The encyclopedia · Product & Design · Product decision · 1999–2002
Battlefield Earth: the $44M flop that ended Franchise Pictures
John Travolta's vanity sci-fi cost $44M, grossed $29.7M worldwide, and its inflated $75M declared cost later drew a $77M fraud judgment.
Franchise Pictures · Warner Bros. Pictures · 2000-05-12
What happened
Battlefield Earth was John Travolta's pet project — a $44 million sci-fi adaptation of a L. Ron Hubbard novel, produced by his friend Elie Samaha's Franchise Pictures and distributed by Warner Bros. Travolta deferred part of his fee to get it made, and the film was set up as a franchise starter.
It was an instant disaster. Released May 12, 2000, it grossed just $29.7 million worldwide against its budget and was savaged by critics — 3% on Rotten Tomatoes, a 9/100 on Metacritic, and widely called one of the worst films ever made.
The damage went beyond the box office. Franchise Pictures had declared the film's cost at $75 million, and German financier Intertainment later won a $77 million fraud judgment against the company for padding budgets. The film sank Franchise Pictures and left Travolta's franchise ambitions dead.
Why it happened
- A vanity project was greenlit on the producer's friendship with the star, not the script's merit, and the result was a $44M film rated 3% on Rotten Tomatoes — everyone agreed it was unwatchable.
- The studio financed it by letting the producer declare a padded $75M budget, a fraud that later drew a $77M judgment against Franchise Pictures — the real cost was the producer's own destruction.
- The franchise plan priced a niche sci-fi as a tentpole: $44M to launch a series, when the property's appeal never reached beyond a small fan base.
The lesson
Backing a film because the star is a friend is not a business case: a $44M budget, a 3% Rotten Tomatoes score, and a padded declared cost turned one vanity project into a studio-fatal loss.
Sources
- Yahoo Entertainment — Battlefield Earth: Hollywood's Most Infamous Flop
- Wikipedia — Battlefield Earth (film)
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