2012 had some big movies: “The Hobbit,” “Django Unchained,” “Moonrise Kingdom”—it also had some total stinkers: “John Carter,” “Battleship,” an implausible sequel to “Clash of the Titans,” “The Innocence of Muslims…”
But the Daily Mail points out that the trophy for the single worst-performing movie of 2012 must go to Christian Slater’s “Playback,” which according to Box Office Mojo made a whopping $264. Total. As in two hundred and sixty-four bucks. Two hundred fifty-two of that was grossed opening weekend. It played for one full week after that, where it made another twelve bucks.
The indie cop-horror movie only played on just one screen for a week in March, but still—Daily Mail crunches that at the average national ticket price of $7.94, only 33 people would have gone to see it. And that’s probably being generous, since the one screen it played on was probably in LA, where tickets are closer to $11—which means that closer to 24 people would have bought tickets.
That’s even worse than Sarah Palin’s “documentary” “The Undefeated” which, as perhaps the only movie to ever score a 0% on Rotten Tomatoes, still managed to earn just over $116,000.
But hey, before you start feeling too bad for Christian Slater, he’s still working a ton both in movies and TV and has more titles slated for 2013. Plus, he’s probably still getting some sweet royalty checks from “Pump Up The Volume.”
December 28, 2012 at 9:47 am, Cool Clicks: Happy Holidays From Tony Stark | NextMovie said:
[...] • Only 33 people went to go see Christian Slater's movie "Playback." Let's hope they loved it. [Death and Taxes] [...]
December 28, 2012 at 4:00 pm, The Final Countdown: Funny Animals, Worst Commercials and Diablo Multiplayer | said:
[...] 33 people see new Christian Slater movie – [DeathTaxes] [...]
December 29, 2012 at 1:32 pm, John Gallimore said:
as long as we don't see a sequel to Gleaming the Cube, the majority of his dignity will remain intact…maybe…
December 30, 2012 at 2:57 am, Zayed Khan said:
erm1 screen and not advertised and that's shocking? if it was on 200 screens then it would, so this is stupid just to make some news
January 01, 2013 at 9:27 pm, Michael Mohammed said:
I caught this one on Netflix and it was okay.
January 02, 2013 at 6:16 pm, Enrique Danilo Lopez Jr. said:
Gleaming the cube was good
January 03, 2013 at 7:20 am, Robb Wolford said:
That's kind of sad. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMZkA73x64k
January 03, 2013 at 4:44 pm, Bagdaulet Raybekov said:
It could have ended up Ditect To DVD but it had had one screen theatrical release. It's kind of good fo Slater nowdays.
January 04, 2013 at 9:17 pm, Laurie O'Dowd Piccinni said:
Oh, how wrong you are about John Carter…not a stinker at all. Great fun movie – most underrated for 2012.
February 20, 2013 at 1:06 am, Hit Manfan said:
sorry. it sucked.
February 23, 2013 at 12:07 am, Ted Ulman said:
Loved John Carter. It was better than Men in Black 3, Hunger Games and Twilight – Breaking Dawn. 3 movies that didn't deserve to do well financially but did anyway.
February 23, 2013 at 2:59 am, Stephen Paden said:
John Carter's failing is that it tried to be serious for 80% of the movie, the remaining 20% turned into camp. It help fairly true to the first Barsoom novels in some respects. But the camp destroyed it.
February 23, 2013 at 9:01 am, Jackie Jormpjomp said:
John Carter was good.
March 13, 2013 at 5:20 am, Shane Gaudry said:
It may not have been a 'great movie', but it was one of the most enjoyable sci-fi movies I'd seen in a long time. Enough so that I rewatched it, something I almost never do.
March 30, 2013 at 11:17 pm, Sérgio Caixinha said:
Bore fest!
January 08, 2013 at 4:53 pm, Peter Ramirez said:
I don't believe any of the reviewers "opinions"on movies, because a lot of times they get it wrong, if you want real opinions get young people to review movies, not old farts who are way past their bedtime.
January 12, 2013 at 11:04 am, Daniel Wysocki said:
OMG, really? Wow. That sucks.
January 19, 2013 at 7:47 pm, Ralph L Angelo Jr said:
Its funny how you go along with the crowd idiots still pan both 'John Carter' and 'Battleship', two fo the very BEST movies to come out of 2012.
January 21, 2013 at 8:11 pm, Rob Kennedy said:
Battleship was just awful. John Carter wasn't a terrible movie, but it WAS a terrible adaptation.
January 20, 2013 at 10:20 pm, Thomas A. Rice said:
John Carter was a great movie. It was completely overlooked because of The Avengers, The Dark Knight Rises and Skyfall. It's one of those movies you watch on cable and say "Wow… why did this movie not do well in the box office?"
January 21, 2013 at 2:48 am, Mel McMurtrey said:
totally agree. I saw it when it first came out, people forget the story was written one hundred years ago so all action heroes are modeled after him. I love it but there was almost no advertizements for it .
January 21, 2013 at 8:10 pm, Rob Kennedy said:
Um…John Carter came out well before The Avengers, The Dark Knight Rises and Skyfall. It wasn't ignored: it was just a terrible adaptation of an existing work. The screenwriter took special care to remove every element of John Carter that made him John Carter.
January 23, 2013 at 4:19 pm, Thomas A. Rice said:
Disney did not advertise the movie nearly half as much as they did their other property the Avengers. Compared to Tarzan, Lord of the Apes, John Carter is an obscure character that few people know Edger Rice Burroughs wrote. I remember reading the comic book as a kid growing up in the '70's and that led me to read his works later when I was older.
January 29, 2013 at 12:23 pm, Roger WünderBarbar Pedersen said:
It was a boxoffice flop, but it's still quite the good flick yeah..
February 23, 2013 at 4:10 am, Douglas Skot Whitman said:
"Disney did not advertise the movie nearly half as much as they did their other property the Avengers" WRONG! A large part of the reason the movie flopped was because Disney spent $100 million of the $252 million est. cost on advertising/marketing. It doesn't do you a damn bit of good to spend 100mil on marketing, if you don't market it properly… in John Carter's case, they had to spend that money because most people had no clue what it was in the first place.
March 14, 2013 at 11:14 pm, Ali Jamar Taylor said:
John Carter lost a lot of its potential draw from the obscurity of the name due to the director's quasi-sexist views on what would and wouldn't draw male and female viewers. He assumed that sticking with the title "A Princess of Mars" would alienate male viewers and that female viewers would not go to see "John Carter of Mars".
Instead of building on the brand name of the original novels, they instead opted for "John Carter" which instantly makes you say "who the eff is he?" and move on with your life.
Shame really because I thought the film was freaking awesome and Taylor Kitsch could be riding a good wave of momentum right now.
January 21, 2013 at 10:27 pm, Craig Starsky said:
"Heathers" Jason Dean character was the pinnacle of Christian Slater's body of work. He was still young, still vital..and somehow the anti-hero's long black coat,.357 Magnum and access to his Dad's (expired) TNT was never mentioned in any of the horrible school shootings.Easily one of my favorite characters..and "Heathers" still remains in my top 10 movies.
January 26, 2013 at 12:28 am, Gonzo Bermejo said:
He is Clarence Worley! Repect!
January 27, 2013 at 10:34 pm, Armando Castillo said:
you forgot the dark knight rises as one of the big movies…moonrise kingdom I'm sure was good..i do want to see it…but a movie that had a shit ton of people went to see…i don't think so lol.
February 06, 2013 at 4:29 am, Monika Andersson said:
So happy you mentioned "Pump of the Volume". Love that movie.
February 21, 2013 at 1:35 am, Keiran Stibbard said:
Christian Slater was awesome in True Romance. This is a Quentin Tarintino script, sold off to another director or producer, (I can't remember the directors name, but he is a big name, who did an amazing job with ths awesome script…but I always wondered what the film would have been like, & how much better it may have been if Quentin had directed & didn't require the funds for Reservoir Dogs).
True Romance though, is Slaters best movie, by far….& Brad Pitt's best acting work as stoner housemate, is another standout, in a standout movie. James Gandolifini as a……………..surprise, surprise, mafiosa hitman (what a huge casting mistake, Gandolafini doesn't strike me as an actor tailor made for that type of role…..nooooo).
On a separate note, harping on the Tarantino thing, I also believe he wrote Natural Born Killers, (which Oliver Stone ended up directing & did an admirable job, but I still always thought, Tarantino would have done a much better, more hardcore, gritty version).
February 21, 2013 at 10:27 pm, Kevin Burns said:
You claim to be a critic– I think both John Carter and Battleship were very entertaining. And isn't that why movies are made and Miscreants like you are paid the big bucks. Maybe FREDDIE or MICHAEL or one of those IDIOTS psychos made so much money, because critics such as yourself are actually paid at all.
February 22, 2013 at 11:38 pm, William Warren Daoust said:
John Carter was not advertised nearly enough they are so stupid should of said written by Edgar Rice Burroughs but no don't want to give a dead man credit didn't he write tarzan to stupid dolts.
February 23, 2013 at 12:12 am, Derek Gibson said:
John Carter and Battleship were good movies.
February 23, 2013 at 1:10 am, Daniel Dylan Davis said:
John Carter was great.
Haven't seen Battleship, don't care.
February 23, 2013 at 8:35 pm, Tim Bearden said:
This isn't even Slater's movie. He only has a small cameo that's like 10 minutes long!
February 28, 2013 at 3:34 pm, Frank Bromley said:
there are actually a few movies with a 0 on RT partly because there's a minimum number of reviews required to get an average.
March 04, 2013 at 12:12 am, Shane Zwicker said:
A lot of talk about john carter and none about the movie that this thread is actually about, on a side note, john carter was a good movie and people need to stop comparing movies to books, especially when the book was over 100 years old.. As for playback, another ripoff of "the ring" I didn't think it was nearly bad enough to get the rap that it has, 33 people, really? I've seen worse, as someone that's seen the movie I can say that the worst part about it was that they slotted a big name actor into a scuzbag roll. This role should have been played by some slightly overweight pervy looking unattractive redneck. If I were christian slater I would have turned down the role after reading the script.
April 25, 2013 at 11:18 am, Oliver Dexter said:
TDKR was probably the worst film to come out last year. There where so many holes in the story that I'd never watch it again it was that crap. It made Batman look like a pussy
April 25, 2013 at 12:03 pm, Jeremy Marshall said:
Whoah, the 'worst' fill to come out???
April 25, 2013 at 12:03 pm, Jeremy Marshall said:
film even
April 25, 2013 at 12:03 pm, Jeremy Marshall said:
May 11, 2013 at 2:06 am, Berry Robey said:
Miss laurie o`dowd piccinni u r soooooo rite hun!!!!!!! John Carter was really underated!!!!! The movie was very enjoyable and left me wantin more.I know theres more to the story that we will never see in the big screen. Only in our minds if we get the books.I couldnt finish watchin cowboys n aliens even to this day but john carter took all this heat cause disney lost 200 million. Sorry i dont feel sorry for them. They made there money back n then a billion with avengers lol. Which they spent buyin,the rights to star wars. A
May 13, 2013 at 4:38 am, Larry Diffey said:
I've always thought Christian Slater was a superb actor and I'm surprised he hasn't had a more successful career.
May 15, 2013 at 3:57 am, Luis Serrano said:
Edger Rice Burroughs What this writer needs is some one with imagination to comprehend the beauty of in the simpleness of words of his writings. just to advance for some.. John Carter was a very entertaining fun movie they left out a lot of the character. Now if they do make Tarzan they need me to make sure they know what they are doing…Hollywood sucks at this time.
May 15, 2013 at 11:43 pm, Michael Angelo Gonzalez said:
Sorry guys, I tried to like John Carter, especially because it was a Disney movie, but that thing sucked big time. I wish I could get back the hour of my life that I invested into watching the first half, no idea what happens in the end, nor do I care.