10 Surprising Box Office Failures
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Image credit: Film Discrict
9. OLDBOY (2013)
Production budget of $35 million, worldwide gross of $4 million. Estimated Losses (includes some marketing costs) – over $30m. Josh Brolin and Samuel L. Jackson couldn’t make a hit out of Spike Lee’s remake of the 2003 classic. Newcomers may have been turned off by the relentlessly bleak trailer and the film’s widely-reported ultraviolence and taboo sexual themes. Curiously, it was moved from its original release date near Halloween to the overcrowded Thanksgiving frame, where it was utterly destroyed by the competition.
It probably didn’t help that around the film’s release a designer came out accusing Lee of stealing his poster designs to promote “Oldboy.” The movie’s Facebook page quickly became overrun by negative feedback.
