Box Office Bomb: Budget, $27 million. Box office, $1.3 million. Legal disputes crippled the marketing and release of the film resulting in its woeful return.
The Shelf of Movie Languishment: The film was finished in late 2011 (after financing issues briefly halted filming in mid 2011) but had difficulty in finding a distributor. When it finally did find one, the film got tied up in legal lawsuits as a result of the marketing department not promoting the film like they were supposed to, it eventually got a DVD release in 2014.
Stillborn Franchise: Despite being based on an extremely successful book series, the film’s failure at the box office put any chance of continuing the series on ice and Yelchin’s subsequent tragically young death closed the door on any more films for good.
The cast was supposed to contain even more big names in it, but ultimately scheluding issues prevented that from happening. Among others, Tim Robbins almost got a part.
The lawsuit mentioned above stipulated that a significant money was to be spend on marketing of the movie, along with wide release, by the marketing company. Since that was instantly put under appeal, to not end up with a movie perpetually stuck on the shelf, it was relegated to Direct to Video.
