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9 all-star movies that flopped hard

From Digital Spy

There are no iron-clad rules for financial and critical success in Hollywood. If there were, then no film would ever flop again.

A definite non-rule is 'the more stars you cast, the better your film will be' – and here's the grim evidence to prove that all-star doesn't always mean blockbuster.

1. Gangster Squad

Photo credit: Warner Bros.
Photo credit: Warner Bros.

Stars: Josh Brolin, Ryan Gosling, Nick Nolte, Emma Stone, Sean Penn, Anthony Mackie, Giovanni Ribisi, Michael Peña, Frank Grillo

Everyone loves Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling, right? Just look at those 14 Oscar nominations for La La Land.

But even Penn, Mackie, Nolte and Brolin couldn't save Ruben Fleischer's visually stylish period thriller about LA cops fighting the Mafia in the 1940s from disappointing returns and a reputation for being boring.

2. A New York Winter's Tale

Photo credit: Warner Bros.
Photo credit: Warner Bros.

Stars: Colin Farrell, Jennifer Connelly, William Hurt, Russell Crowe, Will Smith

Winter's Tale is billed on Wikipedia as a "supernatural fantasy mystery romantic drama", whatever that is. Colin Farrell stars as an immortal thief in love with Downton Abbey star Jessica Brown Findlay's doomed consumptive. They fight Russell Crowe's demon gangster and ride around on horses or something.

Seeing the Fresh Prince himself turn up as the devil should be gleefully exciting rather than ponderous nonsense. It didn't even make back half its budget at the box office.

3. Movie 43

Photo credit: Relativity Media
Photo credit: Relativity Media

Stars: Uma Thurman, Naomi Watts, Kate Winslet, Hugh Jackman, Richard Gere, Elizabeth Banks, Kristen Bell, Halle Berry, Gerard Butler, Anna Faris, Terrence Howard, Chloë Grace Moretz, Emma Stone, Jason Sudeikis

This infamous horror (intended as a comedy) brought us Hugh Jackman with testicles hanging from his neck and the gross-out, unfunny and mean-spirited yuks don't get much better from there.

The existence of this monstrosity is literally incomprehensible, and we can't even begin to imagine how Peter Farrelly managed to rope so many A-listers into what film critic Richard Roeper dubbed "the Citizen Kane of awful". Presumably by saying: 'It's just a day's work.'

4. The Big Wedding

Photo credit: Lionsgate
Photo credit: Lionsgate

Stars: Robert De Niro, Diane Keaton, Susan Sarandon, Robin Williams, Katherine Heigl, Amanda Seyfried, Topher Grace, Ben Barnes

Diane Keaton loves an ensemble comedy drama – The Big Wedding, however, is hardly Manhattan. It hangs on the premise that Colombian Catholics cannot in any way accept that divorce exists (of course), and when Katherine Heigl turns out to be the most sympathetic character, you know you're in trouble.

But if you want to see Hollywood's favourite stars of yesteryear pick pubes out of their teeth and generally demean themselves, then this is the film for you.

5. This is Where I Leave You

Photo credit: Warner Bros.
Photo credit: Warner Bros.

Stars: Jane Fonda, Jason Bateman, Tina Fey, Adam Driver, Rose Byrne, Corey Stoll, Kathryn Hahn, Connie Britton, Timothy Olyphant

Judging by its cast, This is Where I Leave You should be great. But comedy queen Tina Fey, America's sweetheart Connie Britton and bright young thing Adam Driver aren't enough to save the sinking ship that The Guardian described as "like August Osage County, only even more fatuous".

After being stuck for 100 minutes in the hateful and mean-spirited world of the Altman family as they mourn their dead father, you'll probably find yourself wishing the rest of them were dead too.

6. Collateral Beauty

Photo credit: Warner Bros.
Photo credit: Warner Bros.

Stars: Will Smith, Edward Norton, Keira Knightley, Naomie Harris, Kate Winslet, Helen Mirren, Michael Peña

Will Smith and Kate Winslet were obviously in the market for more hard lessons when they signed up for the latest film to be spat out of the random movie-name generator.

Smith plays Howard, a man mourning his dead daughter, whose colleagues decide to help him by... um... hiring actors to play the personifications of Love, Time and Death in order to prove that he's insane so they can sell their company. Aims for 'uplifting' but lands squarely on 'bemusing and awful'.

7. Aloha

Photo credit: 20th Century Fox
Photo credit: 20th Century Fox

Stars: Bradley Cooper, Emma Stone, Rachel McAdams, Bill Murray, John Krasinski, Danny McBride, Alec Baldwin

Cameron Crowe's romantic comedy Aloha became infamous for casting Emma Stone as a quarter-Chinese, quarter-Hawaiian Air Force officer 'who just doesn't look mixed race'.

Even looking past that gaffe, we get a weird, sentimental story about Bradley Cooper saving some Hawaiian natives from the cruelty of the (other) white man which is far smugger than it has any right to be.

8. How Do You Know

Photo credit: Columbia Pictures
Photo credit: Columbia Pictures

Stars: Reese Witherspoon, Paul Rudd, Owen Wilson, Jack Nicholson

We all got a bit excited in early 2017 to hear that Jack Nicholson was coming out of his not-a-retirement to star in a remake of the Oscar-nominated Toni Erdmann. But we're going to pour cold water all over that now by reminding you that his last film lost an estimated $50 million.

And the critics didn't like it much more than the public, declaring that a likeable cast couldn't make up for sub-par writing. So at least it wasn't Nicholson's fault.

9. Town & Country

Photo credit: New Line Cinema
Photo credit: New Line Cinema

Stars: Warren Beatty, Diane Keaton, Goldie Hawn, Garry Shandling, Andie MacDowell, Charlton Heston

Imagine someone ate The First Wives Club and threw it back up with an extra dose of misogynist bile. In this case the bile mainly takes the form of Warren Beatty's Porter Stoddard creeping on a parade of much younger women.

The $90 million film made back a painful $10 million at the box office. But at least Charlton Heston got to wave a shotgun around and complain about "homos". He would have enjoyed that.


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