Disney, Stallone, Coppola, Pelé and… Lions! Remember the MAJOR FAILURES of cinema which will end 40 years in 2021

The world of cinema is not just about success. And as hard to believe for moviegoers like us, this production we simply adore could very well have been a resounding failure in its early days. This does not mean, of course, that years later, it will not be able to resurface as a cult work, regain its status and become an extremely prestigious work. This is what we call the historical correction. This can happen with films ahead of their time, which the generation of the time simply failed to appreciate for their value.

The esteem of some works nowadays, however, unfortunately does not change its history. Films are made to reach their audiences as soon as they are released. And as timeless as they are and remain for the time, no director likes to see their production solemnly ignored in their early days. And for studios and producers, who spend bona fide fortunes to make them, the fact that they sink at the box office is the scale that will tell whether a film will receive the glories of the movie gods or become a work of art. cursed. It’s unpredictable and beyond the control of anything else like the good reviews, the quality of the movie itself, and even a massive multi-million dollar marketing campaign. None of this, after all, is a guarantee of success for a film.

With this in mind, we will continue our chronicle of the great failures of the seventh art, with the films which have solemnly failed and which will be 40 years old in 2021. Check it out below (along with other previous editions of this column) and do not Do not forget to comment.

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Today an extremely cult film, especially for sports and football fans, it is difficult to believe that a film which brings together legends of their various arts such as Sylvester Stallone, Michael Caine and our King Pelé could have failed in its beginnings. The big draw here is the presence of the most WTF trio in movie history, which instantly arouses everyone’s curiosity. Directed by the equally legendary John Huston, the story is essentially a version of Low Blow (2005), starring the elder Adam Sandler – for the younger ones to spread the word. Change only the football game of the guards against the prisoners in a penitentiary, for the prisoners in a concentration camp during WWII, playing traditional football (with their feet) against the Nazis. Stallone was not yet the star he was to become, and he had only directed two Rocky films by then, preparing the third and the first Rambo. Escape to Vitória was distributed by Paramount, cost US $ 10 million and fetched US $ 10.8 million – only managing to pay off.

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Anyone who knows Disney today can’t imagine that the almighty Mickey Mouse studio went through “hard times” in the 1980s, collecting flop after flop. 40 years ago, he was creating in the studio an ambitious fantasy adventure, which he used to ride the trend of the time, namely medieval films about knights, dragons and wizards. With the original title Dragonslayer – something like “Dragon Slayer,” the production may have suffered from not having a big name up front in the cast leading the film. The protagonist is Peter MacNicol. Indeed, a large part of the US $ 18 million budget must have been invested in the special effects of the work. And, in a way, it worked, as with many, including famed author George RR Martin (Game of Thrones), the creature in this movie, called Vermithrax Pejorative, is the best dragon ever made on screen. . Despite this, the feature film, created in partnership with Paramount, only grossed $ 14 million at the box office.

Also read: 10 box office failures to turn 30 in 2020

We continue through the studio that owns Marvel and Star Wars, now synonymous with success that dominates the market. 40 years ago the situation was very different. That’s because Disney’s two big bets for that year have failed in a monumental way. Above, we mentioned medieval fantasy adventure, but Disney didn’t do well with a comic book superhero proposal either. Who would say. The title Condorman was born out of a book, written by Robert Scheckley, titled “The Game of X”. The best way to define the film is as a mix between Indiana Jones and 007. In other words, an uncompromising morning adventure with elements of spy films. In the story, a writer and designer finds himself embroiled in a James Bond-worthy plot, with rights to Soviet agents, the CIA, and beautiful women in danger. In this way, he decides to become his own invention of the pages, the character Bird-Man. He’s sort of a Batman, with all of Batman’s trinkets including a turbo car and wings to fly. Condorman became a cult and deserved to come back, but at the time he lost almost $ 10 million to the studio, costing him around $ 14 million.

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I already spoke about it here at CinePOP, which is one of, if not “the” production, the most distraught in the history of cinema. The obsessive project of director, producer and screenwriter Noel Marshall, who managed to convince his then-wife, star Tippi Hedren (The Birds), and his family to embark on this journey with him. It turns out that Marshall and Hedren were animal rights spokespersons, related to environmental issues and the protection of wildlife. Anyone familiar with the Netflix documentary series A Mafia dos Tigres can already understand a bit of what Roar is talking about. The message of the film, however, can be confusing, as it shows a family of animal protectors attacked by them, in a sort of The Birds with big cats. The curse behind the film involves the most varied and disturbing injury attacks from the crew and the cast, including Hedren’s then-teenage daughter Melanie Griffith. But according to the slogan: “no animals were injured during the filming, only humans”. With a budget of $ 17 million coming from the pockets of “beauty freaks” Marshall and Hedren themselves, Roar hasn’t even seen a $ 1 million return, making it one of the biggest failures not only of the 1980s, but of film history.

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Who says we don’t have a famous horror movie on the list? The 1980s, especially 1981, were marked as the most successful period for slasher films – teenage horror films about masked maniacs killing with edged weapons. The success of Halloween (1978) opened its doors and Friday the 13th (1980) made all Hollywood producers jump on this wave who wanted to make a little profit. Thus, the time saw the emergence of some real icons of the sub-genre, Freddy and Jason who say so. But just as some films have managed to generate endless sequels from their original, symbolizing their absolute success, others, as beloved and cult as they have become, have stopped at their first copy. And if you’ve wondered all your life why your beloved movie didn’t have a sequel, know that the reason is only one: its failure at the box office.

The point is, the whole proposition of films of this type for producers is that they are cheap to make and profitable. If it is the other way around, there is no reason to be. So, if on one side Friday the 13th, Halloween and A Hora do Nightmare had “humorous” sequels, and Macabro Valentine’s Day, even if it left a big hook for the sequel, it did not come out of the film. , the reason it was just money. The Canadian slasher who takes Valentine’s Day as a date has become known as the “proletarian” horror (since the characters are workers in a coal mine). While the genre’s biggest hits topped the $ 20 million box office mark, this film only hit “only” $ 5 million. But having cost a little over a million dollars, it’s far from a resounding failure; generate a remake in 2009.

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To complete the list of great failures, we have a production of the famous Francis Ford Coppola. The filmmaker has lost his illusions with the Hollywood system and in recent years has focused on his passion for wine – the artist owns his own winery – and occasionally creates a very independent film, which ends up being seen. by half a dozen dripping cats. Coppola’s value will never falter, having been the originator of some of the best films in cinema history, such as The Godfather trilogy, Apocalypse Now and The Conversation. But let’s face it, the truth is that unlike directors like Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese, Coppola hasn’t been able to stay on top of the wave over the decades, taking a “broth” due to the resounding failures of some. of his films. .

Coppola is more in the vein of Brian De Palma, another who has unfortunately been rejected by Hollywood due to the poor performance of his last projects. For Coppola, this hasn’t just happened lately, and 40 years ago he was already reeling, causing astronomical losses when launching vanity projects. This is the case with this Heart of the Heart, a dramatic novel created in the style of Broadway musicals. Released by Columbia (Sony), it was initially a small production of $ 2 million, which climbed to $ 26 million – grossing less than $ 1 million at the box office and becoming one of the most big fiascos in the history of cinema. Coppola himself said that the films he made in the 1980s and 1990s had to pay off debts accumulated after the failure of this ambitious production.

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