BRAZIL
1985
Director: Terry Gilliam
Box Office: $9,929,000
Ordinary joe Sam Lowry gets sucked into a bureaucratic world of incompetence while investigating an administrative error that caused a terrorist to escape justice.
Why it shouldn’t have flopped: Brazil is one of Terry Gilliam's most giddily inventive films. As a satire of a world made unnecessarily complicated it becomes more relevant with each passing decade.
Why it probably flopped: Well, it's Terry Gilliam isn't it? The former Python has hardly ever set the box office burning (partly because film companies never seem to know how to market his films). And its biggest star - Robert De Niro - Gilliam virtually hides away in a cameo! "Darling, do you want to go the cinema tonight to see a social satire set in a bureaucracy-crazy world starring - wait for it! - Jonathan Pryce?" "No. You're dumped."
What should have flopped instead: Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. Tina Turner single-handedly wrecks a once-great franchise.
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