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Throwing more money at a movie doesn’t necessarily make it any better. Sometimes it just means there are much more expensive mistakes happening on screen. Hollywood has spent staggering amounts on movies that audiences hated, critics tore apart, or practically nobody showed up to see. A few eventually found defenders, while others have spent decades being used as examples of what can happen when a huge production goes spectacularly wrong. Reddit users recently debated which big-budget disaster deserves to be called the worst of them all, and there was no shortage of candidates. From notorious box-office bombs to expensive adaptations that disappointed devoted fans, these are 15 of their picks.
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Battlefield Earth (2000)
Few movies have developed a reputation quite like Battlefield Earth. The expensive sci-fi adaptation became a critical disaster and has spent decades appearing in conversations about the worst movies ever made.
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Cats (2019)
One Reddit user challenged people to make it through the opening minutes without wondering what they were watching. With a reported budget around $95 million, the infamous digital-fur adaptation turned a hugely successful musical into one of Hollywood’s strangest expensive misfires.
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Megalopolis (2024)
Francis Ford Coppola spent decades trying to make his ambitious passion project and ultimately financed much of it himself. With a budget reportedly exceeding $100 million and a disappointing theatrical run, its enormous scale only made the divisive response more noticeable.
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Gigli (2003)
Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez were two of the most famous people in America, but even that couldn’t save Gigli. One Reddit user pointed to its roughly $75 million budget and disastrous box-office performance while simply describing the movie as “god awful”.
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Borderlands (2024)
A popular video game franchise, a recognizable cast, and a sizable budget should have given Borderlands plenty to work with. Instead, the adaptation received brutal reviews and struggled badly at the box office.
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The Lone Ranger (2013)
Disney spent well over $200 million turning the classic character into a massive Johnny Depp blockbuster. The resulting movie became an equally massive financial disappointment.
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John Carter (2012)
Disney had enormous plans for John Carter, including hopes for a new franchise. Its reported $250 million production budget instead produced one of the most famous box-office bombs of the 2010s.
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Mulan (2020)
Disney’s live-action Mulan reportedly cost around $200 million, but its release was complicated enormously by the COVID-19 pandemic. Even beyond the unusual release strategy, many viewers felt the remake lost much of what made the animated original work.
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The Last Airbender (2010)
Fans of Avatar: The Last Airbender had high expectations for a live-action movie. M. Night Shyamalan’s expensive adaptation instead became notorious for its performances, exposition, and controversial changes to the beloved source material.
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The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003)
Sean Connery famously took the role of Allan Quatermain after passing on other major fantasy projects he didn’t understand. The troubled production became his final live-action film before he stepped away from acting.
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Heaven’s Gate (1980)
Heaven’s Gate became more than a box-office bomb. Its runaway production costs and disastrous commercial performance contributed to the collapse of United Artists as an independent studio and became a cautionary tale about giving directors unchecked control.
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Waterworld (1995)
Before audiences even saw it, Waterworld was famous for being extraordinarily expensive. Elaborate sets, difficult ocean filming, and production problems pushed its budget to record-setting levels for the time, making the movie synonymous with Hollywood excess.
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Ishtar (1987)
Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman couldn’t prevent Ishtar from becoming one of the most notorious flops of the 1980s. Its escalating production costs became almost as famous as the comedy itself.
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Napoleon (2023)
Ridley Scott had hundreds of millions of dollars, Joaquin Phoenix, enormous battle sequences, and one of history’s most famous subjects. One Reddit user still found the result so disappointing that they couldn’t even finish watching it.
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The Adventures of Pluto Nash (2002)
Eddie Murphy’s sci-fi comedy reportedly cost around $100 million and earned only a tiny fraction of that theatrically. Few movies offer a more dramatic example of a giant budget producing an equally giant financial disaster.
The post 15 People Share Their Pick for the Worst Big Budget Movie Ever Made in American History appeared first on Den of Geek.
