A colossal star-studded comedic flop tries to wring laughs out of streaming crowds

If you were to look at nothing but the name involved and the premise, then you’d have every right to believe The Big Year was a monster-sized comedic success that had audiences rolling in the aisles.

After all, The Devil Wears Prada and Marley & Me director David Frankel had proven his chops, while a story following three men leading different but equally stagnant lives deciding to make something of their time by entering a cross-country competition that requires them to identify more species of bird than anyone else who enters is curiously nonsensical.

It’s a pretty flimsy setup, but one that’s ripe with potential for absurdity, hilarity, and even some pathos. That’s without even mentioning that the central trio are played by Steve Martin, Owen Wilson, and Jack Black, or that support comes from pretty much everyone, ranging from Rashida Jones, Anjelica Huston, Jim Parsons, and Rosamund Pike to Anthony Anderson, June Squibb, John Cleese, Joel McHale.

Instead, The Big Year was a flop of catastrophically epic proportions. On a budget of over $40 million, the mediocre midlife crisis road trip buddy adventure barely scraped together $7 million from theaters, with reviews far from enthusiastic. Over a decade later, though, and the comeback could be on.

As per FlixPatrol, The Big Year has suddenly reappeared in the public eye as one of the top titles on iTunes, even if it’s nothing but a wasted opportunity.