When you think of a box office bomb, two big films from the '80s come to mind. In 1980, the Western Heaven's Gate cost around $40 million to make, an enormous budget at the time, and only sold $3.5 million in tickets. The loss was so bad that the studio was sold. The 1987 movie Ishtar starred Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman, so you'd think it was destined to be a hit. It was not. The budget of $55 million only returned a box office of $14.4 million.
Movie budgets have only risen since then. It may cost hundreds of millions to make a movie, and quite a few more million to market it. Sometimes this pays off, such as when John Cameron directs, but it's not uncommon for a movie flop to lose $200 million dollars these days. Cracked has a list of 15 of the biggest movie bombs of the past 30 years, and the preposterous amounts of money they lost. You'll look at these and say, "I've heard of that one, but I never bothered to go see it."
Actually a pretty good film. Just started out slow (and gross), but turned into a solid guy movie. I'd say it fell victim to bad advertising... Commercials I saw just showed Antonio Banderas dressed in sheets & acting like a whiny coward. Really didn't capture the (action/battle) feel of the film. Critics were harsh, too, but audiences rated it 66% positive.
And their list goes back to 1995, but DOESN'T include Waterworld???