I was wondering if anyone knows or wonders too why this movie was a box office bomb. My guess it came out at the wrong time in the winter when it was clearly a summer popcorn movie. Bad marketing decision.
sharemaybe. I totally love this movie for what it is.
probably marketing sucked as you said
That and it is a very B-type of dumb horror film. Usually B movies don't have $45 Million dollar budget. They have like a 5 Million; for example. The film tremors didn't make that much more that Deep Rising but it had less then 1/3 the budget so it made almost 5 million on a 11 Million Budget. Tremors barely got a way with being good enough for Theater run; Deep Rising was more like a straight to VHS/Sci Fi channel original and they should have constrained the budget to look like that.
As a chessy b-horror film it is not too terrible but there is nothing it that can justify a near $50 million dollar budget.
I don't know man, there are plenty of B-movies with similar themes that had budgets higher than $45 million and were able to turn a profit. You can't have as much action as this film has, and all the effects, and all the sets, and make it for $5 million.
You say that Deep Rising was "more like a Sci-Fi channel original," but I would argue no, it's not, precisely BECAUSE they spent the money to make it a much better film than that. If the Sci-Fi channel (now Syfy) had gotten a hold of this script and produced this film it would not have been nearly as good.
Sci FI actually used to be cool back in the day. To be fair in the 2000s they made some good mini series. Nowadays yeah if this movie was made today the quailty would be Sharknado or those monster movies with Debbie Gibson and Tiffany
shareI've heard some good things about some of their shows, specifically The Expanse, but every film I've seen has been low-budget garbage. The Sharknado films actually I would say are on the high end. They were at least more entertaining than the dreadfully Species 3 and 4.
shareI wonder as well.
I'm not sure how much the time of year has to do with it. I mean, who says, "Hey, that looks like a fun movie, but it's winter and I only do dramas in the winter." I guess the fact that the kids are back in school would potentially effect the box office, but it's hard to say by how much.
In any case, it's a fun film and definitely deserved to perform better than it did. I'm also surprised by the low audience score on RT and that it's only a 6.1 on IMDB. Should be higher.
I've read that the film has picked up a cult following since its release. I had never even heard of the movie until a few days ago when it was mentioned in a conversation here on MC about Stephen Sommers.
I never even knew this movie existed until the late 2000s, which I think is kind of common for fans of this. I don't remember hearing or reading anything about it when initially released. Also, it probably suffered from not having a big star headlining it. Treat Williams is barely above a character actor.
shareIt didn't have a big star, but man was the cast packed with talent. It has plenty of actors where you may not know their names but you'll know their faces. There are like 10 people in this film where I went, "Oh shit, it's that guy."
But yeah, I didn't know this film existed until about a week ago. It really makes me wonder how much effort they put into marketing it.
Bad release date and no stars
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