Ever since Steven Spielberg and George Lucas changed cinema forever through the respective releases of Jaws and Star Wars in 1977, big budget blockbusters have arrived at regular intervals to deliver grandstanding spectacle on an increasingly epic scale. The best ones don’t tend to make the most money, though, but the worst do have a habit of bombing spectacularly.
However, just because a big budget production gets panned by critics and roundly blasted by the general public, that doesn’t mean it can’t enjoy a long-lasting lease of second life, albeit through the opposite means of what the director, writers, cast, and crew intended. It might not be a reputation they asked for, but unintentionally hilarious and so-bad-they’re-great flicks have proven themselves to stand the test of time.
A Reddit thread demanded that the worst and costliest studio-backed projects be named and shamed, but instead, kicking off the conversation with Morbius and Moonfall saw cinephiles turn the discussion upside down to heap praise on flicks so irredeemably awful that they circle right back around to awesomeness.
Alex Proyas’ Gods of Egypt was a disaster in every sense of the word, but it’s so unrelentingly stupid that there’s no small amount of fun to be had. Similarly, John Travolta’s Battlefield Earth deserves to be ranked among the worst movies ever made, but that’s turned out to be part of its charm.
#ReleaseTheButtholeCut saw Cats evolve from an abject disaster to a source of mirth, while Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen‘s gigantic robot balls, the incredibly self-serious Battleship, and the unloved Waterworld are still being spoken about years if not decades later in spite of their reputations. When it comes to blockbusters, “bad” is entirely subjective.