The end of the financial flop?

Upon reading an article the other day that was celebrating the fact that Universal Pictures had finally broke-even on the 1995 flop Waterworld. The film was universally panned upon release and was seen as one of the biggest box office flops ever recorded, coupled with the fact it was the most expensive film ever made at the time it was an expensive mistake. Waterworld has finally recouped its initial investment because of sales on video and then DVD with people wanting to see how bad a film it was.

Kevin Costner in Waterworld

So this begs the question, can a film still be a financial flop?

If DVD sales are helping to bail out many production companies that are financing the big blockbusters then in essence they only need to be able to survive the initial loss without going under. Avoid the flop taking down your entire business and you'll probably get your money back eventually on even the worst of films. John Carter was a more recent flop lacking star power to push people to blindly go and see it but even then strong overseas sales especially in Russia have gone someway to mitigating the financial loss so far. DVD sales have already started to eat further into that loss and Disney may be profiting from this 'flop' sooner than you think.

Many films that are huge flops end up having a cult following who love to watch in a mocking fashion, this is certainly the case with films like Waterworld, Heavens Gate and Howard the Duck. Some people even go as far as to claim they were excellent films that were just mis-understood by the masses. I certainly wouldn't go that far!