Are these the most disastrous Hollywood films of all time?

Taylor Swift in Cats (2019), a film which was released to excoriating reviews
Taylor Swift in Cats (2019), a film which was released to excoriating reviews - Universal Pictures

The history of cinema, Tim Robey writes, tends to be told via its most dazzling hits. But a more interesting, and bathetic, picture might emerge if you were to ignore the triumphs, and exhume the flops from Hollywood’s graveyard. In Box Office Poison, an entertainingly gossipy book, the Telegraph film critic therefore romps through 26 of the most commercially unsuccessful films ever made, none of which came close to making their money back.

Robey begins with a cracker: the 1916 film Intolerance, made by DW Griffith, the James Cameron of his day. Framed around four historical narratives dealing with the eponymous theme, it was filmed on a set that remains one of the most ostentatious ever built, with walls 300ft high and thousands of extras employed to play background Babylonians. But soon enough, it was battered by a storm – one of several adverse weather incidents in Robey’s book – and the horses enlisted for a chariot race freaked out, as the ramparts they were meant to be galloping down wobbled perilously. The battle shoot, too, was bedlam: 60 injuries were sustained in a single day.

Rex Harrison, as Tim Robey relates, suffered badly during the making of Doctor Dolittle
Rex Harrison, as Tim Robey relates, suffered badly during the making of Doctor Dolittle - Moviepix

In the midst of the chaos, Griffith could be seen, one camera operator recalled, sporting “a grin of purest delight… The man was actually enjoying the situation.” The film was enjoyed considerably less by audiences. Griffith spoke of “wandering through the darkened theatres”, banging his shins on the empty seats. “I don’t know where to go,” he admitted, “or where to turn, since my great failure.”

Many of the flops recounted by Robey are similar tales of ambition making brutal contact with reality. A particular motif is the hell you can unleash when you make the mistake of working with animals. On the 1929 film Queen Kelly, whose shoots often went past 5am, an actress was given a cat to caress; even the cat got bored, and began scratching her in protest, meaning it had to be fitted with mittens. On Doctor Dolittle (1967), Rex Harrison kept being urinated on by sheep; a giraffe held up shooting when it (reportedly) stepped on its own penis; and a fawn needed its stomach pumped after it gulped down a quart of paint. (Harrison, alas, behaved little better. Puffed up after his recent Oscar win for My Fair Lady, he was a nightmare to work with, calling his co-star Anthony Newley a “cockney Jew” and a “sewer rat”.)

'Slow boat': Sandra Bullock in Speed II
‘Slow boat’: Sandra Bullock in Speed II (1997) - Film Stills

How to prevent a flop? Often, they look at first like reasonable propositions: take 2004’s Catwoman, starring the lovely Halle Berry. Others are damned from the very start. Speed (1994) had been an innovative nailbiter about a bus that will blow up if it goes slower than 50mph. The sequel, it was eccentrically decided, would revolve around a cruise ship – which even at full pelt, would never be able to go much faster than roughly 20mph. Keanu Reeves bailed on the film, but Sandra Bullock stayed, which she later regretted, summarising Speed II thus: “Slow boat. Slowly going towards an island.”

Robey relates these and other tales of woe with palpable enthusiasm, making you want to watch many of the films he’s describing, however dire they sound. Some flops, he concedes, are mediocrities, but others are “disasterpieces”: flawed but with a “peculiar integrity”. Just look at the oddly dark sequel, Babe: Pig in the City (1998).

In the streaming era, Robey laments, it can be hard to know how floppy a flop is. Studios save face by dumping their duds on streaming platforms, which don’t have to release any viewing figures. But the concept itself is far from dead: critics were calling Francis Ford Coppola’s latest film “Megaflopolis” before it had even found a UK distributor.

And Robey finishes on a recent high note: the 2019 travesty that was Cats. The signs were never auspicious: shooting only began in 2018, just a year before the scheduled premiere. When the trailer arrived, the internet had a field day. What was Judi Dench doing, wearing a coat that seemed to be made of tangerine cat fur? Why did the female cats seem to have human breasts? The special-effects company tasked with finishing the film went into overdrive, with staff pulling 80-hour weeks. Tom Hooper, the director, was accused of “disrespectful” and “demeaning” behaviour towards them. (He has never responded.) Cats was duly released, but to excoriating reviews. Hooper hasn’t been entrusted with a feature film since.

As for Andrew Lloyd Webber, the impresario behind the musical on which the film was based? He was left so traumatised that he bought an emotional support dog, which he named Mojito. Soon after, during the Covid-19 pandemic, Lloyd Webber faced the problem of how to take Mojito to New York, and wrote to his airline to beg for special dispensation. “Can you prove that you really need him?” the airline wrote back. “Just see what Hollywood did to my musical,” he replied. The airline approved Mojito with a note: “No doctor’s report required.”


Box Office Poison is published by Faber at £16.99. To order your copy for £14.99, call 0808 196 6794 or visit Telegraph Books