The 10 Biggest Box Office Bombs of 2011

Would you believe this wasn't even close to the biggest failure of the year?

2011 was one of the worst years for the Hollywood box office in ages. Every weekend was a "down weekend," and though a few major films crashed through the billion dollar mark this year, talking to most people who have even tangential relation to this business, you'd think a truck just ran over Hollywood's puppy, and then pulled over to give it a wedgie while it stood there sobbing.

While we do have a list that showcases the bright spots amid the rampant mediocrity of this year's box office crop, a bright-side leaning piece of positivity to show that, hey, not everything is doom and gloom, this list isn't that. This is a list of the 10 films that failed the most spectacularly. The films that didn't so much go supernova as they did just kind of quietly burn out, like a damp fart unheard in the vast vacuum of the universe. These are ten films that actually pretty much mostly deserved to fail, with just a few unfortunate exceptions. So don't feel too bad.

10. Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star

Please go back to television.

Budget: $10 million

Made: $2,529,395

The film career of Nick Swardson saw itself more or less forced upon hapless film audiences in 2011, like a drunken sorority girl getting a healthy dry humping from the ugly frat brother that can't get within ten feet of the other, more sober girls at the party. With appearances in Just Go With It and Jack and Jill, Swardson confirmed that he is Adam Sandler's favorite helper monkey, but don't go expecting that helper monkey to get his own starring role again any time soon.

Despite investing just $10 million into the comedic abortion that was Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star, Happy Madison still took a bath on this piece of shit, making only 25% of that money back. Nobody wanted to see Swardson with buck-teeth and a pageboy wig pretending to have a small penis for 90 minutes. Hell, considering how lazy the ads for this movie were, I'm not sure anyone at Happy Madison wanted to bother seeing this either.

9. Dylan Dog: Dead of Night

Remind me how this wasn't a Nathan Fillion vehicle again?

Budget: $20 million

Made: $4,634,062

I'm not sure exactly why it is people keep insisting on putting Brandon Routh in movies. As if his presence in the colossal failures Superman Returns and Scott Pilgrim weren't enough evidence of his box office poison status, perhaps the massive bombing of Dylan Dog: Dead of Night will finally put an end to the man's suffering.

To be fair, the odds were stacked against Routh here. Dylan Dog's basis in an obscure, only-popular-in-Italy comic book series didn't help when trying to explain to audiences just what the hell this supernatural detective...thing even was. Unsurprisingly, the vast bulk of the film's worldwide box office came from its native Italy. 75% in total, in fact. Maybe they should have cast an Italian actor for the part. Like Roberto Benigni. Or Waluigi.

8. Atlas Shrugged: Part I

I find your political beliefs...highly erotic.

Budget: $20 million

Made: $4,627,375

Is there any more perfect story than the story of a film based on objectivist novelist Ayn Rand's personal political screed failing by virtue of being a terrible movie, and the producer of said film blaming it on everyone else? That actually happened. Atlas Shrugged, a movie that somehow cost $20 million to make--despite featuring wooden cutouts of actors in place of actual actors, and displaying no real production values beyond evidence that someone rented a helicopter and filmed the Colorado hills for a day--bombed terribly at the box office, and did so during the height of the Tea Party's outrage, a period when people should have been clamoring to see a film explain in great detail why altruism is for assholes and self-interest is the way of the future.

And yet, no one did. Critics panned it, not so much because of the painfully simplified politics, but also because it was barely a movie. And of course, the producer of said film lashed out, blaming political biases and various other things for the film's failure. It couldn't have anything to do with the weakness of the film faltering in favor of other, stronger films. There's no way that the natural order of strong product defeating weaker product could have played out here. No way. Not a chance.

7. Trespass

It sort of pains me to see our greatest living actor in such dire straits. Sort of.

Budget $35 million

Made: $4,860,325

Despite featuring Nicolas Cage and Nicole Kidman in leading roles, and the director's pedigree of one Joel Schumacher (you know, the guy that ruined Batman?), most people probably don't even think of this movie when you mention the title to them. They probably think you're talking about that old Ice-T movie from the early '90s. Rightfully so. That movie's actually pretty good.

This Trespass? Not so much. After a brief theatrical run in Europe, Trespass finally limped its way into American theaters for about a week before it went straight to On Demand services and DVD. Clearly the studio had minimal confidence in the end product, but something must have seemed worthwhile at the outset to greenlight a budget of $35 million. Considering Cage is working on the cheap these days to pay off his various tax debts, you can't even wholly blame actor salaries for that budget, either.

6. There Be Dragons

Hola.

Budget: $36 million

Made: $4,372,642

Had you even heard of this Hollywood/Spanish co-production about the brutal days of the Spanish Civil War? I mean, I had, but I work for a movie website. It's kind of my job to know about these sorts of things.

Evidently the word never quite got out about this one, as There Be Dragons barely registered a red cent in North America, making the bulk of what little money it did make in (surprise!) Spain. And yet, despite featuring such luminary Spanish actors as, uh, Wes Bentley and Dougray Scott, even Spain couldn't really find a good reason to get excited about this portrayal of one of the ugliest times in its history. Maybe if it had actually featured some goddamn dragons...

5. The Big Year

You might say that this movie was "for the birds!" (I would never say that.)

Budget: $41 million

Made: $7,410,646

If you'd told me last year that a movie starring Steve Martin, Jack Black, and Owen Wilson as wacky middle-aged birdwatchers would be a humongous failure at the box office, I would have told you, "Yeah, of course it will be. What, are you kidding me? Who in their right mind would go see that shit?"

Now, maybe if you'd asked me, like, ten years ago, then I might have given you the benefit of the doubt. And yet, this decade-too-late trifecta of comedy personalities did not come together until this, the two-thousand-and-eleventh following Jesus' birth or whatever. And in this year, audiences were not terribly keen to watch these aging and increasingly irrelevant personalities watch birds and be wacky for like 100 minutes. At least Owen Wilson has the success of Midnight In Paris to comfort him at night.

4. Henry's Crime

Okay, so this isn't an image from Henry's Crime, but it's not like you've seen this movie anyway!

Budget: $12 million

Made: $204,940

Don't remember this bizarre crime caper/revenge thriller thing starring Keanu Reeves? Don't worry, you're not alone. I'm pretty sure the only one who remembers anything about it is Rorie, because for some bizarre reason, he actually went and saw it! He almost thought about reviewing it for a minute too, but in the end, that proved unnecessary.

As it turned out, the pedigrees of Reeves and co-stars Vera Farmiga and James Caan weren't enough to get this little thriller more than a limited release, and hardly anyone took the time to seek it out. Apparently the movie wasn't bad or anything--just not that great--but "not bad" doesn't bring people out to art house movie theaters. You've got to be big, bold, Oscar-worthy, or at least be foreign. As it turns out, Henry's true crime was being none of these things, and it was punished accordingly.

3. Margaret

There was a time when Anna Paquin as a teenager was believable: that time was six years ago.

Budget: $14 million

Made: $46,495

Those well-versed in the world of film bloggery are likely already well-aware of the sordid history of Margaret's release. For those unawares, a brief recap.

Director Kenneth Lonergan has been working on this film for the better part of six years. The problem? The movie's been shot for almost the entirety of that period. For multiple years now, Lonergan has held the film hostage as he's continued to edit it, sending studio Fox Searchlight into multiple furies that have even led to lawsuits over the film. Finally, Lonergan put together a finished product, and Searchlight pretty much just kicked it out the door to zero fanfare and no press whatsoever.

Unsurprisingly, the lack of marketing ensured that the movie would tank quickly, though a small, but vocal contingent of film critics and fans have gone to the trouble of promoting the film via social media. Though it's just reappeared at a single theater in New York City, it's unlikely that much more of than $14 million budget will be made via theatrical release. Still, for anyone who is a fan of this movie (and by all accounts, there are some serious fans out there), that it came out at all is something of a small miracle.

2. Passion Play

So, this movie happened.

Budget: $15 million

Made: $3,369

You're not misreading the above number. Three thousand dollars. Three thousand. That is the amount of money this disastrous movie made during its mercifully brief run at theaters.

How does this happen, you ask? Well, one good way to ensure absolutely nobody goes to your movie is apparently to be the most unashamedly pretentious piece of shit anyone can remember. Starring Mickey Rourke as a broken down boxer who falls in love with a stripper (Megan Fox) who also happens to have real goddamned angel wings, this labor-of-love-or-possibly-delusional-insanity by Mitch Glazer was so unbelievably awful that it was effectively laughed out of the Toronto International Film Festival in 2010. Even Rourke couldn't bring himself to say anything nice about the movie, describing it as "another terrible movie" in his long career of them.

And yet, despite all these pointers toward this being a complete bust, the studio behind it still decided to give it a quick, brutal theatrical run, which resulted in the used hatchback's worth of cash you see before you. At least it did no identifiable harm to Megan Fox's career, right?

1. Mars Needs Moms

Pedophiles in Spaaaaaaaace!

Budget: $150 million

Made: $38,992,758

While Mars Needs Moms--the latest attempt by Robert Zemeckis to turn the art of making humans into creepy, almost lifelike representations of humans into a profitable business--made more money than any other film on this list, it also lost way, way more money than any other film on this list. This is one case where the size of the gamble resulted in an astronomical bust.

People have been lukewarm on both the motion-capture animation format and 3D films all year. Save for a few exceptions, neither type of film has really done the kind of gangbusters business anyone in Hollywood expected. The true early warning sign was this film, which combined both aspects for an end result that absolutely nobody wanted to see. Kids films are usually a slam dunk, especially early in the year when there isn't much competition, but Mars Needs Moms got beaten by nearly every other computer animated film this year, with perhaps the sole exception of Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil. This movie's gross loss of more than $111 million is guaranteed to ensure Mars Needs Moms' place among the very biggest failures in Hollywood history.

Any surprises on this list? Any you're particularly sad/happy about? Comment away!