From Famous Flops To Cult Hits: ‘Big Lebowski,’ ‘Clue’ and, Yes, ‘Citizen Kane’

Will Leitch
·Editor

It was Bloody Monday for Hollywood today: Studios released four new high-profile movies over the weekend, and every single one of them flopped. "Spy Kids: All the Time in the World?" Odious! "Fright Night?" Bloodless! "Conan the Barbarian?" Vivisected! "One Day!" More like "One Dollar," are we right? Lots of carnage out there.

The studios and filmmakers behind the movies should take heart, though: Just because a movie has flopped doesn't mean it goes off to movie heaven with a harp and wings and clouds. No, some of the most beloved and lasting cult films of all time initially tanked at the box office. So take heart, Anne Hathaway: Just because no one can quite decipher your accent in "One Day" doesn't mean the movie won't live forever. (Though, seriously, it's not gonna live forever. That movie stinks.)

Here are some of the most famous cult films to start out as box office duds:

"The Big Lebowski." Finally -- finally! -- out on Blu-Ray this month, "The Big Lebowski" is one of those movies that transcend movies: Even if you've never seen it, you know almost everything about it. But of course you've seen it! Jeff Bridges is one of the most respected, beloved actors of his generation, and still, the first line of his obituary will include the word "Dude." Not that anyone noticed when the film hit theaters: Its opening weekend, it finished sixth with only $5.53 million, behind another movie called "Twilight" that you probably didn't even know existed until right now. But the Lebowski cult popped up shortly thereafter, and now not only the movie a legend, it has even inspired its own religion.

"Clue." The wacky comedy based on the board game has the distinct advantage of actually becoming popular because it was a flop. It barely made back its budget when released in 1985, but because of that, it was discounted when sold for home video, one of the first movies that was sold on VHS for less than the ridiculous $99.99 retail price. (Remember when VHS movies used to cost that much?) But "Clue" was such a flop in theaters that it was discounted down to $19.99, which is why so many parents across the country owned it. This was still early on in the VCR process, and "Clue" became the "Hey, I have a VCR, I should own a movie!" movie. This, strangely, kind of made it do for the VCR what "The Matrix" did for DVDs: It became the movie that helped mainstream a new technology. Also, it's funny.

"Office Space." We were such big "Beavis and Butt-head" fans that we actually went to see Mike Judge's comedy on the big screen, opening day. It was pretty lonely in there: The film actually finished behind the Freddie Prinze Jr. vehicle "She's All That," and that movie had been out for a month already. And even then, people only went to see it because of Jennifer Aniston. Now most people don't even remember she's in it. The movie's dialogue is now canon, from "TPS reports" to "O-face" to "Yeahhh, I'm gonna go ahead and have you come in on Saturday." It's no surprise that Hollywood didn't understand Judge's brilliant workplace satire; we working drones out there in the cubicle world, though, we got it all too well.

"Fight Club." It seems bizarre to think a movie in which Brad Pitt spends most of the movies getting in fights, drinking heavily and having lots of sex would not have been a smash when it came out, but, mostly, people were just scared of David Fincher's film. It inspired wide protests, various cuts to avoid an X-rating and even had a Senator or two up in arms. It did so poorly at the box office that it cost a top Fox executive his job. Now, of course, every film seems pointed exactly at the young male audience that this film was made for, and obsesses over it. It did nothing for IKEA's stock, though.

"Citizen Kane." Believe it or not, the movie most consider the greatest American film of all time was originally thought a disaster: It did so poorly at the box office that many wondered if writer/director/star Orson Welles would ever be allowed to make a movie again. Much of this was because William Randolph Hearst, on whose life the film was based, had threatened so many journalists and studio execs that he would destroy them if they supported the film. At the Academy Awards, the film was booed every time its name was mentioned. Turns out, though, the film had a little staying power.