever made me laugh that hard. It warms my heart to see the cult following its acquired in the last 20+ years.

Does “Merrily We Roll Along” still count as a flop? It took a nosedive on Broadway, but it’s been consistently performed since then.

I love the score, and kinda like the problematic book

I saw "Merrily" late in previews with a paying audience at the Alvin in 1981.

The audience HATED it. Nobody had fallen in love with the OBC album yet, or done it in college.

"The Rocketeer"- I love the 1930's aesthetic and of course Bill Campbell was just beautiful. I was nineteen years old and lived within walking distance of our local movie theater. Lots of nice memories of late sultry summer nights and fantasizing of Mr. Campbell.

"Bram Stoker's Dracula"- A modern day camp fest and more than a little overblown (especially the sex overtures), but the visuals match what was in my head when I read the novel. Could have been a much better film, but I only saw it because of my then fixation on Bill Campbell (see above).

I still watch both out of nostalgia.

Wasn't Bram Stoker's Dracula a hit?

I remember when "Carrie - The Musical" opened on Broadway and someone referred to it as the first real period musical.

Yes R57 it was a hit. Coppola's last hit.

Paint Your Wagon (film) and I love the soundtrack album, including Clint Eastwood's two songs.

I would love to have seen the stage show, even though I know the film version has a completely different plot.

A true Coppola flop that I love is his musical "One from the Heart," set in Las Vegas but filmed entirely on sound stages. It has some beautiful shots and camerawork. However, I've only seen it once and it was while tripping on acid and we watched it muted while playing ABBA and Kate Bush records. It was sublime, but I still need to watch it for real someday.

And I also "New York, New York," which an earlier poster mentioned. I saw that one for the first time a few years ago at Metrograph, and the whole film is so messy and spectacular. The musical fever dream sequence towards the end is perfection. I hate that it's not on any streaming service. But also, wow can you tell that they were all doing a lot of cocaine while making that one!

On stage: Steel Pier

On film: Can't Stop The Music

[quote]A true Coppola flop that I love is his musical "One from the Heart," set in Las Vegas but filmed entirely on sound stages. It has some beautiful shots and camerawork. However, I've only seen it once and it was while tripping on acid and we watched it muted while playing ABBA and Kate Bush records. It was sublime, but I still need to watch it for real someday.

Great choice, r61. It's a failure I suppose (and trust me, it's markedly worse with when you can hear the dialogue) but it's visually one-of-a-kind and the songs are terrific. He really swung for the fences on that one. I miss the days when American filmmakers really went for it like that. Scorsese and Lynch are about all we have left now. I'll take a failed work of art over a successful piece of pop-art any day.

The films on this list have some great flops in them.

I saw Merrily 3 times in its last week. I guess at this point it was the Merrily cultists because everyone loved it. I immediately loved the score from that absolutely sensational overture the kind that people hadn't hear in decades. And from first listening the songs were wonderful.

And the show as a whole was more than the sum of its parts. Incredibly moving and heartbreaking. And to think I was going to miss it because of word of mouth and the lousy reviews. But it was a Prince/Sondheim musical so I grit my teeth and went. Legendary and because of all the fucked up changes and compromises it will never be as good again and it simply cannot be made better. You can't change what it is.

I loved Francis Ford Coppola's "One From the Heart" and dragged a bunch of people to see it. They hated it. When the lights came down, you could actually hear people in the audience say things like, well that was a bust.

Wow, didn't see the previous "One from the Heart" comments. Glad to know I'm not totally alone.

Oh also, R61, I was high when I saw it the first time. Maybe that's the requirement.

R62 I loved Steel Pier, much more than the overblown Titanic (which won the Tony) and The Life which outside of Lillias White was just wretched.

The King of Comedy is to me, Scorsese's best film. I think it flopped because it reflected incredibly ugly truths that are just more and more prescient today, what with viral internet fame being the most desired thing for many.

Fire Walk With Me is brilliant. It was trashed for the same reason King of Comedy was. It was too dark, too ugly, and painted the beloved show in an entirely different light - there's no magic, no mysticism, just an abused young girl and an entire town that represses everything to allow the cycle of abuse to continue.

I like Coppola's flops better than some of the highly regarded movies - One from the Heart and Rumble Fish both have such a unique vision to them!

Showgirls is my favorite so-bad-it's-good flop. Streets of Fire is my favorite "they just didn't understand it at the time" flop.

I don't think they flopped as much as they didn't get proper distribution, but Out of the Blue (Dennis Hopper's most mature film) and Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains! are both awesome punk-era 80s indie movies.

And of course, The Night of the Hunter. Now considered of the greatest movies ever made, it was a totally derided flop when it came out.

I’d put Sondheim’s “Anyone Can Whistle” in the Deliciously Terrible category. Fun score, but a hideous mess of a book. Can be great fun on stage, but story-wise it’s always a disaster. .

I suppose you could put most of Sondheim's work in here if you're talking about strictly financial flops. Very few have made much money at all.

Sondheim is one of the strangest of artists, because most of his shows aren't 100% successful. Usually, the score is great, but the book or staging doesn't quite work. Sweeney Todd, Into the Woods, Gypsy, and West Side Story are probably the most cohesive and satisfying of the shows he's had a hand in. At least his work is usually interesting whether it comes together completely or not.

Maggie Smith in Travels with My Aunt, directed by George Cukor.

Probably The Other Side of Midnight, starring Marie France Pisier, John Beck, and Susan Sarandon (!). My 16-year-old self found it luscious and dramatic!

R74 I still have nightmare of seeing Sorrel Booke's naked behind and hairy back humping the heroine.

R74 Oh my God I adored that one. I thought Marie France Pisier was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. It was shocking when she drowned.

And actually, talk of the other side of midnight makes me think of the Greek tycoon. Those two could be a double feature. Didn’t the heroine in midnight end up with a Greek tycoon herself?

I like Woody Allen’s entry in the trio of short films New York Stories. Julie Kavner was adorable, they had good chemistry.

Pass the Ammo, featuring Bill Pullman, Tim Curry, Annie Potts, and some unknown beautiful woman who was never seen onscreen again. Tim plays a sleezy televangelist and Annie is his wife. Bill and Unknown take over the studio and expose the preacher's corruption.

My favorite flop of all time - Shock Treatment. From the creator of Rocky Horror Picture Show, it was intended as a sequel to RHPS but wound up featuring the return of only the characters of Brad and Janet who were recast. While Rocky didn't do great in its first release, it managed to make money in midnight screenings and a dedicated fan base. Shock Treatment wasn't so lucky which was too bad because IMO it had a more cogent story line and better songs.

R27 types fat 😍🤣😁😊🤣😁😂

A long forgotten French film musical called The Ins and the Outs. It was sort of a French version of New York, New York except in this one the leading lady’s best friend was exposed as a Nazi lover (the girl just loved German dick, OK?) and had her head shaved and paraded through the streets when the war ended. And this film was a MUSICAL.

[quote]R74 Probably The Other Side of Midnight, starring Marie France Pisier, John Beck, and Susan Sarandon (!). My 16-year-old self found it luscious and dramatic!

The clothes in that (by Irene “Mommie Dearest” Sharaff) are good. It had a big budget.

I like when Noel gives herself an abortion in the bathtub with a wire hanger. WHY isn’t that stirring scene on YouTube??

It’s sort of obvious Pisier loathed her co-star John Beck.

Troop Beverly Hills (1989) Total campfest.

[quote]R84 It’s sort of obvious Pisier loathed her co-star John Beck.

He’s kind of awful in it, honestly. So boring. You need someone super dashing and charismatic in that part, justifying the two women refusing to give him up.

Susie gives the best performance.

He wasn’t it.

I posted King of Comedy earlier in the thread, but want to add After Hours. One of my all time favorites..

Unjustly maligned.

Anyone like "I Paralyze" by Cher?

Trog - whata way to finish a once successful career so long before.

Movie: Can't Stop The Music

Suddenly, about 3/4 of the way through this film, you get this AH-MAZING production number of a song called "Milkshake" that is utterly mesmerizing. And that's just the highlight. The opening number with Steve Guttenberg roller skating down Broadway to get downtown is also one for the books.

Other favorites: Drop Dead Gorgeous, Boom and Showgirls.

Stage: Sex and Longing, a terrible play by Christopher Durang that was absolutely mesmerizing in its awfulness. Dana Ivey was brilliant in it.

Other favorites: Head Over Heels, Steel Pier and Carrie. (I kick myself for missing Dance of the Vampires.) One of my good friends was in Carrie, and it took me years to get stories about the show out of him. They were worth the wait.

I'm.watching Sextette now on Prime Video, and so far it is every bit as awful as I hoped it would be.

Tuff Turf, an early film for both James Spader an Robert Downey Jr.

Song of Norway

Lost Horizon - I never miss a Liv Ullmann musical

Hard to believe The Shawshank Redemption only made $16M during it's initial theatrical run. That and Blade Runner would be my picks.

All I’m gonna say is 6 of my favorite entertainments ever are in the OP and first 12 posts of this thread…

"It Shouda Been You". I don't know why, but I really enjoyed this musical. David Hyde Pierce did a fantastic job of directing. I think critics saw that there were six lyricists credited and hated it before they entered the theater. The other thing I remember is how David Burtka would check out when he was not in a scene. It was like he hit the "off" button if he did not have lines.

The odd thing about many of these flops is that they had possibilities at one time. The most common thread is not trusting the material, particularly if the material is dark. The workshop of The Life was 100 times better than what was on Broadway. It also did not shy away from what "the life" really was like. I read a early script to Steel Pier, which was also much darker, more like They Shoot Horses..." Dance of the Vampires is a parody of the German version.

Dance of the Vampires (previews version).

Identity Thief with Jason Bateman and Melissa McCarthy. It’s dumb and could have used an edit but they have great chemistry which just works really well. Cheers me up.

Another vote for Pennies From Heaven. I thought it was brilliant.

R1 I know why you liked Trog, confess now!

R102, John Hamill was a straight porn actor as well. It is one of the reasons his legit career died. Now, find the films...

Well Flip of course.

I really enjoyed the first DUNE movie with Sting

I don’t know if it was a flop, but this curiously half-good/half-bad stew draws me in whenever I stumble upon it:

Madama Butterfly

France

[quote] ""Pennies From Heaven" with Steve Martin."

The Bob Mackie costumes alone, are worth the watch, R13.

The BRF never ceases to amuse as it flops publicly.

Thank god Big Liz is on the way out.

HOUSE OF FLOWERS - my favorite Broadway score of the '50s. But the Encores! revival of a 2003 ew years showed how truly dreadful the book i - and it cannot be fixed.

"The story concerns two neighboring bordellos that battle for business in an idealized Haitian setting. One of the sex workers, Ottilie, turns down a rich lord to marry a poor mountain boy named Royal. Her madam plots to keep her by having Royal sealed in a barrel and tossed into the ocean. Royal escapes the watery death by taking refuge on the back of a turtle. The lovers are eventually married and live happily ever after."

R111, it doesn't sound any worse than the book to Once on this Island.

Hot Rod. It’s joyously dumb, and the low budget, try-anything silliness is rapid fire. So many weird, funny supporting performances: Bill Hader, Will Arnett, Ian McShane, Danny McBride. And Sissy Spacek is in it!

Skidoo!

[quote]I posted King of Comedy earlier in the thread, but want to add After Hours. One of my all time favorites..

It's a shame they were flops, because they are both amazing films. Same with Pennies From Heaven.

[quote] From the creator of Rocky Horror Picture Show, it was intended as a sequel to RHPS but wound up featuring the return of only the characters of Brad and Janet who were recast.

Don't forget Betty Hapschatt [italic]née[/italic] Monroe!

Brian De Palma's Femme Fatale. It bombed big time in movie theatres but it was a big dvd seller. One of the most stylish, creative and playful movies of the past 25 years.

After Hours is such a great movie, and got fairly positive reviews. I'm assuming it's considered a cult classic?

[quote] Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me

Very glad you mentioned this R18. I was in college in the 00s and that was when I discovered David Lynch. Mulholland Drive was my introduction to Lynch and it blew my mind. I eventually got to Fire Walk With Me and it blew my mind even more. I didn't even see the tv show until years later but I still "got" the movie. Sheryl Lee deserved an Oscar for that performance. One of the greatest performances ever captured on screen. Her performance didn't even need dialogue, her facial expressions are that expressive. The movie has clearly received a reappraisal in the past decade, especialy thanks to the new season of Twin Peaks.

R119, yes it is. I don't think it was a critical flop though? Maybe just a financial one.

King of Comedy IS dark. In some ways, it bothers me more than Taxi Driver.

I really don’t get the retrospective acclaim for femme fatale; Rebecca Romijn was sexy but the plot just didn’t seem that ingenious to me.

In the Cut, on the other hand, was brilliant to me and deserved a much bigger audience.

English, R123. Learn it. Use it. Or shoo.

Oh, dear.

The plot is never the point of De Palma's movies. Ever. You have to look at what he is doing visually. It's a brilliant movie that attempts to "redo" the entire film noir/femme fatale concept.

After Hours probably made a profit. I doubt it was expensive to make. Although, Hollywood accounting is always a joke.

Compared to Dressed to Kill, Blow Out, and Body Double, I don't think Femme Fatale holds water, either in terms of visuality or engagement with cinematic tropes.

After Hours is my favorite Scorsese film. It has a great, bizarre energy. It's like being stuck in someone's amusing nightmare. It's so far removed from a lot of his more famous work and shows that he's really capable of so much more.

3 Women didn't get a lot of love when it came out, but it's my favorite Altman movie. Strange and hypnotic.

Myra Breckinridge

A total shit show from start to finish, but delicious trash nonetheless

Best scene is Raquel Welch sodomizing a young stud with what he thinks is a strap-on

I'm a collector of flops -stage flops -and have seen many of the legendary ones. The best? In no particular order:

The Baker's Wife

Mack and Mabel

Candide

Juno

Merrily We Roll Along

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue

The Rink

These had great scores, but were done in by lousy books/production mistakes:

Goodtime Charley

Breakfast At Tiffany's

Dance A Little Closer

Chess

Doctor Zhivago

Carrie

As others, Mack & Mabel (great music/awful book.)

Pennies From Heaven, King of Comedy, Myra Breckenridge.

Dear World.

Top Secret, the ZAZ follow-up to Airplane starring Val Kilmer. As funny as Airplane to me and sprinkled with fun musical numbers.

Police Squad!

Watchmen (2009). It cost 150m to make and made 185 worldwide. The critics and the mainstream public hated it. I think it's hands-down the best superhero movie. It's the only one that doesn't pander to the stupidest person in the room. It has a story to tell and if you're not interested, oh well.

The film version of Finian's Rainbow.

Star

Ed Wood. Just a really good move about the joy of film making.

Bob Fosse’s film version of Sweet Charity. I love the energy, the sense of foreboding amidst all the dazzle dazzle, Paula Kelly and Chita Rivera’s joy, and the parking garage scene with Sammy Davis, Jr.

When the hippies show up at the end, I cry every fucking time.

MARY!

Call me Mary, too, R138.

Was Ed Wood a flop? I loved that move and Martin Landau won the Oscar

Yikes, I just looked. Ed Wood didn't make money. Still not a flop though.

Dark Shadows - I thought it was great. More a box office disappointment than a flop.