Hollywood’s Most Epic Fails Of The Decade
For every “Avengers,” there’s a “Cats.” While more money than ever is being put into cranking out box office hits and shiny new streaming services, Hollywood has still dealt with its fair share of failures within the past decade.
Let’s take a look back at Hollywood’s most epic fails of the 2010s, from Netflix’s “Qwikster” to Universal’s “Dark Universe” that hardly was.
When it comes to movies...
- These days, the Marvel Cinematic Universe is so huge that it’s ticking off legendary filmmakers like Martin Scorsese for turning film culture into “theme parks.” Back in 2012, Universal tried to hop on Marvel’s coattails by launching their own “Dark Universe,” featuring famous monsters like Frankenstein, Dracula and The Invisible Man.Tom Cruise and Russell Crowe started and ended the “Dark Universe” with “The Mummy”... which didn’t do too well in the box office.
- Fox gave Universal a run for their money with Josh Trank’s failed “Fantastic 4” movie. His take on the Marvel comic boasted an all-star cast including Michael B Jordan, Miles Teller,and Kate Mara… but things quickly took a turn for the worse, with multiple behind-the-scenes road bumps that got so bad that Trank ended up slamming his own movie. After that? Stories popped up about foul his on-set behavior, which pretty much put his promising career on pause.
- The Academy tried and failed to save its declining TV ratings by introducing the “Most Popular Film” category for the 2019 Oscars. Nobody was into it, thinking the “popular” award was a way to give away Oscars to blockbuster films while shutting them out of other categories. The Academy took it back, but either way, Marvel’s “Black Panther” ended up nabbing a Best Picture nomination.
- James Franco and Seth Rogen hopefully knew what they were getting themselves into making a comedy flick about North Korea, “The Interview.” But it seemed like Sony didn’t, since they ended up becoming the target of a hacker group “The Guardians of Peace.” Millions of confidential data, which included emails, were leaked – and the whole thing escalated into an international incident when the White House accused North Korea of being behind the attack.
On the TV side...
- Fox didn’t impress with their new reality series “Utopia,” which brought together 15 men and women, isolated them, and filmed 24-hours a day for one year. There was trouble from day one – including the show’s hefty $50-million price tag – and it was scrapped after just two months.
- Megyn Kelly– remember her? Her risky move from Fox News to NBC last year didn’t pay off for multiple reasons. Not only did ratings start dropping, but she brought the straw that broke the camel’s back when she defended using blackface for a Halloween costume during a segment on her show. After that, she was given the boot a few weeks into 2019.
Now let's talk about streaming and subscriptions...
- Netflix has done well for itself since booming as a DVD-by-mail service at the start of the decade. While nowadays the streaming service has taken over nearly every home in the country, they didn’t nail their business strategy at first. In 2011, Netflix announced the launch of “Qwikster” – a spin-off of the DVD side of Netflix that annoyingly required customers to pay a separate fee with a separate profile on a different website. Sound like a lot? Yeah, Netflix realized that after just a few months, soon cutting the cord on the whole idea that was being compared to Coca Coca’s 1980s fail “New Coke.”
- Tribune Publishing tried really hard to stay hip with the kids in 2016 by introducing their new name, “Tronc.” What does that mean? Apparently, “Tribune Online Content,” but nobody was into it – especially not millennials. Tribune scrapped “Tronc” in 2018...but we still remember.
- Everyone loves a good deal, but they can be too good to be true. That’s what Movie Pass learned after going in over its head in 2017 by promising fans unlimited trips to theaters per month for just $10 per month. Sure, slashing their subscription fee way below competitors sounded great… but the whole thing crashed and burned in just two years.
Source:The Wrap