On Box Office Flops...

I have a confession to make.  I really like box office flops.
It's almost like there's a direct ratio of how badly a movie performs critically and how much I enjoy it.  There are exceptions to this rule of course.  Some movies like 'Jonah Hex' or 'Prince of Persia' have truly disappointed me.  But for every 'Prince of Persia' it seems like there are five 'Cowboys and Aliens'.

I get a bizarre pleasure of reading bad reviews, then seeing the movie myself and then going: "What's wrong with the critics?  What's wrong with audiences?  This is amazing!  Our society is undeserving of this masterpiece!"  I think it's the same counter-cultural trait I have that seeks out TV shows that have been canceled after only one season and going: "WHAT WERE THEY THINKING!  THIS SHOW WAS THE BEST THING EVER!"  I think this may be part of the reason my big brother is convinced that I'm secretly a Hipster.

For the past three years I've allowed myself to see at least one guilty pleasure flop movie.
Last year it was 'Seventh Son'.
The year before that it was 'I, Frankenstein'.
This year it was 'Gods of Egypt'.
I enjoyed each one slightly more then the last.  I think 'Gods of Egypt' is my favorite flop in recent memory.  If this keeps up, I can't wait of next years flop!

So.  Why do such enjoyable movies flop on a regular basis?
I'm assuming that other people enjoy some of these too, and it's not just that there's something wrong with me.  I think it's probably a case by case thing, but here are some common factors in the flops I like.

The flops I like (just like everything else I like) tend to be genre movies.  The stuff that appeals to Geeks.  "But Geekboy," you say, "All of the most successful movie of the past decade (minus the teen romances) have been comic book movies aimed at Geeks!"  And you'd be right.  Geekdom has been dominating the box office.  But for whatever reason, Geek movies are very sink or swim.  It will either make a million dollars like 'The Avengers', or it will flop.

Flops tend to be like B-movies.  They're fun as all get out.  Escapism in its purist form.  They really appeal to a small group of people, and those people go see them and enjoy them.  Eventually these movies will probably be cult classics.  But unlike the monsters and aliens that inhabit classic B-movies,  The modern day flops often have a huge budget.  I recall reading about Disney's 'The Lone Ranger' how ironic it is when a modern day western goes overbudget, because B-grade westerns used to be the cheapest movies to make.  Even though a group of people see and like these movies, if they don't have selling power, some kind of marketing gimmick like a bunch of popular Superheroes together in one movie, they can't make back the money spent trying to make the coolest movie ever.


I'd like to start a new segment on this blog called 'Floptacular Films'.  In these posts I plan to give some of those overlooked movies a second look.  There are movies out there that I almost didn't watch because they didn't do well, or because a lot of people didn't like them.  Maybe you skipped over some of these that I enjoyed.  Maybe if more people looked on the bright side of these flops, people would watch them and fewer enjoyable movies would be dismissed by society.