An ineffectual remake that should never have cost $100 million under any circumstances lives a double life on Netflix

Movies have been getting exponentially more expensive as time goes by, but there are some projects that come along and leave you scratching your head and questioning why on earth they need to cost as much as they did, with the 2005 remake of Fun with Dick and Jane definitely among them.

The 1977 original was a solid suburban caper, with the do-over following pretty much the exact same template – albeit with some inspirations from the recent Enron collapse. Jim Carrey’s Dick loses his job, so he and Tea Leoni’s Jane naturally turn to a life of crime and end up discovering they’re actually pretty good at it, before a revenge plot pits them against Alec Baldwin’s unscrupulous business owner, who may have intentionally tanked his own company for financial gain.

It’s all by-the-numbers stuff that doesn’t feature extensive visual effects, far-flung locations, or explosive action sequences, but Fun with Dick and Jane somehow still managed to set Sony back a cool $100 million for reasons that don’t seem to make sense. On the plus side, it did recoup those costs twice over and then some at the box office, but critics weren’t left thrilled with the end result.

Regardless, Netflix subscribers have opted to revisit the redux almost 20 years on from its arrival, with FlixPatrol naming it as one of the platform’s top-viewed features. It’s a decent enough distraction, but there’s no chance you’d watch it for the first time and be able to guess that it was a nine-figure investment.