What films that flopped when they came out but you saw in the theater and loved, that are now universally acclaimed or cult classics?
niktemadur@kbin.social to 
Moving to: m/AskMbin!@kbin.social – 0 points – Films that may have flopped but not because of you, because you did your part and bought a ticket.
Maybe The Island?
I think it didn't do great at the box office, but I went in expecting a mindless, Michael Bay summer action flick and that's what I got.
I watched it in theaters—twice. Alone, too.
I don't know if it's considered a cult classic now though.
I think Stargate didn't do very well when it came out, but then went on to spawn several TV series.
I was surprised when I learned that because the shows were really fun.
I had trouble with the show. I really wanted to like it, but there are too many things I didn’t like about it. But the movie was amazing. I just watched it for the first time in the past year.
How far along did you get in the show? It starts out sort of slow and cheesy, but ramps up to having really big overarching storylines and super epic battles!
Like 4 episodes. I’ve heard it gets better, I just can’t bring myself to watch it. Maybe I’ll try Atlantis and then go back to the original.
I have a really hard time with the recasting.
With a lot of TV from that era you have to accept the first season is the show figuring itself out. 4 episodes, really isn't enough.
The best approach is just to skip boring chunks/episodes and move on to the next. Then when your hooked going back is worth it.
With Stargate while its an episodic format, events in past episodes are incorporated and it slowly starts building a complex universe.
Atlantis starts in SG1 season 5 and there are constant events in one series affecting the other one as a result.
Blade Runner. It did very poorly at the box office, and the critics were lukewarm at best, but I loved it. I was a big fan of Philip K. Dick, so a film by Ridley Scott based on one of his novels was right up my alley. I dragged my friend to see it the week it came out, and I was blown away. Even back then I wasn’t alone. It almost immediately became a cult film that regularly played in smaller repertory theaters.
I remember reading an interview with Arthur C. Clarke back then where he mentioned that he had recently spoken with Stanley Kubrick, and Kubrick had said that Blade Runner was the most visually beautiful film he had ever seen.
I feel like the sequel had similar problems. I think it did end up making its money back but based on what they spent vs what it made it wasn't a home run at all. But everyone I've talked to who has seen it thought it was great, myself included.
I get the feeling that both the original and the sequel are the kind of film where word of mouth just doesn't do it for some reason. I had a friend years ago who mentioned that she had never seen Blade Runner, and immediately followed that by saying not to bother telling her how good it was.
I don’t think The Emperor’s New Groove did well in the theaters, but it is one of the best Disney movies of its time.
Emperor's New Groove and Lilo & Stitch were also two of the last few times Disney put out something original. The last two decades of Disney releases have mostly been franchises they've bought from others or remakes of older Disney films that weren't even their original stories to begin with, e.g. Star Wars, MCU, 20th Century Fox, Pixar, a majority of Disney classics.
Despite overwhelmingly positive critical reviews, Children of Men lost money in its 2006 theatrical run. Most people I knew had never heard of it, and the only person I knew who had seen it was the friend I went to the theater with. It's now generally regarded as one of the best films of the 21st Century (so far) and particularly lauded for its cinematography. It's had a very successful home video run since then and is even more relevant today than on its release.
Seriously? Shit I saw it three times in theaters. I thought it was a masterpiece. Hopefully it's getting some of the recognition it deserves now.