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7 movies that got studio heads fired

7 movies that got studio heads fired

  • 7 movies that got studio heads fired

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    Usually when you’re at the top of the food chain you can get away with anything. But in Hollywood, sometimes even the biggest names have to take the fall. When a movie bombs so badly that millions of dollars are lost, sometimes it takes a studio head to Hell with it. Here are seven stinkers that cost the jobs of the top men (and women) at some of the world’s biggest movie studios. -K. Thor Jensen

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  • 7 'The Last Action Hero'

    Mark Canton is one of those Hollywood guys who always seemed to be in the thick of it, for better and for worse. During his tenure as head of Columbia Pictures, he raked in stacks of cash with movies like Men In Black and Air Force One. Unfortunately, by the end of his tenure he started to make big bets on very weird picks like Jim Carrey’s The Cable Guy. The last straw came with Arnold Schwarzenegger’s The Last Action Hero, which basically ruined the Terminator’s career for a few years and flopped all over the world. Canton was bounced by Sony (who owned Columbia) soon after.

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  • 6 'Cutthroat Island'

    This one’s a special pick, as it didn’t just get the head of the studio fired – it got everybody fired. Cutthroat Island was a Renny Harlin pirate adventure starring Geena Davis and Matthew Modine, and for a long time it was considered one of the biggest box office failures of all time. Made for a then-staggering budget of $98 million, it only played for two weeks and brought in less than $10 million. Carolco Pictures, the company that produced it, was already on the ropes from Showgirls, so when Cutthroat Island tanked, company owners Mario Kassar and Andrew Vajna put the company into bankruptcy and fired everyone, including themselves.

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  • 5 'Howard The Duck'

    How does one of the most successful directors of all time make one of the hugest bombs in cinema history? By following his heart. George Lucas came off of the successes of Star Wars and Raiders Of The Lost Ark with carte blanche to do whatever he wanted, and what he wanted was to produce an adaptation of cult 70s comic Howard The Duck. Created by Steve Gerber, Howard was an absurdist hero trapped in a world he never made (Cleveland), but by the time the movie hit screens it was an unfunny, ugly mess, losing $20 million. Just the duck suit alone cost a cool $2 million. Universal studio head Frank Price was the duck’s last victim, quitting shortly after the release at the urging of the studio’s owners.

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  • 4 'Heaven’s Gate'

    When we talk about flops, one movie always floats to the top of the bowl: Heaven’s Gate. Directed by Michael Cimino, the epic Western romance went insanely over budget, with excessive drug use and myriad reshoots costing United Artists $40 million (in 1979 dollars). The final cut was over five hours long! After Cimino was forced to trim it down to three and change, the film was released to one theater in New York City, where it played for a week. Andy Albeck, the president of United Artists, was the man who took the fall, being removed from his post and then forced out of the company entirely. He retired to open a Christmas tree farm.

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  • 3 'Titan A.E.'

    On paper, Titan A.E. sounded pretty cool – an animated sci-fi movie for grown-ups, without all the schmaltz and songs that made Disney movies of the late 90s so painful. But when the movie, produced by Fox Animation Studios, hit theaters in 2000 after major delays, it flopped hardcore. Blame casting Janeane Garofolo as a bat alien. The film was the death knell for Fox Animation Studios, which had been bleeding money relentlessly for years, and soon afterwards Fox’s studio head Bill Mechanic, who had produced dozens of hits for the company, was forced out.

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  • 2 'John Carter'

    Rich Ross, the head of Disney, wasn’t the only person responsible for the colossal flop that was John Carter, but he ended up taking the fall. On paper, it looked like an easy win – Pixar wunderkind Andrew Staunton helming an epic action film with cool monsters and a hot chick. But endless reshoots and inept marketing ruined any chance it had. Ross was the man who had faith in Staunton’s abilities, and a month after John Carter hit theaters he resigned. Unfortunately for him, Disney would then make serious bank with The Avengers just a month or so later.

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  • 1 'The Lady In The Water'

    How embarrassing is it to have your career scuppered by a M. Night Shyamalan movie? Nina Jacobson was the head of production at Disney who worked with The Sixth Sense director on four of his films, but when he started working on The Lady In The Water the pair started to clash, with M. Night eventually taking the project to Warner Brothers. Disney’s board was so pissed that they gave Jacobson the boot, but she was vindicated when the flick bombed and she went on to produce The Hunger Games, which made a dog-pile of money.

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