When it comes to failure, nobody does it better than Hollywood.
Bigger! Bolder! Cringeworthy on steroids! We can’t look away at turkeys like “Doctor Doolittle” (1967), “Rollerball” (2002) and “Catwoman” (2004), three duds dissected in Tim Robey’s “Box Office Poison.”
The book starts near the dawn of cinema and takes us all the way up to the gold standard of modern misfires, 2019’s “Cats.”
Robey spares no details in his exhaustive work, one that avoids obvious misfires as “Battlefield Earth,” “Waterworld,” “The Bonfire of the Vanities” and “Heaven’s Gate.”
(“The Devil’s Candy” shared everything we needed to know about the “Vanities” debacle.)
Instead, we take deep dives in duds like “Nothing But Trouble,” the 1991 catastrophe starring some of Hollywood’s best comic talents. “Poison” covers more than a century of film, but some things never change.
Ego. Denial. Overcompensation. Greed. Sometimes even the best of intentions lead filmmakers astray.
It’s a delightful tour through Hollywood excess, and Robey’s puckish pose keeps us engaged even as he pours on the details. Studio executives might wince with each new chapter, but readers will relish the flop-sweat closeups.
Some villains emerge from the wreckage. Actor Oliver Reed hardly comes off well. Nor does Rex Harrison of “Doctor Doolittle” fame. How a young Sarah Polley survived her first brush with fame via “The Adventures of Baron Munchausen” is anyone’s guess.
As A Child, Sarah Polley Feared For Her Life On Terry Gilliam’s Chaotic Film Set:https://t.co/yN1Cmk3Zb6 #arts #artsnews
On The Adventures of Baron Munchausen set, “Blasts of debris exploded on the ground around me, accompanied by deafening booms that made me feel as if … pic.twitter.com/QBsa1JV5cS
— ArtsJournal (@ArtsJournalNews) June 14, 2022
Other stars are victims of circumstance. The kaleidoscope of errors behind 1991’s “Nothing But Trouble” rushes to mind.
The book also notes the cruelty that accompanies failure. A few name directors saw their careers evaporate after one flop too many. Others loyally went down with the ship, unwilling to release their grasp on projects that seemed doomed from the jump.
Robey blends film criticism with a reporter’s eye for the tiniest grain of gossip. He’s also prone to a few woke asides. Why summon the spectre of white leading men while X-raying the failure that was “Catwoman?”
It’s an unnecessary tic but hardly a distraction.
RELATED: WHY ‘KING ARTHUR’ DIDN’T DESERVE TO FLOP SO HARD
“Poison” unearths plenty of delicious morsels for movie fans to savor. The author rummages through old interviews, dog-eared press kits and more to craft three-dimensional portraits of productions gone wild.
He’s never cruel, just surgical in his assessments. He’s oddly enamored of some of these stiffs, putting aside his admiration to show why they bled red ink for their studios.
Durable themes can’t help but emerge from the wreckage. Casting matters, always. Egos sink more than a few projects. Stubborn artists get plenty of blame, but one could argue that attitude also helped shape more than a few film classics.
Imagine if James Cameron threw up his hands rather than finish “Titanic,” awash in bad buzz for much of its creative life.
Some anecdotes will linger, like Andrew Lloyd Webber acquiring an emotional support dog following the “Cats” debacle. That story’s punchline won’t be spoiled here, but it’s so good it’s worth picking up the book all on its own.
The book ends, appropriately enough, with “Cats.” Robey notes the flop business got more complicated in recent years. Hollywood remains absurdly risk averse, clinging to IPs and safe bets at nearly every turn.
The Hollywood flop will never die. Just ask the folks behind 2024’s “Better Man,” the monkey musical based on Robbie Williams’ career.
After the massive flop of #BetterMan, the question was less: Why didn’t audiences turn out to see a $110 million R-rated pop biopic plotted around a cocaine-snorting CGI chimp? More: Who would even think they *could* make $$ with that? My post-mortem: https://t.co/imOfFJKfIz
— Chris Lee (@__ChrisLee) January 16, 2025
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