Review by Booklist Review
By "flop," veteran film critic Robey does not mean movies that merely did poorly at the box office. He means movies that bombed, that failed (sometimes spectacularly) to earn back their production cost. He means D.W. Griffith's Intolerance (1916), Orson Welles' The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), David Lynch's Dune (1984), Ron Underwood's The Adventures of Pluto Nash (2002), Tom Hooper's Cats (2019), and dozens of other movies that span the history of Hollywood. This isn't one of those books that make fun of bad movies; the author has carefully chosen these particular films because they could have been successful, and in some cases are even good. But they failed due to studio interference, a misjudgment of audience reaction, the excesses of a filmmaker, poor casting choices, or any number of other reasons. Box Office Poison is a wonderfully lively look at Hollywood history from a unique and highly revelatory angle, showing us that, in many cases, the movies that failed can tell us more about the film industry than the successes can. Film buffs should consider this book required reading.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Daily Telegraph film critic Robey (coeditor of The DVD Stack) serves up a rollicking survey of cinematic turkeys from 1916's Intolerance through 2019's Cats. Many of the films succumbed to studio interference, Robey contends, recounting how a discouraging test screening for Orson Welles's The Magnificent Ambersons caused studio RKO to cut and reshoot significant portions of the film without Welles's input. Other movies suffered from chaotic productions. For instance, the on-location shoot in Egypt for Howard Hawks's Land of the Pharaohs was hamstrung by equipment failure, screenwriter William Faulkner's alcoholism, and rowdy extras drawn from the Egyptian army, while Peter Hyams's sci-fi flick A Sound of Thunder churned through stars and had to make do with bargain-bin special effects after its shady financial backers went bankrupt. Some flops are masterpieces too unorthodox to hold mass appeal, Robey contends, singling out George Miller's uncommonly dark children's film Babe: Pig in the City. The selections refreshingly exclude many of the usual suspects (Waterworld, Ishtar) to make room for less-discussed bombs, and it's a joy to watch Robey gleefully rip into true stinkers, as when he writes of Catwoman, "Drag Race parodies could quote this entire script and never hope to capture the singular idiocy with which it lands." This catalog of mediocrity is a wild success. Agent: Veronica Goldstein, UTA. (Nov.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
Covering over 100 years of Hollywood infamy, Daily Telegraph film critic Robey tours some legendary cinematic flops. His criteria for a flop are that something went epically wrong in the film's production, a tremendous amount of money was lost, or personalities or the press conspired to doom a project. A Robey flop is a film with high or inflated expectations that failed to meet critical or financial success, regardless of its objective merit. He covers 26 infamous films such as Gigli, Cutthroat Island, The Adventures of Pluto Nash, Alexander, and 2019's Cats, but also explores some films that have since garnered an improved critical or cult status, such as David Lynch's Dune, Todd Browning's Freaks, Terry Gilliam's The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, and Orson Welles's The Magnificent Ambersons. He wisely avoids films that have been flogged too many times (e.g., Heaven's Gate and Ishtar, though they are referenced). With seasoned polish, the essays are engaging, informative, filled with relevant references to other films and filmmakers, and fun to read. This book proves that even some of cinema's greatest failures are worth reading about and watching. VERDICT A surefire hit for movie lovers.--Peter Thornell
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
Hollywood producers are never as smart as they think they are, says critic Robey, and a lengthy list of lemons proves it.Schadenfreude is a German word which means finding enjoyment in the misfortune of other people, and it is never more fun than when applied to Hollywood hucksters with more dollars than sense. Robey, a film critic of long experience, has a great time reminding them of their missteps, failures, and outright debacles, delving into the background of 26 clunkers. The history of flops goes back a long way, to the days of silent cinema andIntolerance. Its cast of thousands and huge sets consumed cash by the bucketload, but Hollywood never learns from its mistakes, and the process was repeated in a string of historical epics likeLand of the Pharaohs. Other failures, such as the ruinously expensiveCutthroat Island, were plagued by creative conflicts between, well, everyone involved. Looking to sequels for surefire hits, Hollywood bet big onSpeed 2: Cruise Control, but it sank without a trace.Babe 2: Pig in the City failed to capture its predecessor's charm and instead became a dark nightmare. The idea of relying on popular source material yieldedCatwoman, which not even a whip-wielding Halle Berry could save, and the abysmalCats, about which the less is said the better. But there is no excuse for disasters likeAlexander,The Adventures of Pluto Nash , andGigli. Robey has a great time with all this, although he notes that streaming and global distribution are making it more difficult to assess the financial losses of a turkey. In any case,Box Office Poison is a fun read, and it asks a key question: What were they thinking?With sardonic wit, Robey romps through a roll call of movies that Hollywood would rather forget. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
