We all love catastrophic failures, and Hollywood flops can single-handedly lose hundreds of millions of dollars, bankrupt entire studios, and ruin prestigious careers. A movie marathon of flops would be like watching a train transporting a load of fireworks smashing into an orphanage located on an active volcano during a Sharknado. You know you couldn’t look away.
However, just because a movie wasn’t a commercial success doesn’t mean it isn’t good. In fact, the most spectacular flops have great production values simply based on the sheer amount of money spent on them. I think a movie marathon of flops has some real untapped potential. It is going to be an entertaining spectacle one way or another.
However, to put together a decent flop movie marathon schedule, the key thing we need to know is: how much money was lost in bringing this cinematic experience to you? The answer is harder to figure out than you might think. Hollywood has strange and secretive accounting practices, which are only amplified when they just lost a ton of money.
So, knowing that the best we can do is form an educated guess, I found some decent flop lists (with financial figures) on Wikipedia, CNBC, the the-numbers.com. Each list disagreed with the other in terms of the movies on the list, and how much money was lost, and one of them wasn’t adjusted for inflation. So, what I did was take an average based on the numbers from each list (when available), and adjusted for inflation as needed. That sounds a lot like science, in that math is involved.
And so, I came up with a list (dollar amounts are in 2014 dollars).
Top 20 Movie Flops, Based on Total Loss
| Movie | Year | Estimated Loss |
| Mars Needs Moms | 2011 | -$144,439,582 |
| Cuttthroat Island | 1995 | -$142,147,256 |
| The Alamo | 2004 | -$134,784,016 |
| John Carter | 2012 | -$133,289,640 |
| The 13th Warrior | 1999 | -$133,127,431 |
| The Adventures of Pluto Nash | 2002 | -$130,429,259 |
| Sahara | 2005 | -$127,167,887 |
| The Fall of the Roman Empire | 1964 | -$126,417,784 |
| 47 Ronin | 2013 | -$126,158,267 |
| The Lone Ranger | 2013 | -$119,173,592 |
| Town and Country | 2001 | -$115,352,672 |
| How do you know? | 2010 | -$115,215,810 |
| Heaven’s Gate | 1980 | -$112,748,057 |
| Final Fantasy: The Spirits within | 2001 | -$108,125,697 |
| Speed Racer | 2008 | -$106,054,234 |
| Jack the Giant Slayer | 2013 | -$105,813,215 |
| RIPD | 2013 | -$94,250,663 |
| Inchon | 1982 | -$89,870,942 |
| Treasure Planet | 2002 | -$83,833,389 |
Now, this is a fine list, but we have a 24-hour movie marathon format to satisfy. So, to get the most flop in the least amount of time, we’d want to schedule the biggest losers according to how much money they lost per minute of movie. That results in the following list.
Top 20 Movie Flops, Based on Dollars Lost Per Minute
| Movie | Year | Loss / Minute |
| Mars Needs Moms | 2011 | -$1,641,359 |
| The Adventures of Pluto Nash | 2002 | -$1,372,940 |
| The 13th Warrior | 1999 | -$1,305,171 |
| Cuttthroat Island | 1995 | -$1,146,349 |
| Town and Country | 2001 | -$1,109,160 |
| 47 Ronin | 2013 | -$1,069,138 |
| Sahara | 2005 | -$1,025,547 |
| Final Fantasy: The Spirits within | 2001 | -$1,020,054 |
| John Carter | 2012 | -$1,009,770 |
| The Alamo | 2004 | -$983,825 |
| RIPD | 2013 | -$981,778 |
| How do you know? | 2010 | -$952,197 |
| Jack the Giant Slayer | 2013 | -$928,186 |
| Treasure Planet | 2002 | -$882,457 |
| The Lone Ranger | 2013 | -$799,823 |
| Solider | 1998 | -$797,095 |
| Speed Racer | 2008 | -$785,587 |
| The Fall of the Roman Empire | 1964 | -$672,435 |
| Gigli | 2003 | -$644,311 |
Picking off the top of this list, and making a few creative choices along the way to create a decent schedule, I give you….
The World’s Best Movie Marathon of Flops
| Start Time | Title | Runtime | Loss / Min |
| 12:00 PM | Mars Needs Moms | 88 min. | -$1,641,359 |
| 01:45 PM | The Adventures of Pluto Nash | 95 min. | -$1,372,940 |
| 03:30 PM | The 13th Warrior | 102 min. | -$1,305,171 |
| 05:15 PM | Cuttthroat Island | 124 min. | -$1,146,349 |
| 07:30 PM | Town and Country | 104 min. | -$1,109,160 |
| 09:15 PM | 47 Ronin | 118 min. | -$1,069,138 |
| 11:15 PM | Final Fantasy: The Spirits within | 106 min. | -$1,020,054 |
| 01:15 AM | John Carter | 132 min. | -$1,009,770 |
| 03:30 AM | The Alamo | 137 min. | -$983,825 |
| 06:00 AM | How do you know? | 121 min. | -$952,197 |
| 08:15 AM | Jack the Giant Slayer | 114 min. | -$928,186 |
| 10:15 AM | Treasure Planet | 95 min. | -$882,457 |
| 12:00 PM | Finish |
This movie marathon cost the studios an astounding $1,472,716,233 (that’s almost $1.5 BILLION dollars – adjusted for inflation) of their own money. These movies lost an average of $1,118,384 per minute of runtime. Awesome!
So hey – the next time you complain about movie ticket prices – remember – sometimes the studios take one for the team too.
