‘Bangkok Dangerous,’ Nicolas Cage’s latest movie, bombed during its opening weekend – earning less than $8 million at the box office.

The film sees directors Danny Pang and Oxide Pang Chun remaking their own 1999 flick, with the same plot from their first attempt. The second time’s obviously not the charm for the duo. Adding Cage to the film didn’t save it from turning into a box office blunder.

Considering that the film cost over $45 million to make and that, just a year ago, Cage was in box office heaven with the second installment of the ‘National Treasure’ series, such a massive flop invokes curiosity about great stars that make such awesomely bad films.

rdjone03@syr.edu

‘Glitter’ (2001)

Ah, Mariah Carey. Whilst fighting an emotional breakdown and a divorce from record executive Tommy Mottola, Carey still managed to star in one of the worst movies of all time. Simply put, ‘Glitter’ is a movie starring Mariah Carey, about Mariah Carey and for Mariah Carey. She has created her own government. ‘Glitter’ got just about as much interest as the Green Party before Al Gore came along. It pulled in a mere $4.2 million domestically. Seeing as Carey recently married pop singer Nick Cannon, there just might be a sequel to this box-office flop: prepare for ‘Glitter 2.’

‘From Justin to Kelly’ (2003)

A sudden surge of teenagers buying cell phones, a reality television series that sweeps the nation, a giant ‘fro – the perfect conditions for box office disaster. American Idol’s original winner Kelly Clarkson and runner-up Justin Guarini starred in a movie about text message love. Raking in less than $5 million at the box office, the film was painful to watch for anyone interested in plot, writing technique, directing, even music. Clarkson managed to overcome this cinema crash with her music, but where is Guarini? Well, he played ‘Keith (The High Roller)’ in the movie ‘Frankie the Squirrel.’ Enough said.

‘Gigli’ (2003)

‘The violent story about how a criminal lesbian, a tough-guy hit-man with a heart of gold and a retarded man came to be best friends through a hostage.’ That’s the plot given by the Internet Movie Database. Was it good? No. Did people watch it? No. The Jennifer Lopez, Ben Affleck and Christopher Walken film pulled in about $6 million domestically, putting it on the list of biggest box-office flops. Actors can have a bad day, but director Martin Brest went from ‘Meet Joe Black’ and ‘Scent of a Woman’ to this?

‘Catwoman’ (2004)

With a cast of Halle Berry, Benjamin Bratt, Sharon Stone and internationally renowned director Pitof, ‘Catwoman’ is one of those films that leave one question: why? An Oscar award winning actress, a heartthrob and another Oscar nominated and Emmy winning actress somehow managed to make one of the worst movies of all time. By putting Berry in tight leather and giving her whips, ‘Catwoman’ did give teenage boys across the country two-hour eye candy. But unfortunately, it did absolutely nothing else. While its box office gross wasn’t as bad as ‘Glitter,’ the movie failed to earn back half of its roughly $100 million production cost.

Published on September 10, 2008 at 12:00 pm