The only thing moviegoers love more than car crashes and explosions is watching a film go up in flames. In Fiasco, James Robert Parish goes behind the scenes to tell the story of the most important flops in movie history.

Every season brings a number of financial disappointments, but it takes years to make a movie as awful as Showgirls. To become a true fiasco — an iconic film on the scale of Ishtar or Heaven's Gate — a movie has to be more than just a major money loser. Word of a project spiraling out of control often reaches the public before the film itself, but cinephiles should always be on the lookout for elitism, pampered stars, titanic egos, vanity projects, comedians in dramas, serious actors in comedies, and anything set to music. Or all of these combined. While Gigli is just bad, Robert Altman's Popeye was a fiasco. Parish delivers the gossip, the grosses, and the egregious ego battles that brought about many of these disasters.

Much as Hollywood would hate to admit it, all self-respecting movie buffs needs to know as much about the astonishingly awful films of Kevin Costner as they do about Hitchcock or Fellini, and Fiasco is the place to find out.

"Fiascois a know-it-all backstory of infamous film flops wittily reminding us how often, and in so many ways, Hollywood can screw up the best laid plans."

--Patrick McGilligan, author of Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light

"A gleefully readable, well-researched study of hubris in Hollywood"

—Publishers Weekly

A Hollywood insider answers, once and for all, the eternal question: "How in the world did that picture ever get made?"

One thing we movie lovers enjoy almost as much as fireworks on the silver screen is watching a movie go up in flames. And while each season brings its fresh batch of stinkers, it takes years and a rare confluence of forces to give birth to an "Iconic Flop" like Showgirls. While movies such as Gigli are just plain dumb, a bunker-buster like Battlefield Earth can be absolutely dumbfounding in its big-budget awfulness.

In Fiasco, longtime industry insider and acclaimed Hollywood historian James Robert Parish goes behind the scenes to tell the stories of fifteen of the most spectacular megaflops of the past fifty years. No mere financial disappointments these, each of the artistic and financial failures covered was of a magnitude to bankrupt studios, demolish reputations, and, in some cases, totally reconfigure the Hollywood power structure.

With verve and no small measure of edgy wit, Parish dishes up the gossip, the grosses, and the egregious battles connected with these disasters. He recounts, in every gory detail, how enormous hubris, unbridled ambition, artistic hauteur, and bad business sense on the parts of Tinsel Town wheeler-dealers and superstars such as Elizabeth Taylor, Sam Spiegel, Robert Altman, Clint Eastwood, Robert Evans, Francis Ford Coppola, Madonna, Kevin Costner, and Warren Beatty conspired to engender some of the worst films ever. And he vividly recreates the behind-the-scenes melodramas connected with the making of Cleopatra, Paint Your Wagon, Popeye, The Cotton Club, Shanghai Surprise, Ishtar, Waterworld, Town & Country, and other unforgettable Hollywood megaflops of the past fifty years.

"Fiasco is a know-it-all backstory of infamous film flops, wittily reminding us how often, and in so many ways, Hollywood can screw up the best laid plans."

—Patrick McGilligan, author of Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light

The only thing moviegoers love more than car crashes and explosions is watching a high-profile film go up in flames. Every season brings a number of financial disappointments, but it takes extraordinary circumstances for a screen project to become a truly iconic disaster like Ishtar or Waterworld. In the highly entertaining Fiasco, James Robert Parish goes behind the scenes to tell the in-depth backstory of the 15 top flops in Hollywood movie history, from Cleopatra and The Cotton Club to Battlefield Earth, Showgirls, and The Postman. Parish delivers all the gossip, the grosses, and the egregious ego battles behind each of these classic benchmark big-screen disasters.

James Robert Parishis a former entertainment reporter and publicist and the author of numerous books on Hollywood. He appears frequently as an expert on network and cable television documentaries like A&E's Biographyand E! Television's True Hollywood Stories.

Acknowledgments.

Introduction.

1 Cleopatra(1963).

2 The Chase(1966).

3 Paint Your Wagon(1969).

4 The Wild Party(1975).

5 Popeye(1980).

6 The Cotton Club(1984).

7 Shanghai Surprise(1986).

8 Ishtar(1987).

9 Last Action Hero(1993).

10 Cutthroat Island(1995).

11 Showgirls(1995).

12 Waterworld(1995) and The Postman(1997).

13 Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000(2000).

14 Town & Countr y(2001).

Afterword.

Appendix A: Filmography.

Appendix B: Hollywood Feature Films That Were Box-Office Disappointments in Domestic Theatrical Release (1960–2004).

Bibliography.

Index.