List of box office bombs (1940s)

Further information: List of box office bombs, 1940s in film, 1940 in film, 1941 in film, 1942 in film, 1943 in film, 1944 in film, 1945 in film, 1946 in film, 1947 in film, 1948 in film, and 1949 in film

B

Film	Year of release	Notes
Bambi	1942	Bambi lost money at the box office for its first release; out of its $1.7 million budget, it only grossed back $1.64 million. The film was released during World War II and lacked access to much of the European market. Roy Disney sent a telegram to his brother Walt after the New York opening of the film that read: "Fell short of our holdover figure by $4,000. Just came from Music Hall. Unable to make any deal to stay third week ... Night business is our problem." The film is now France's 24th biggest film of all time in terms of admissions with 10.7 million tickets sold.
The Blue Bird	1940	The Blue Bird was Shirley Temple's first box-office flop in her six years as a child star. Audiences disliked the idea of Shirley as a nasty character needing to learn a lesson. While many of Temple's films show her character misbehaving in various ways, this is the only one to show her being truly punished. Early in the film, her brattiness earns her a reprimand from her mother. Despite being a box office flop and losing money, the film was later nominated for two Academy Awards.

C

Film	Year of release	Notes
Citizen Kane	1941	While a critical success, Citizen Kane failed to recoup its costs at the box office. By 1942, Citizen Kane had run its course theatrically and, apart from a few showings at big city arthouse cinemas, it largely vanished and both the film's and Orson Welles's reputation fell among American critics. In 1949 critic Richard Griffith in his overview of cinema, The Film Till Now, dismissed Citizen Kane as "... tinpot if not crackpot Freud." In the United States, it was neglected and forgotten until its revival on television in the mid-1950s. Three key events in 1956 led to its re-evaluation in the United States: first, RKO was one of the first studios to sell its library to television, and early that year Citizen Kane started to appear on television; second, the film was re-released theatrically to coincide with Welles's return to the New York stage, where he played King Lear; and third, American film critic Andrew Sarris wrote "Citizen Kane: The American Baroque" for Film Culture, and described it as "the great American film" and "the work that influenced the cinema more profoundly than any American film since Birth of a Nation." Carringer considers Sarris's essay as the most important influence on the film's reputation in the US.

D

Film	Year of release	Notes
Desire Me	1947	The film earned $1,451,000 in the US and Canada and $1,125,000 elsewhere but because if its huge cost recorded a loss of $2,440,000.

F

Film	Year of release	Notes
Fantasia	1940	Fantasia was first released in theatrical roadshow engagements held in thirteen U.S. cities from November 13, 1940. While acclaimed by critics, it was unable to make a profit due to World War II cutting off distribution to the European market, the film's high production costs, and the expense of leasing theatres and installing the Fantasound equipment for the roadshow presentations. The film was subsequently reissued multiple times with its original footage and audio being deleted, modified, or restored in each version. As of 2012, Fantasia has grossed $76.4 million in domestic revenue and is the 22nd highest-grossing film of all time in the U.S. when adjusted for inflation.

I

Film	Year of release	Notes
It's a Wonderful Life	1946	Despite initially performing poorly at the box office because of stiff competition at the time of its release, the film has become regarded as a classic and is a staple of Christmas television around the world. The film is considered one of the most loved films in American cinema and has become traditional viewing during the Christmas season. Theatrically, the film's break-even point was $6.3 million, approximately twice the production cost, a figure it never came close to achieving in its initial release. An appraisal in 2006 reported: "Although it was not the complete box office failure that today everyone believes ... it was initially a major disappointment and confirmed, at least to the studios, that Capra was no longer capable of turning out the populist features that made his films the must-see, money-making events they once were." The film, which went into general release on January 7, 1947, placed 26th ($3.3 million) in box office revenues for 1947 (out of more than 400 features released), one place ahead of another Christmas film, Miracle on 34th Street. The film was supposed to be released in January 1947, but was moved up to December 1946 to make it eligible for the 1946 Academy Awards. This move was seen as worse for the film, as 1947 did not have quite the stiff competition as 1946. If it had entered the 1947 Awards, its biggest competition would have been Miracle on 34th Street. The number one grossing movie of 1947, The Best Years of Our Lives, made $11.5 million. The film recorded a loss of $525,000 at the box office for RKO.

M

Film	Year of release	Notes
The Magnificent Ambersons	1942	The film managed to earn $1 million in rentals in the U.S. and Canada, according to Variety. However it was not enough to recoup the film's cost and it recorded a loss of $620,000.
Mr. Bug Goes to Town	1941	Mr. Bug Goes to Town was previewed on December 5, 1941 in advance of its scheduled Christmas release. While it was well received by critics, theater operators rejected it. Two days later, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor signaled America's entrance into World War II, and Paramount cancelled the Christmas release. Three weeks later, Paramount president Barney Balaban activated Max Fleischer's resignation. Paramount finally released the film in California on February 13, 1942 (February 20 in New York City). In the UK, it opened during January 1942 under the name Hoppity Goes to Town. Mr. Bug was a financial disaster. Paramount reorganized Fleischer Studios as Famous Studios. Before the film's release, Walter Lantz, Paul Terry, and Leon Schlesinger all considered producing animated feature films, but after seeing the disappointing box-office of this film and the initial failures of Walt Disney's new films Pinocchio and Fantasia (both 1940), they cancelled any potential animated feature projects. Paramount later re-released Mr. Bug as Hoppity Goes to Town (the original title is a parody of the title of the 1936 film Mr. Deeds Goes to Town.). The film cost $713,511 to make, but by 1946 had only made $241,000 back, and was withdrawn from circulation. Under the reissue title, Hoppity has had multiple re-releases on home video throughout the 1970s (most with inferior image quality) to its DVD release by Legend Films, in which the studio re-titled the film again to Bugville (presumably to position against Pixar's A Bug's Life).

O

Film	Year of release	Notes
The Ox-Bow Incident	1943	It earned $750,000 in the United States.

P

Film	Year of release	Notes
Pinocchio	1940	Initially, Pinocchio was not a box-office success. The box office returns from the film's initial release were both below Snow White's unprecedented success and below studio expectations. Of the film's $2.289 million negative cost – twice the cost of Snow White – Disney only recouped $1 million by late 1940, with studio reports of the film's final original box office take varying between $1.4 million and $1.9 million. Animation historian Michael Barrier notes that Pinocchio returned rentals of less than one million by September 1940, and in its first public annual report, Walt Disney Productions charged off a $1 million loss to the film. Barrier relays that a 1947 Pinocchio balance sheet listed total receipts to the studio of $1,423,046.78. This was primarily due to the fact that World War II and its aftermath had cut off the European and Asian markets overseas, and hindered the international success of Pinocchio and other Disney releases during the early and mid-1940s. Joe Grant recalled Walt Disney being "very, very depressed" about Pinocchio's initial returns at the box office. The distributor RKO recorded a loss of $94,000 for the film from worldwide rentals of $3,238,000.

I

Film	Year of release	Notes
It's a Wonderful Life	1946	Despite initially performing poorly at the box office because of stiff competition at the time of its release, the film has become regarded as a classic and is a staple of Christmas television around the world. The film is considered one of the most loved films in American cinema and has become traditional viewing during the Christmas season. Theatrically, the film's break-even point was $6.3 million, approximately twice the production cost, a figure it never came close to achieving in its initial release. An appraisal in 2006 reported: "Although it was not the complete box office failure that today everyone believes ... it was initially a major disappointment and confirmed, at least to the studios, that Capra was no longer capable of turning out the populist features that made his films the must-see, money-making events they once were." The film, which went into general release on January 7, 1947, placed 26th ($3.3 million) in box office revenues for 1947 (out of more than 400 features released), one place ahead of another Christmas film, Miracle on 34th Street. The film was supposed to be released in January 1947, but was moved up to December 1946 to make it eligible for the 1946 Academy Awards. This move was seen as worse for the film, as 1947 did not have quite the stiff competition as 1946. If it had entered the 1947 Awards, its biggest competition would have been Miracle on 34th Street. The number one grossing movie of 1947, The Best Years of Our Lives, made $11.5 million. The film recorded a loss of $525,000 at the box office for RKO.

T

Film	Year of release	Notes
That Lady in Ermine	1948	Although Ernst Lubitsch received sole credit as director, he died after only eight days of filming, and the project was completed by Otto Preminger. The film was Lubitsch's first musical project since directing The Merry Widow for MGM in 1934. It proved to be his last film. Eight days after principal photography began, he died of a heart attack, and Otto Preminger, who had completed A Royal Scandal when Lubitsch was forced to withdraw due to illness in 1944, took over the reins. He stipulated sole screen credit should go to Lubitsch "as a mark of respect and admiration for the departed master." Douglas Fairbanks Jr thought that Otto Preminger "ruined everything. No sense of humour, no fun, everything light in the... script was squeezed out... It just wrecked by [career] momentum, just wrecked it."
Two-Faced Woman	1941	The film is generally regarded as a box-office bomb and an unsuccessful attempt to "Americanize" Greta Garbo in order to increase her United States fan base. By mutual agreement, Garbo's contract with MGM was terminated shortly after Two-Faced Woman was released, and it became her last film. Most sources have said that the film also did poorly at the box office. According to MGM records, it earned $875,000 in the United States and Canada, and $925,000 elsewhere, resulting in a loss of $62,000. Despite the previous success of Ninotchka, audiences had difficulty accepting Garbo as a comedian. Attendance was also impacted by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, which occurred three weeks before the film was released. A few sources have challenged the general perception that the film was a flop, with at least one saying that it made back five times its budget. Later in 1942, Garbo's MGM contract was terminated, probably by mutual agreement. She intended to return to films after World War II, but post-war projects did not come to fruition, leaving Two-Faced Woman as her final film.

W

Film	Year of release	Notes
Wilson	1944	Though the film was mostly critically acclaimed and won five Oscars (see below), it is also remembered for being a big financial failure at the box office. The film lost a reported $2 million for Fox.

See also

• List of American films of 1940
• List of American films of 1941
• List of American films of 1942
• List of American films of 1943
• List of American films of 1944
• List of American films of 1945
• List of American films of 1946
• List of American films of 1947
• List of American films of 1948
• List of American films of 1949

External links

• Bomb Report | Every Movie That Failed at The Box Office
• Box Office Bomb - TV Tropes
• Greatest Box-Office Bombs, Disasters and Film Flops of All-Time

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