The encyclopedia · Product & Design · Product decision · 2002
Warner Bros. shelved Pluto Nash for two years, then released it into a $92.9M loss
The Adventures of Pluto Nash cost $100M and made just $7M worldwide, a 96% loss that remains one of the biggest percentage box office bombs on record.
Warner Bros. · 2002-08-16
What happened
Warner Bros. produced The Adventures of Pluto Nash, a science-fiction comedy starring Eddie Murphy, on a production budget of about $100 million, wrapping filming in 2000 but holding the finished film on the shelf for roughly two years before finally releasing it.
The extended delay, unusual for a film with this level of star power and budget, signaled internal doubts about the film's quality well before the public ever saw it, and no major reshoots or reworking addressed those doubts during the wait.
The film opened to savage reviews and closed with just $7 million worldwide, a 96% loss against its budget — one of the largest percentage losses of any studio film in history, and a case frequently cited as a contender for the biggest box office bomb ever made.
Why it happened
- Holding a finished, expensive film on the shelf for two years without addressing its underlying problems just delayed an inevitable loss.
- The studio didn't use the delay period for meaningful reshoots or edits that might have improved the film's reception.
- A high-profile star's presence was treated as sufficient to carry the film despite the studio's own evident lack of confidence in it.
- No one canceled or wrote off the project earlier, once a two-year shelf life made clear the studio didn't believe in its prospects.
The lesson
A finished film sitting on a shelf for two years isn't waiting for the right moment — it's a studio's own verdict on the film, delivered quietly.
Aftermath
Pluto Nash became a standard reference point in industry discussions of studios releasing films they've already internally written off, and it remains cited as a contender for the largest percentage box office loss in film history.
Sources
- The Adventures of Pluto Nash — Wikipedia
- SlashFilm — Is The Adventures Of Pluto Nash The Biggest Bomb Of All Time?
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