Julian totally called it. The Fifth Estate, the unauthorised film retelling the Wikileaks story that Julian Assange called “a geriatric snoozefest that only the US government could love” has been declared as the Biggest Movie Flop of 2013. According to business and finance mag Forbes, The Fifth Estate brought in only $6 million at the box office globally, against a production budget of $28 million – a paltry 21% return on investment. And those numbers don’t even include the money spent by Dreamworks in marketing the film, which probably went into overdrive after Wikileaks Wikileaked the script early and denounced it as “irresponsible, counterproductive and harmful” and “a work of fiction masquerading as fact”.
Other notable disasters on the list include the Gary Oldman/Harrison Ford/Liam Hemsworth thriller Paranoia that failed to thrill, well, anyone, making back only 39% of its budget; the Mark Wahlberg/Russell Crowe vehicle Broken City, which delivered 54%; and the Jeff Bridges/Ryan Reynolds action comedy Men In Black But With Ghosts Instead Of Aliens RIPD, which returned only 60%. Here’s the full list of top (bottom?) ten stinkers:
1. The Fifth Estate: 21 percent return
2. Bullet to the Head: 36 percent return
3. Paranoia: 39 percent return
4. Parker: 49 percent return
5. Broken City: 54 percent return
6. Battle of the Year: 55 percent return
7. Getaway: 58 percent return
8. Peeples: 60 percent return
9. RIPD: 60 percent return
10. The Big Wedding: 63 percent return
Via Forbes
