Why was this movie considered a flop? I thought it was a really funny and enjoyable movie to watch and it deserved a much better reputation than it recieved.
shareI had no idea it was a flop until the internet, when I was a kid everyone I knew loved it.
shareMaybe it made less money at the box office than it cost to make? That's the definition of a flop as far as I know.
shareFor decades now, critics have been unfairly harsh. I never thought it was a particularly bad movie -- I enjoyed it, and Lea Thompson was well cast. As someone who read the comic books from the beginning, I was glad it was done.
The box office performance WAS poor, so from that standpoint I'm sure it qualifies as a flop. But there have been so many other films that were big financial disappointments initially that are now decently regarded.
To me, I don't consider that because it made less money it was a flop. My friends and I used to pay for one movie and sneak into all the others all day as I am sure many, many teens of the 80's did. To rate popularity on money is stupid since many teens and young adults seldom paid for any movie in the theater back then.
shareIt was a flop? I loved it. So did most people I know.
shareIt wasn't much of a flop. It cost $37 million to make, and made $38 million worldwide. Don't know why it's so widely regarded as a huge flop.
shareIt wasn't much of a flop. It cost $37 million to make, and made $38 million worldwide. Don't know why it's so widely regarded as a huge flop.Financially, that is a major flop if your numbers are correct.
Why was this movie considered a flop?
$37 million and it made $37.9 million
Learn little people.
Charlie- Wild Card Bitches!
$37 million and it made $37.9 million
Learn little people.
Not only did the movie statistically not make any money, it was a George Lucas production and up until this time nearly every movie he had backed in some manner was a money earner. I was just entering college in 1986 and remember people being stunned at how poorly the movie was received. We had to see it for ourselves and were even more stunned at how comparatively awful it was next to anything else that had the Lucasfilms name associated with it.
That combined with the poor take at box office contributed to the mythos of this being one of the alltime biggest bombs ever, but a lot of that perception has to do with how the film performed in comparison to the material Lucasfilm Prod's were usually associated with. I recently got to see it again courtesy of an overseas made DVD and I agree that it's not half as bad as some people have made it out to be, and as a matter of fact I'd say that the movie has sort of gained some cultural value over the years, especially in terms of "bad cinema", a concept that has only become truly vogue since the era of MST3K.
I think if re-released now, theatrically, there is enough nostalgia interest in the movie alone to guarantee that it might actually make some money. I might also say that it's certainly a more interesting movie than Lucas' 3 final Star Wars toy commercials, or at least it's bizarre in a way that makes those movies seem boringly ordinary in comparison.
Yeah..... I'm not going to listen to someone who gets his information from Wikipedia.
And I stand by what I said, For you information over sea box office still counts as box office intake. So i was right.
Learn some Information you jackass.
Charlie- Wild Card Bitches!
Didn't/don't video rentals generate money also?
shareIt was a flop because it was horrible.
I don't read the script. The script reads me.
That's your opinion.
shareOk, ok, here it is...
March 10th (or maybe 11th, I wasn't that big a fan), I'll be picking up my Howard DVD. Yes, the film is notoriously horrible. Yes, it's a million play-on-duck jokes. Yes, duck-on-Lea sex. But that's why we were given the phrase "guilty pleasure". Someone, somewhere, long ago, loved a horrible film because it was *charmingly* horrible, and needed a heady term to squelch the ire of those who didn't understand why. All our brains work in different ways. I can't sit through "Lord of the Rings", but Howard...
Now, the flop side. Yes, domestically it was ravaged by bean-counter types because of the severely lop-sided budget-to-profit ratio. Hey, 15-20 of these come out a year (even in 1986) and most are laughed at for five minutes and then discarded. BUT...when you have George Lucas involved, a studio in a dry spell (sans "Back to the Future"), and a (at the time) HUGE production cost, you're bound to get more attention.
How bad of a magnified FLOP was this? It didn't just open and close, get written off. It actually ended or disabled several careers in its wake. Lucas didn't get near a film for two years; Lea Thompson had just come off of "Back to the Future" and after this and Some Kind of Wonderful, splat; Jeffrey Jones had just done "Ferris Bueller" and still managed to eek out a character actor career post-Howard; Huyck and Katz only made one more theatrical film after this; and the head of MCA/Universal, Frank Price, was forced to resign.
Howard garnered many a "bad film we love" devotees, but otherwise left some pretty bad carnage (at the time).
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Howard the Duck...
Flop - Yes
One of George Lucas's worst films - Yes
One of the worst movies ever - Definitely, not.
I think the last paragraph of this explains perfectly why this was regarded as such a huge flop.
It ruined careers and caused higher ups to resign. George Lucas just about lost it all as well.
THAT kind of impact has a bit more impression than the financial loss.
It got very bad reviews from critics and audiences stayed away from this film. That is what makes it a flop, but the reason it was a big flop was the fact that it was an expensive turkey that lost money.
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