The term box office bomb or flop generally refers to a film that is viewed as highly unsuccessful or unprofitable during its theatrical run, sometimes preceding hype regarding its production, cost or marketing efforts. To earn this distinction, the film must also fail to earn more than the reported cost of its production, distribution and marketing by a wide margin.
Gauging the financial success of a film is difficult, and because there is no definitive definition, what makes Box-office bomb can be very subjective. Not all films that fail to earn back their estimated costs during their theatrical runs are bombs, and the label is generally applied to films that miss earnings projections by a wide margin, particularly when they are very expensive to produce, and sometimes in conjunction with middling or poor reviews (though critical reception has nothing to do with box office performance).
Read more about Box Office Bomb: Possible Success of Flops, Studios Pushed Into Financial Ruin, Independent Films
Famous quotes containing the words box, office and/or bomb:
“I walked on the banks of the tincan banana dock and sat down under the huge shade of a Southern Pacific locomotive to look at the sunset over the box house hills and cry.”
—Allen Ginsberg (b. 1926)
“We need more of the Office Desk and less of the Show Window in politics. Let men in office substitute the midnight oil for the limelight.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)
““... There, there,
What you complain of, all the nations share.
Their effort is a mounting ecstasy
That when it gets too exquisite to bear
Will find relief in one burst. You shall see.
That’s what a certain bomb was sent to be.””
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)