The Top 5 Commercial Failures That Bialystock Should Have Counted On

It's the twentieth anniversary of the musical adaptation of The Producers, one of the greatest stage adaptations of a movie of all time (in fact I consider it to be the best, along with Waitress being a worthy contender) and a record breaker for the most Tonys won by a single musical. Both the musical and the film it's based on still crack me up and there are some classic songs to belt along to - whether it's songs from the original film like "Springtime For Hitler" and "Prisoners Or Love" or songs written for the musical such as "Betrayed" and "'Til Him".

Most people probably know the plot by now, but for those who don't, here's a small recap. Max Bialystock, a once-successful Broadway producer who has fallen on hard times, teams up with the highly anxious accountant Leo Bloom to put on the biggest flop on Broadway history, after hearing that some flops have actually made more money after closing on opening night. They find an atrocious script by a Neo-Nazi and hire a camp director who mainly specialises in light-hearted musicals to work on it, whilst also casting terrible actors in the roles of the Nazis. Alas for them, Springtime For Hitler turns into a surprise hit mistaken for satire and the plan to pull off a major scam falls through.

So by trying to hire the worst of the worst and blending it all together, Bialystock ended up with something that was actually good. But what if he did the opposite? What if the best of the best were hired and instead we ended up with a legitimate commercial bomb in the process? It seems bizarre, but it has happened in real life.

Consequently, today's article, being posted on the day that The Producers snagged all those Tony Awards, will be about the inverse Springtime For Hitlers. The works that tried to aim for success and ended up as colossal failures, all due to what the creators thought were recipes for success. These are the ideas that, had he chosen these instead (despite most of them coming out after the time period that The Producers is set in), would have guaranteed Bialystock the sure-fire flop he was hoping for in the first place. Most of these are movies, and two of them aren't musicals at all (though one of them does skirt the line) but I'm sure that trying to adapt them for stage would have made them even more of a disaster.

And keep in mind that this isn't just a list of failed magnum opuses. This is a list of projects that failed because of the factors that the creators thought would make them successful.

Max Bialystock, watch and learn...

Hopefully he doesn't jump on me and squish me like a bug...

5. Sucker Punch (2011).

Formula: Badass action girls + feminism + cool fight scenes + awesome scenery = confusing mess.

It was supposed to be a feminist's dream come true. A film that criticises perverts for only seeing women as sex objects whilst also depicting them as badass action girls? Awesome! Plus it would have amazing special effects and such awesome delights such as dragons, steampunk and even zombie German soldiers from World War 1. To be extra arty, the "real life" plotline would be set in an asylum, with another plotline being set in the fantasy action world and yet another being set in a seedy brothel in order to really deconstruct the male gaze. Add the fact that director Zack Snyder had worked on the surprisingly good Dawn of the Dead remake and the memetic 300 film adaptation, (sure, Watchmen sucked, but that was just a fluke right?), and it seemed that this would be an instant hit.

Except that in practice, Snyder's dream project did not achieve what it planned to. Trying to get across a message whilst also trying to create a spectacle ultimately caused the opposite of Snyder's intent to occur. The crossover between real life and the imaginary world mainly confused critics rather than wowed them. The special effects, rather than enhance the story, mainly served to distract from it and trick us into thinking that it was a straight-up action flick rather than a deconstruction of the male gaze. Worst of all, the action scenes involving badass girls wearing awesome yet somewhat skimpy outfits made people think that it was essentially sexualised pandering to the audiences rather than the complete opposite.

Overall, the film cost $82,000,000 to make and it grossed $89,792,502 worldwide. Sure, that's more money than the initial budget, but when you factor in promotion and other aspects, that amount was still not enough to save it from becoming a bomb. It may have been a criticism of chauvinism and male fantasies of women, but the feminists themselves saw it as chauvinism anyway. It has a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 22% and a Metacritic rating of 33%, much less than what Watchmen received (at least that has a Fresh rating!). Overall, not something people would bother to see.

This following cartoon is edited for your safety. I'm somewhat fine with naked bodies on this post, but badly-drawn ones are a big no-no.

Of course, quite a bit of it can be blamed on executive meddling, since the director's cut was much better handled and allowed the viewer to get an idea of what the actual message was meant to be - this is ultimately why I put it at the bottom of the list. But the fact is, Snyder's best projects will still be Dawn of the Dead and 300 (sure, the latter has some rather racist attitudes in it, but that can be blamed on the original graphic novel).

4. Doctor Dolittle (1967).

Formula: Well-loved children's book + famous "gentleman" actor + real life animals = heart-attack inducing stress.

Just seven years late for Bialystock to think about this idea. Producer Arthur P. Jacobs and Fox Studios had teamed up for the next "big thing", which was a big-budget musical adaptation of Hugh Lofting's beloved Doctor Dolittle book series. Planning to start a movie franchise, they pulled out all the stops on this one. For the titular character himself, they hired the talented actor Rex Harrison, famous for other gentleman characters such as My Fair Lady's Henry Higgins (his personality in real life however was anything but gentleman-like). Additionally, the use of real life animals would be an outright spectacle. Sounds like it would be a success, right?

Oh how wrong they were. The production was an absolute nightmare, going overbudget and tensions rising high between everyone involved. The animals, due to being real ones, were obviously hard to control - some ducks even nearly drowned on-set for some bizarre reason and had to be rescued. Harrison, as he usually was on-set, was such a tyrannical nightmare that he gained the fitting nickname "T-Rex".

The fact that Jacobs even suffered a heart attack due to the stress of working on the film should be a warning sign where this is going.

When the film came out, critical reviews were average at best and downright scathing at worst. The only reason it was able to get Oscar nominations at all was because of the studio's intense lobbying, yet again reminding me why I never cared about that award show in the first place (at least it didn't win Best Picture). Additionally, the movie only ended up grossing $9 million against a $17 million budget. No sequels for that film after all.

This was only one of three films in the late 60s (the other two being Camelot and Hello, Dolly!) that killed off interest in big-budget blockbuster musical films for quite some time, with the only critically and/or commercially successful movie musicals in the 70s being ones that either went for a more realistic tone such as Fiddler on the Roof and Cabaret or reveled in their campiness like The Rocky Horror Picture Show. It was also the beginning of the end of Harrison's acting career, and his attitude as always did not help to redeem him at all - nowadays his brilliant acting is offset by this nasty little titbit.

But hey, at least Jacobs and Fox redeemed themselves with the successful Planet of the Apes adaptation afterwards, so there was a happy ending to this nightmare. Plus, the "Talk to the Animals" song was an instant Oscar winner, though I personally preferred Dusty Springfield's "The Look of Love" from that godawful Casino Royale film with Woody Allen (saying that sentence sounds rather off). Little wonder than some people have nostalgic memories for it, despite the absolute mess it was otherwise.

3. Heaven's Gate (1980).

Formula: Oscar-winning director + all-star cast + auteur licence = New Hollywood killer.

This is the epitome of what TV Tropes refers to as "magnum opus dissonance". Michael Cimino had achieved success with The Deer Hunter but this was his true dream project. He would have complete control over it without any pesky executive meddling. It would be a sweeping epic based (loosely) on the real life Johnson County War. Plus, there was Kris Kristofferson, one of the biggest country singers at the time, in the lead role. This would be the film that would show New Hollywood at its best.

Here's the main problem. Every single aspect caused the film's budget to get even more bloated overtime. The all-star cast was probably one of the aspects - besides the fact that hiring a major country star requires a lot of money, other actors such as Christopher Walken, Jeff Bridges and John Hurt, despite being superb, probably cost a lot due to their A-list nature. Trying to make the plot more epic also required some rather bizarre historical liberties to be taken, such as European immigrants killing cattle. Speaking of cattle, the use of actual animals (possibly for realism) and special effects led to rather horrifying alleged cases of animal abuse, such as the rumour that a horse had been blown up by dynamite.

The worst aspect though was Cimino's directing style. Being allowed to do whatever he wanted, he was described as way too authoritarian in his vision. He spend more time on the project than others felt necessary and pushed the film to four times its original budget. United Artists considered firing him at least twice, but ultimately chose not to, probably because they'd been the ones to popularise the auteur film in the first place and it would be hypocritical if they tried to have more authority.

The final result was essentially a mediocre film that became one of the biggest box office bombs of all time. Costing $44 million to make, it only managed to gross $3.5 million worldwide. Most critics were unimpressed and it received five Razzie nominations, ultimately winning for Worst Director. Most damningly of all, more people were talking about the terrible box office intakes and Cimino's primadonna nature than the actual plot of the film itself.

The fallout from this film not only put Cimino's directing career on ice (he would proceed to release more duds until retiring in 1996), but pretty much killed off United Artists. Plus, it ended the New Hollywood era of auteur films, leading into a temporary period where the producers had the main control over movies (until the troubled production of Days of Thunder killed that period off). Obviously, the initial box office failure of The Deer Hunter for going overbudget and the mess that was the production of Apocalypse Now, another New Hollywood movie, should have been warning signs that something like this would happen, but at least the latter film made money and both films were critical successes. Let that be a tragic lesson to us all - sometimes the executives do have a point after all, as much as some of us prefer not to believe.

On the bright side though, Heaven's Gate is not a complete trainwreck in quality. Some people actually see the film as a masterpiece nowadays, though it's still unlikely to be seen on a general list of greatest movies of all time (except for the one that the BBC composed that one time). Still doesn't excuse the exploding horses though.

2. Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark (2011).

Formula: Famous comic book character + innovative creator + wire battles + famous rock band = accident-ridden laughing stock.

Now for something that actually matches up with what Bialystock was producing - a stage musical. You'd think that, having been the head of the successful stage adaptation of The Lion King, Julie Taymor could work the same magic with Sam Raimi's money-making Spider-Man movies. You could use plenty of cutting-edge technology for it, particularly if it involved wires to fly around on! Plus, famous rock band U2 were onboard to write the songs for it, and scriptwriter Glen Berger had plenty of experience writing plays and working on family-friendly projects. Surely this would be just as much of a hit as Lion King was?

Except apparently not. First of all, the producer Tony Adams died from a stroke early in production, all during a meeting with U2's The Edge. Then there was the matter than Spider-Man fans were baffled about the fact that their favourite comic book character was being used in a stage musical of all things. Next up and most notably, the normally creative and talented Taymor had so many controversial ideas (such as making the Mary-Sueish Arachne the villain) and was so adamant about keeping them that she got kicked off her own project. Additionally, most of the songs sounded like second-rate versions of better U2 songs (with one of them basically sounding like a "Thertigo" knock-off if not for different lyrics), all because they had no experience with musical theatre and didn't really want that experience.

But the worst part was the special effects. Actors infamously injured themselves due to snapping wires or collapsing scenery, including the Spider-Man actor himself. In one particularly embarrassing moment, the actor was injured when rolling off the prop building he was on (or at least it looked like it, supposedly he was trying to swing off the building to save Mary-Jane). In another case, the actor was not injured, but got stuck on the wire during a curtain call and had to be prodded with a stick by the tech team.

"One of the crew members fetched a stick to prod him with, but that didn’t help. It was like a live Spider-Man piñata." - Actual quote from Glen Berger.

Overall, five cast members received injuries and at least one left the production permanently due to them.

Nowadays, the musical is more famous (well, infamous is the more accurate term) for the whopping amount of previews shows it had, which added up to a whopping 182. As for the final product itself, it finally opened on the 14th June 2011...and then closed in January 2014 with a loss of $60 million. That's right, it was the most expensive Broadway production in history with a budget of $75 million, and it never made that budget back.

That said, the project that everyone received in the end was still considered better than the original vision, especially since the beloved villain Green Goblin was the main antagonist rather than the unwanted and pretentious choice of Arachne. They even managed to clean up their act with the special effects in the end. Besides, it's probably less offensive compared to the work that takes the #1 spot...

1. Cats (2019).

Formula: Oscar-winning director + famous musical + all-star cast + "cutting-edge" technology = ultimate Razzie award winner.

Oh boy, it's this trainwreck again. You thought I'd already talked enough about it on some of my other blog posts, but I've always had a soft spot for tearing this hairball to pieces. Having had moderate success with the Les Mis film adaptation (hey, it made money and got some Oscars), Tom Hooper decided to make another Oscar bait movie musical, this time using the hit megamusical Cats as his source material. He would hire famous celebrities such as James Corden, Taylor Swift and Jennifer Hudson and utilise "cutting-edge" special effects. What could possibly go wrong?

Well, the first mistake in general was just having Tom Hooper on the project. Sure, he directed the critically-adored Oscar winner The King's Speech and had done well with Les Mis and The Danish Girl, but a director specialising in "realistic" Oscar bait was not a good choice to direct a film based on a surreal and fantastical megamusical that relied more on spectacle and commercial success than critical success and a strong plotline in the first place. Additionally, interviews with the special effects team months after the film's release revealed that he was not only unfamiliar with the idea of special effects at all, but also pretty snobbish about the whole thing.

The celebrity cast was the second mistake. As stated by Lindsay Ellis in her video on the subject, this led to songs originally performed by an ensemble turning into solo numbers, just to give the actors more time in the spotlight. Some of these actors were not suited for the roles given to them at all (I mean seriously, Rebel Wilson applying her "crude" stage persona to the motherly Jennyanydots?!) and the singing was not always good. It also screwed over the special effects used for the movie. The celebrities had packed schedules and couldn't shoot their roles everyday.

Oh, and who can forget the CGI as well? They could have had the film animated or had the actors wear realistic outfits, but nooo, it wouldn't be "realistic" enough. If anything, the whole experience is a hell of a lot more surreal due to tiny CGI monstrosities running about everywhere onscreen. They're not cats at all. They're just humans with cat ears and fur.

The result? One of the biggest cinematic catastrophes (no pun intended) in recent history, receiving little money at the box office but plenty of Razzie awards - Worst Picture, Worst Director, Worst Supporting Actor, Worst Supporting Actress and Worst Screenplay. Costing $95,000,000 to make, it only managed to receive $73,835,438 worldwide, and the only reason it probably that much was because some people were probably curious at how bad it truly was. How bad? At best, it's an enjoyable trainwreck. At worst, it's outright offensive.

Why did I put this at #1, despite it being more recent that some of the other disasters listed here? Because it embodies the inverse-Springtime For Hitler aspects perfectly. Rather than a terrible director, terrible actors and a terrible script becoming a critical and commercial success, a Oscar-winning director, "ambitious" special effects and a star-studded cast come together to create one of the biggest critical and commercial turds of all time. Even Heaven's Gate is seen as a classic by some people nowadays and the Spider-Man musical could have easily been worst considering the nightmarish development process. With Cats...there is nothing really to save it. This is the worst that it can get with how it handles the original source material.

I don't have much faith in Hooper recovering from this one - he could potentially release another film that actually does well, but all this film did was expose the flaws with his directing techniques. Add the fact that the special effects team found him downright awful to work with and he's pretty much the laughing stock of cinema fans during this current time.

And there you have it! Five supposed dream projects that became absolute turds due to the factors that would supposedly help them out. Most of them happened later than 1960, meaning that it may have been too late for Bialystock to copy them, but hey, he could have made a Superman musical back in the day, right?

As for The Producers itself, once again I have to state how much I love it, whether it's the original film itself or the stage adaptation celebrating its twentieth anniversary this year. Bialystock is such a larger-than-life character and excellently portrayed, whether it's Zero Mostel in the original film or Nathan Lane in the stage musical (the latter even does a brilliant job in the otherwise not so successful movie remake). Same goes with his co-star Bloom, whether he's portrayed by Gene Wilder in the original movie, Matthew Broderick in the Broadway debut or Lee Evans in the West End debut. The songs are great, the humour on-point and it successfully shows up Hitler and the Nazis as the idiots they truly were.

Anyway, that's all I can say now (though there will be a follow-up to this article at some point). In the words of the last song in the Producers musical, adios, au revoir, wiedersehen, ta-ta-ta, goodbye...get lost...get out!