Why was this movie such a flop?

I personally consider this movie to be packed with way too many overblown speeches and too much artificial sounding talking, which leaves it feeling decidedly like a forced, manufactured history lesson, and like most of the actors/actresses are just spouting obviously scripted lines (and typically far too dramatically). Except for being taken with the exceptional and believable performances by Katherine Hepburn as Mary, and Douglas Walton as Darnley, and the beautiful strong visual appeal of the film, I just didn't find myself caring, or being interested, on any other level. For me, the 124 minutes felt excruciatingly long. Mary and Darnley were the only two characters I found myself at all caring about or wanting to see anything of. As "entertainment," this movie is, for me, sorely lacking. I'm guessing that audiences in 1936 felt similarly.

I'm not at all a fan of Katharine Hepburn, so this is coming from there - I'm a 'run the gamut of emotions from a to b' types.

I think the big reason is Hepburn never had much appeal to the masses. Not a lot of people are going to go out of their way to watch a Kate Hepburn movie in 1936

I started to rewatch last night and fell asleep about 1/2 hour into the movie. I appreciate movies that can lullaby me to sleep.

I was awake and aware enough to note this is from a stage play and it does look stiff, stagey, artificial, boring.

I read a snipe made towards Hepburn by John Carradine and on her tendency to upstage her co-actors. Kind of funny because in their scenes together, he seemed like an upstager.

Typical for intellectually and morally bankrupt and corrupt Hollywood, e.g. Inherit the Wind, this is an utterly disgusting and dishonest complete rewriting of history so as to be unrecognizable to those who've studied what actually took place, as difficult as that often is to puzzle out and surmise considering history's usually written by the winners trumpeting their agenda in full force far ahead of the truth; they've sadly substituted modernist vile, puerile notions of religion for the robust faith that Mary & Knox actually believed, even Mary's evil papist errors likely being more godly than today's lunatic obscenities on every side loudly demanding a return to the preChristian barbarism of sodomy & infanticide while stupidly and insanely pretending and claiming these ancient evils are something new in order to gain $ sex & power. Ironically the delusional modernist '30s (& even before, even back to evil useful idiot Darwin (a deluded plagiarist apostate bigot fraud clergyman extensively exposed @ www.creation.com) & his day) notions put in the mouths of both Mary/Hepburn and Knox/Olsen are words they themselves would have condemned as evil and the whole scenario of intrigues is similarly compromised. Modern laughable notions of history (e.g. "The History Channel") are about making $ for the authors, the accomplishment of which requires schmoozing the readers, not even attempting truth or reality, and thus usually caring little to nothing for anything even remotely approaching the truth or reality.

i don't understand, it's not much different from other films from '30s.
it doesn't offer much more or less, i liked it though