The Big Flop - Box Office Bombs: The Lone Ranger, Waterworld, and Showgirls with Aisha Harris and Andrew Jupin

Episode Date: November 20, 2023

Join us as we break down THREE cinematic catastrophes: The Lone Ranger, Waterworld, and Showgirls. Find out why Johnny Depp thought it was a good idea to play a Native American, how Kevin Costner ignored Stephen Spielberg’s sage advice, and who was actually responsible for the NC-17 madness of Showgirls.Movie and pop culture experts Andrew Jupin (We Hate Movies) and Aisha Harris (NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour) join MIsha to unpack these truly wild films and their legacies.Follow The Big Flop on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to The Big Flop early and ad-free on Wondery +. Join Wondery + in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to The Big Flop early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. It's just crazy that he was an alleged cannibal and there's like a little bit of cannibalism in this movie. Oh, I forgot about that. Maybe that's why he signed up. I don't know. We are on a sinking ship. From Wondery and At Will Media,

this is The Big Flop, where we chronicle the greatest flubs, fails, and blunders of all time. I'm your host, Misha Brown, social media superstar and box office bombshell at Don't Cross a Gay Man. And on today's special bonus episode, we're talking about one of my favorite types of failure, the extravagantly expensive, often embarrassing, and sometimes misunderstood box office flop. Hello, I'm Emily and I'm one of the hosts of Terribly Famous, the show that takes you inside the lives of our biggest celebrities.

And they don't get much bigger than the man who made badminton sexy. OK, maybe that's a stretch, but if I say pop star and shuttlecocks, you know who I'm talking about. No? Short shorts? Free cocktails? Careless whispers? OK, last one it's not andrew ridgely yep that's right it's stone cold icon george michael from teen pop sensation to one of the biggest solo artists on the planet join us for our new series george michael's fight for freedom from outside, it looks like he has it all.

But behind the trademark dark sunglasses is a man in turmoil. George is trapped in a lie of his own making, with a secret he feels would ruin him if the truth ever came out. Follow Terribly Famous wherever you listen to your podcasts, or listen early and ad-free on Wanderie Plus on Apple Podcasts or the Wondery app. Today I'm joined by Aisha Harris from NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour and Andrew Jupin from We Hate Movies. Welcome to the show. Hello, Misha.

Hello. Thank you for having me. So, the show today is going to go a little differently than usual. Instead of telling you about one particular flop, I'm going to tell you about three box office bombs, the Lone Ranger, Waterworld, and Showgirls. But before we jump into the first flop, I wanted to turn it over to you, Andrew and Aisha. What are your favorite box office flops? Something that maybe didn't pull in huge audiences in the theater, but you stand by your movie. Do you have anything off the top of your head?

I will say one that jumps out to me right now, because I think it's a total, not yet cult classic, but totally deserves to be. The Daniel Stern Family Comedy Bushwhack. It's a movie I grew up with. It's like Daniel Stern on the heels of all of the Home Alone mania. This was intended to be like a spinoff of that character. They changed it around. It's just about like a scuzzy guy who's framed for murder and poses as like a Boy Scout troop leader to evade FBI capture. It's really dumb, but I will say, not to sound like a totally old guy, but like,

you could not make a kids movie like this today. And that's kind of why I love it. We're like smoking in front of kids. We're swearing in front of kids. It's how I grew up. I totally love it. I don't even know how much of a flop it was, but Keanu, the movie with Key and Peele. Oh, sure. Where they're like trying to get a cat. It's always a risk when you are taking someone

who is known in a shorter format and then trying to expand it into, you know, a 90 minute movie or whatever. I see like most of the SNL spinoffs. Sure. But, you know, it wasn't the most amazing film ever, but I also thought it was like better than a lot of people gave a credit for. So I'd have to say Keanu.

It's fun. All right. Well, there's no other way to set up our first flop than to just play a song. Have a listen. The best part of this movie, first of all. I mean, what does that song evoke? What does that make you think of? Oh, that's Sunday morning dad TV.

That's what I would call that. Yeah. Well, I was going to say like Looney Tunes, right? Oh, sure. Yeah. Anytime someone is about to attack. Yeah. Well, I was going to say like Looney Tunes, right? Oh, sure. Yeah. Anytime someone is about to attack. Yeah. This is, of course, the William Tell Overture, which can only mean one thing.

We're talking about Disney's disastrous 2013 reboot of The Lone Ranger, starring future alleged cannibal Armie Hammer and Johnny Depp playing a Native American. Oh, yeah, he sure was. Sure was. So many people said yes. So many people. Too many people said yes, some might say. Well, adjusted for inflation, Disney lost up to an estimated $250 million on The Lone Ranger. Good. That's how I feel.

Who do they think they are? Modern day Warner Brothers? Like what? You know, just flushing that kind of bank, man. Seriously. It was the second biggest box office bomb of all time, behind only John Carter, also made by Disney just one year before. Much better movie. Yeah. I'm going to put that out there. Much better. So it was a tough run for those guys, but I hear they're still scraping by. Yeah, they just might make it to Christmas this year. We'll see. So I guess my first question is, is the Lone Ranger someone that you would be excited to

see return to the movies? I mean, does anyone still care about someone that you would be excited to see return to the movies? I mean, does anyone still care about this old timey story to begin with? I mean, that's the first problem, right? The first of many. You know, I'm a millennial person who, I grew up watching a lot of old TV shows, but Lone Ranger was not one of them. I don't remember it being, it might've been, but I don't remember it being on like nick at night or whatever you know it wasn't it wasn't like brady bunch even zoro made more sense to me like i remember zoro being on tv but not the lone ranger same i distinctly remember seeing the first ad for this and the question that came in my head was who asked for this you know i mean i wasn't alive to see the New Deal signed through,

so why would I care about the Lone Ranger being made into a movie? Yes. The 2013 movie follows John Reed, who's left for dead by a band of outlaws, but saved by a Comanche named Tonto. Reed puts on a mask and joins Tonto to fight bad guys as the Lone Ranger,

basically Old West Batman. If instead of Robin, he had a heavily stereotyped Native American sidekick. The men you seek think you are dead, Kimo Sabe. Better to stay that way. Don't worry. We're going to talk about that accent and the representational issues in a few. Yay!

Yay! Sounds great. This movie, it was like right, I feel like, at the tail end of like, we're running on fumes with Johnny's like pirate mania. And it's like, what's the next adventure-ish thing to kind of put him in front of and for what it's worth i seem to remember this movie having a pretty cool train stunt like general-esque kind of train crashing thing oh it was train porn all the way yeah yeah which which is rad but i mean yeah everything else around it is just, you know, like I said before, like so many people had to say yes to so much stuff in so many meetings.

And this is what you spit out. Thanks, Disney. Once again, thank you so much. Yeah, Disney has a habit of, I mean, every Hollywood studio, major Hollywood studio does this. But like Disney especially tries to trot out these things where it's just like, like you said, Andrew, who asked for this? Who was,

who was clamoring for this? It's like the haunted mansion remake. It's like, did we really need that? Want that? No. We didn't need it the first time with Eddie Murphy. Seriously.

What's so mind boggling to me about this is the story is so convoluted and confusing and confusing, and they bring up characters you don't hear about again for another 40 minutes who you're supposed to remember and care about. And it's all just hidden by explosions and trains and gruesome fight scenes. But all of this is to say,

I feel the movie could have ended an hour and a half earlier than it did. Oh, my God. Right, right. How long? Wasn't it like over two hours? The movie is actually two hours and 29 minutes long. That's two hours too long.

Yeah, yeah. It's just exhausting. So, I mean, that's just the story, but I mean, also, the casting choices, as we're alluding to, are pretty wild. Yes, we might as well get into the Johnny Depp of it all because they were very aware that when you have Native Americans in a movie, the history of how they've been treated on screen is very, very fraught. And so to cast Johnny Depp, this white man who claimed to have some sort of Native American ancestry as if he was like Elizabeth Warren or something. It's just, you're already starting from negative in the bank account. Like this is a bad idea. I think there was a quote he gave to Rolling Stone actually. He specifically said he

wanted to give Native Americans someone to look up to. We have that quote. Oh yeah. So in the interview with Rolling Stone, Depp says, I wanted to maybe give some hope to kids on the reservations. I wanted to maybe give some hope to kids on the reservations. They're living without running water and seeing problems with drugs and booze. But I wanted to be able to show these kids, F that, you're still warriors, man. Oh, man. Yeah, those people don't have anyone that they could admire in their own, you know, culture. Like, what are you talking about, dude?

Like, you got eaten by a bed in Nightmare on Elm Street. Like, stop it. This is 2013. It's not 1979. Right. But let's play a clip of Johnny Depp playing Tonto as he tries to intimidate Helena Bonham Carter into helping him and the Lone Ranger find the bad guy. Wendigo getting away. What the hell is he talking about?

Nothing, it's an Indian thing. Man who has taste for human flesh. This is brutal. Dayush, could you describe for the listeners what we just saw? So, yeah, Johnny Depp has the stuffed crow on top of his head and then like white and black war paint, I guess it's supposed to be, or just paint on his face. And of course he's doing a weird Native American accent. It's just every time it hits your ear, it sounds worse. It's just like, what are you doing dude i mean it's like it's bad enough you know you're dressed up like that but then like the voice which is like the most cartoonish

stereotypical you know native american voice from like those 50s tv shows you know like yeah it doesn't get any worse folks it truly It truly doesn't. But it does get worse. A cultural advisor for the film set up an opportunity for Johnny Depp to become an honorary Comanche. Oh, no. Yeah, yeah. He flew to Albuquerque for a ceremony where he was officially adopted by the tribe and given the name Ma Wu Mei, which means shapeshifter. Oh, come on. This feels literally straight out of like the Hollywood studio system of the 1950s.

What is going on here? So there's Johnny Depp, but then there's also the other star of the movie, Armie Hammer, who's had some rumors and allegations surrounding him since 2021, including texting women about cannibalism and blood drinking. I mean, it's just crazy that he was an alleged cannibal and there's like a little bit of cannibalism in this movie. Oh, I forgot about that.

Maybe that's why he signed up. Or that's maybe what like inspired it. Like he's doing this movie, there's all this cannibalism talk and like something got rewired and he was like, wait a minute. This sounds appealing. Bring me all those Italian movies from the 70s with cannibals in them. Let's go.

Oh, man. Well, this movie had been in development. I mean, for years, the script went through a ton of revisions and some ideas fell by the wayside. For example, early drafts of the script included werewolves. Hey, you know what? Better movie. Probably. Probably. Because the sooner you get werewolves on the screen, you know, the sooner I'm not thinking about that voice as much. You know what I mean?

Let's throw some dragons in there while we're at it. Maybe the convoluted story was by design. I think you're onto something. The production was a big mess. They hit endless delays caused by rain and snowstorms, wildfires, 70 mile per hour winds, 100 degree plus temperatures, and an outbreak of chickenpox among the crew.

Seriously? All in all, the movie was way over budget and delayed for months. When it comes out, the critics go to town on it, and Armie Hammer blames the bad reviews for the poor turnout, quoted as saying they slit the jugular. Okay. Sure, Jan.

No. No, no. All right. So how big of a flop on a scale of Lone Ranger to 10 Rangers do you think this was? I mean, creatively, it's a huge 10. 10 out of 10 flop. Wait, is 10 the most? Yeah.

Okay. I just wanted to know. 10 is the biggest flop? Okay. Okay. Yeah, yeah. So creative flop, yeah, definitely 10 out of 10. One thing that sort of makes a flop, right,

is like how infamous that flop becomes. And nobody remembers that this movie even existed. You know what I mean? So like in that sense, it kind of, it's even a failure as a flop. Yeah, that's true. Our next movie is in the dictionary next to Huge Disastrous Movie Flop, a 1995 film starring Kevin Costner. It could only be Waterworld. Ooh, yeah.

This movie has a reputation as one of the biggest Hollywood flops, and we'll get into it more later. wood flops. And we'll get into it more later, but one of the main reasons is that at the time, Waterworld was the most expensive movie ever made. And when it hit theaters, it made back less than half of its production budget. Have either of you seen this movie? Oh yeah, I saw this in theaters. I was there opening weekend as a little dorky kid at my multiplex. Let's go. I have never seen this. I want to wait to see it on the big screen because it just feels like the type of movie that needs to be experienced on the big screen. Yeah. This movie to me, like it holds a special place because my dad loves these kinds of movies.

And so anytime it like comes on TV, he always, you know, clicked it on and we watched through it. So it's definitely one that that has stayed with me. But Andrew, since you have big feelings about this movie, I'm wondering, could you try to explain the plot? Oh, sure. Let me do my best here. So in the not-too-distant future, the polar ice caps have melted, thus creating the titular water world. Kevin Costner's doing his thing as like, you know, the lone wolf kind of fella. He meets a little girl who has like markings on her back

that turn out to be a map to the last landmass on Earth. And so sort of like Mad Max in a way, you've got Dennis Hopper and his gang of roving people. Then a bunch of like jet ski chases and whatnot are also peppered throughout the film. But that's sort of the gist of the movie. What are the marks on her back? People say

it's the way to dry land. Dry land's a myth! You said so yourself, but you know where it is. He did. You're a fool for believing something you've never seen before. Yeah, I think my favorite part of the movie is that Kevin Costner plays a man who is part man and part fish. Oh, that's right. Yes, I forgot that.

He's got some gills behind his ears. There's a lot to juggle in a movie that opens with and i'll keep it clean here the protagonist consuming his own urine for sustenance is how the movie starts oh but he has a little filtration device excuse me so it's not that bad yeah it's not like bear grill is in the in the wild or whatever there is a device thank you yes i mean. I mean, speaking of water, I seem to recall, even though I haven't seen the film, I do remember when Titanic came out, how everyone was concerned because Titanic was ballooning its own budget. And so there were lots of worries that Titanic was going to become another water world because it was so soon after. It was only like a couple of years or two

after that came out. So yeah, obviously that didn't happen. So the choice to shoot Waterworld on an actual ocean off of Hawaii instead of a soundstage was what really doomed the production from the start. Costner wanted to capture the gritty and realistic atmosphere of open water. But Steven Spielberg warned Costner shooting on the water would be a disaster. And Spielberg's comments come from experience because he regretted his choice to shoot Jaws on open water. Yeah, if there's one dude who comes up to you and says, hey man, do not shoot your movie in open water, you listen to Steven Spielberg.

Yes! Yes! Seriously. Now, one thing that I really give this movie credit for is the scale. I mean, it is impressive. The most extravagant single expense was a set called the Atoll, a 1,000- than was available in the entire island chain of Hawaii. They needed to fly in extra steel from California and had to extend the runway at the nearby airport to accommodate the deliveries. When you realize you have to make those kind of accommodations, right, you got to start asking yourself if it's all going to be worth it.

You really do. Right. I'm sure they did. When you're having an airport extend the runway, man, let's just have a meeting for a second. I assume that's like $5 million in mid-90s dollars, right? So it's probably way more. Yeah. Yeah. Wow.

To get a sense of how massive the Atoll was and how expensive this movie looks, let's watch a clip. So, in this scene, the jet ski-riding pirate bad boys of Waterworld, or the Smokers, are attacking the Atoll. And since it's mostly visual,

Andrew, can you describe what we're seeing as we watch it? Oh, sure. All right. Nice formation here on the water skiing. We got a hydroplane and we're sort of, oh, here we go. You need a ramp. Awesome. We're going to jump into the city here. I mean, this is epic stunt work, folks. Look at this. It's pretty cool. I think this movie was actually solely responsible for like the jet ski mania of the 90s.

Oh, yeah. Ooh, dude slams against the wall right there. It's like the stunt work. I mean, you know, you cannot beat this stuff, but it's just not worth filming this outside, gang. Get a little more control over your environment. I mean, that's what sets are for. So another problem that they had while filming, and probably what kickstarted an entire SAG AfterStrike, was that none of the sets or boats had bathrooms.

But they're on open water, so... Yep. It's easy enough to go. They're on open water, so. Yep. It's easy enough to go. So filming frequently had to pause as people were ferried off set to a production barge that had bathrooms on it. See, again, now you need like a barge on top of the set itself and we're ferrying people for bathroom use.

Sets, folks. I sound like a broken record, but you know what a movie studio has? Bathrooms everywhere. Yes, it's post-apocalyptic, but you're not supposed to feel necessarily like you're in the post-apocalypse. Right, exactly. Don't drive your cast and crew to cannibalism. You know what I mean? We're all play-acting

here. Or they could have just made a bunch of those filters that Costner was using at the beginning of the film. Absolutely. Just turned it into drinking water. It worked real well for him in that scene. Costner fought constantly with his hand-picked director, Kevin Reynolds. It got so bad that Reynolds quit and Costner re-edited the movie by himself.

Aisha, can you read this quote from Waterworld director Kevin Reynolds? In the future, Costner should only appear in pictures he directs himself. That way, he can always be working with his favorite actor and his favorite director. Zing. Zing. So, when the movie came out in the U.S., it already had all this bad press around it. There were stories about the disastrous production and the ballooning budget and Kevin Costner's disagreements with the director. And as I said

earlier, in the box office, they couldn't make back the insane amount of money they spent on the movie. Even the critics were kind of like, eh, it's got its moments, but maybe they shouldn't have dumped so much cash into it. So here's the twist, though. Over the long term, Waterworld actually made money. Between international ticket sales, the Universal Studios attraction, and other merchandising, the film just managed to squeak out a profit over the long run. Good for them. As much as it should be experienced as the big screen spectacle that it is, I don't have the numbers on it, but I bet

you this was a big VHS. Like, oh, that's the thing we heard was so terrible. Let's rent it for $2.95. Yes. I remember back in the day when we used to go to Blockbuster and spend hours trying to pick something.

Like, there was always a copy of Waterworld somewhere. So, on a scale of puddle to ocean, how big of a flop do you think that this movie was? Oh, it's an ocean. You know, I think it's like, it's one of the most famous flops of all time. What's kind of funny is you could not escape Waterworld. Like, it was everywhere.

There were so many tie-ins and various commercials for it and so many other things going on that you just felt for an entire calendar year you could not wrestle yourself out of the clutches of Waterworld. And then it came out and everybody kind of said no. So I'd say this is a big, it's about as floppy as you can get. Yeah, I would agree. And to your point about this and also about The Lone Ranger, unlike The Lone Ranger, it's this movie that still, anytime any outlet does a listicle about biggest flops, Hollywood flops of all time, this movie is on it. Without fail. Because that's what it's known for.

An ocean seems accurate. A big, big ocean. We are rounding out the show today with a notorious flop turned cult classic, Showgirls. What? Yes, I love Showgirls. So Showgirls came out in 1995, the same year as Waterworld. Showgirls is centered around Nomi Malone, played by Saved by the Bell's Elizabeth Berkley, who hitchhikes to Las Vegas to achieve her dreams of becoming a dancer.

When Nomi gets to Vegas, the guy who gave her a ride steals all of her stuff. Luckily, when she dramatically throws herself onto a random car, crying out in distress, the car's owner, Molly, thinks, Ah, yes, this raging, screaming young woman who is randomly projectile vomiting on my car, she seems like a nice person I should befriend. And so, Molly, played by Gina Rivera, takes Nomi

to get some fries. Let's take a look. One of the best scenes ever. Yeah. Where are you from? Bacchus. From where, Bacchus? Just get ready to throw those french fries. Yeah. Different places.

Different places. This Molly right here, you see this woman that you just met, like, just quick puke and then throw fries everywhere. And almost get hit on the freeway. Yeah. Oh, yeah. She runs into traffic like i know you're trying to be good here and you know help thy neighbor and whatnot but you just gotta cast this one back into the sea it's not worth it and she pays the heaviest price

in the movie uh unfortunately you know and it's like oh i feel like it's Whoopi Goldberg's line from Ghost, like, Molly, you in danger, girl. Like, this is, she knows me as trouble, man. I have my issues with this movie, including Molly being sort of the very, very worst version of the black best friend trope in movies and TV shows. For me, I'm able to sort of at least set that aside a little bit because this movie is just pure adrenaline, idiocy and playfulness and weirdness. I find it so fascinating that the Nomi character, it's not just Molly, it's like every character who she interacts with, even though she's like this weird, erratic woman, everyone's just like drawn to her for reasons that make zero sense. They're like, oh, yeah, sure. You should be on stage.

One day she looks like Pollyanna. The next day she looks like, I don't know, Lolita maybe. Nice dress. Thanks. I bought it at Versace. So Nomi, she gets a gig at a strip club, and from then on, the movie really, really earns its NC-17 rating. The scenes without someone topless become few and far between. Nomi gains an arch-nemesis named Crystal, played by Gina Gershon,

who is the star in a classy hotel's toless dance show and everything Nomi wants to be. I've had dog food. You have? Mm-hmm. Long time ago. Doggy chow. I used to love doggy chow. I used to love doggy chow, too.

Crystal helps get Nomi an audition for the chorus in her show, Goddess, but only to give Crystal more opportunities to torment Nomi. I've got a clip here of Nomi showing up to Goddess auditions. Okay, ladies. I'm Tony Moss. He's Tony Moss. I produced this show. Some of you probably heard that I'm a prick.

He's got a big 1990s suit jacket on. I produced this show. Some of you probably heard that I'm a prick. He's got a big 1990s suit jacket on. I am a prick. I got one interest here, and that's the show. I don't care whether you live or die. I want to see you dance, and I want to see you smile. Someone should have shaved that actor's neck before that take. I mean, maybe that's to, you know know amp up the scuzzification of the character or something but i noticed that this morning too i was like oh man you missed a spot pal um

i love how this just takes the premise of all about eve and just sleazes it up and runs it through the grinder of like 90s skinamax and yeah nomi is super super ambitious and she's hungry and she wants it all but it's just so silly i think the problem going in was so many people expected to read this as like a serious straight whatever and it's just not it can't be it can't be read that way or else you're going to be pulling your hair out the whole time you watch it. Yeah, yeah. Well, anyway, Nomi gets the job. Yes, she does. And Crystal and Nomi are at war with each other. So we get looks at all these wild, topless dance numbers in Goddess

that range from cave people dancing around fire to what looks like sexy motorcycle gangs. That's my favorite one is the crazy, like pseudo futuristic spikes all over the place motorcycle gang bit. Excellent. Yeah. Yeah. So eventually Nomi breaks,

pushing Crystal down the stairs and taking over as the lead and goddess. But the seedy underbelly of Vegas rears its ugly head when Nomi's friend Molly is assaulted, and Nomi takes revenge on the perpetrator. In the final scenes, she flees Vegas altogether. So one thing that I thought about when I rewatched this movie recently is that I personally think that every single character in the movie is unlikable except for Molly. And then she's the only one that bears the brunt of like that kind of attack I find not pleasant to watch. Yeah. I mean, it kind of takes the complete, like ridiculous wins out of the sales of the rest of the movie. And I think if you had just

excised that part, it would have been like, it didn't need to be there. And I think if you had just excised that part, it would have been, like, it didn't need to be there. Yeah. And that's such an old trope of, like, you know, the white person being the white savior in a way and being the one who kind of finds themselves through their black friend's pain. It's just like, every time that scene comes up, I'm just like, uh, this is where this movie is not fun anymore.

It's a left turn that I totally forgot about, and I'm watching it today, and'm just like, uh, this is where this movie is not fun anymore. It's a left turn that I totally forgot about. And I'm watching it today and I was like, oh, well that's, fun's over. It's all on the same sort of even keel. And this is like, not for this movie. You can't try to like say something like that at this point. Like I've already watched the sex scene with her and Kyle MacLachlan in that pool. Like it's just, it's a completely different movie. It's a completely different movie. We've already had the doggy child moment. Here's from doggy child to this.

I used to love doggy child too. Yeah. So there was a lot going for this movie in its early stages. The writer and director combo, Joseph or Joe Esterhaus and Paul Verhoeven, had just had massive success with their movie Basic Instinct. At the time he sold Showgirls, writer Joe Esterhaus was the highest paid screenplay writer in history. He made $26 million on screenplays in just the 90s. Wow. God bless. That is a good living for a screenwriter right there.

Yeah, exactly. That's what everyone who doesn't understand Hollywood thinks that screenwriters are making. Right, yeah, exactly. Everyone's a Joe Esterhaus. Exactly. So it was sold as a musical in the style of the old MGM Hollywood musicals.

42nd Street. Wizard of Oz. Yeah. And then the two decided it should be set in Las Vegas. Joe wrote down the idea on a napkin and was given a cash advance for the screenplay by producer Charles Evans for $2 million. A bar is a napkin. Like, why is it always a napkin? It's always a napkin.

It's the fastest way to do business when you're at the bar making these deals. It's like, where's the nearest piece of paper? Oh, napkin. Excellent. Showgirls is the first and only NC-17 rated film to get a wide theatrical release. The marketing leaned

into the naughtiness of its rating, telling moviegoers to leave their inhibitions at the door. Screenwriter Joseph Esterhaus didn't like this marketing tactic. In an interview, Joseph encouraged those under 17 to use their fake IDs to see the movie. I forgot about this. That's when you know you're getting desperate. Like, come on, just chuck your ID. Come see the movie. I feel like one of the big disconnects with this movie was that sort of expectation. Because when you see NC-17, you think it's going to be very titillating and very sexy.

But it's a movie that is just like blatantly not either of those things. Unless maybe you're like a 12-year-old kid who's like never seen boobs before. Right. Yeah, totally. Totally. I mean, it caused such a problem that the distributor, MGM, had to hire people to go to the theaters to make sure that no underage teens were getting into the movie. That's funny. That's what I had going for it. But then the critics tore it to shreds. So Aisha, I've got a review here for you to read from the New York Times in 1995. The filmmakers had declared they were bravely exploring new levels

of licentiousness. But the biggest risk they've taken here is in making a nearly $40 million movie without anyone who can act. Way harsh, Ty. Wow. I mean, Kyle MacLachlan is in the movie. Well, at the time, it was an absolute box office bomb in all respects. Adjusted for inflation,

Showgirls lost over $48 million on its theatrical release alone. That doesn't even include the whole marketing campaign about leaving your inhibitions at the door. But even more than its box office numbers and critical response, Showgirls was a major roadblock in the career of its star, Elizabeth Berkley. of its star, Elizabeth Berkley. Of all of the over-the-top performances in the movie, Berkley took the brunt of the criticism. The actress was dropped by her agent, and Hollywood essentially turned their back on her. The wildness of her performance and lurid nature of the movie aren't her fault at all.

And even director Paul Verhoeven acknowledges that. She's like the Jar Jar Binks of that movie. Yeah, it was not Ahmed Best's fault, yes. No, it's like, that's not your fault. But you're gonna get all the heat. It sucks. Well, even after all of to get all the heat. It sucks. Well, even after all of this, the movie found a second life. It ended up making its money back on home video rentals and remains in MGM's top 20 bestsellers.

Elizabeth Berkley has made peace with the film, introducing it at the 20-year anniversary showing and allowing her character Jessie in the Saved by the Bell reboot to allude to the character Nomi. VH1 bought the rights to air the movie, but had to hack 45 minutes off of it to censor it for TV and digitally add underwear onto the characters to get rid of the nudity. That's how I first encountered it, actually. Oh, really? VH1. Were you watching it like, I don't understand what the big deal is.

That's one of those things, though, where it's like, VH1, like, why are you even bothering? License another movie, man. Like, that's, you probably spent so much money, you know, having all these digital alterations and cutting it down. Like, not worth it, VH1. Yeah, they might as well have been trying to air like a Tarantino movie. It's like literally every other word is going to be cut out. Like, why are we doing this?

Showgirls has become a cult classic, especially in the LGBTQ community. Drag shows do tributes to Showgirls all of the time. Ooh, nice. Yes, they do. And there are showings of the movie that run like a Rocky Horror Picture Show party. I mean, people shout out the lines.

They know the dances. Honestly, like that's how you have to do it, right? I mean, I was thinking about that today, watching this movie quietly on my couch with my dog next to me, drinking a hot cup of coffee. Not the same. Not the same. Yeah. Even the director has come to terms with its cult status. Andrew, if you could read this quote from Paul.

Maybe this kind of ritualistic cult popularity isn't what I intended, but it's like a resurrection after the crucifixion. Oh, Jesus. Uh-huh. Oh, Jesus, indeed. Yeah. Yeah. So I guess on a scale of G to NC-17, NC-17 being the worst, how big of a flop do you think that this movie was? I mean, I think when you think about Elizabeth Berkley's career, then it's like a NC-17. Like it's astronomical.

But out of all the movies we've talked about today, this one is the one that's like most beloved. Yeah, totally. So I'd say it's like a G in terms of like its legacy. Yeah. I think if you ask this question, you know, 10 years ago or whatever, it would probably be different. Right. look at it like as an actual movie and how you can sort of, especially in a communal theatrical setting, how you can engage with it.

It's not as big of a flop as I think people would assume, you know? So I'd say it's probably on that front, probably like a PG 13 flop wise. Well, thank you, Aisha and Andrew for joining me today. It was so great to talk so bad they're bad and so bad they're good movies with both of you. And thanks to you, our lovely audience, for listening.

Coming soon on The Big Flop, we'll be diving into two of the most notorious flops in recent memory, Firefest and Theranos. So dust off your black turtleneck and prepare your cheese sandwiches, and we'll see you soon. If you like The Big Flop, you can listen early and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music.

Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey. Survey. The Big Flop is a production of Wondery and At Will Media. Hosted by me, Misha Brown. Written and produced by Sequoia Thomas and Drew Beebe. Engineered by Andrew Holtzberger. Our managing producer is Molly Getman. Our executive producers are Rosie Guerin, Kate Walsh, Will Malnati, and Samantha Story for At Will Media.

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