25 Great Movies That Flopped
17. Red Planet (2000)
They were supposed to find a structure, but when they find the location of it they realize it isn’t there.
Running out of oxygen they all feel they are doomed, but when one of the astronauts removes his helmet in an effort to make his death quicker he realizes he can breathe.
This leads the crew to find algae growing, which later turns out to be the home of ferocious bugs that are responsible for the destruction of the structure they originally went there to find.
They end up in a fight for their lives as they race to flee Mars. “Red Planet” may have been a film about Mars, but after it was released the only red the producers were seeing was purely financial. Even though the film was one of the more creative movies about Mars and Mars expeditions, moviegoers didn’t seem to respond.
While the ending where Val Kilmer’s character has to battle a robot in order to obtain parts necessary to escape Mars was slightly awkward and strange, most of the film was interesting and unpredictable.
For fans knowledgeable in science, however, the two obvious factual mistakes might have been a turn-off. In one instance a character mis-identifies a bug type, and in another the character lists the four letters of the genetic code as A G T P when in reality the letters are A G T C. However, scientific inaccuracy alone can’t explain why the movie failed.
