$97 Million Loss! This Disaster Was the Final Blow for the Studio!

With a production budget of $115 million and a meager $10 million in domestic box office earnings ($18 million if international revenues are included), “Cutthroat Island” is notoriously and sadly known as one of the biggest box office flops in American history, rivaling colossal failures like “Heaven’s Gate” and John McTiernan’s “The 13th Warrior.” It caused its production company, Carolco Pictures, a loss of $97 million, which, adjusted for inflation, amounts to over $195 million today.

The venture started with good intentions: envisioned as a Tentpole Movie, Cutthroat Island was supposed to rekindle the flame of the Swashbuckler, a term used to describe adventurous sword-fighting and pirate films, much like its glorious predecessors such as “Captain Blood” and “The Crimson Pirate”…

“A pirate movie? The worst idea ever!”

However, Renny Harlin’s film had the opposite effect of what was hoped for: it killed the genre for nearly a decade, until the arrival of “Pirates of the Caribbean.” The memory of the failure of Cutthroat Island was so painful that it haunted Disney, to the extent that its executives tried to pull the plug on the project while it was in pre-production. “A pirate movie? ‘The worst idea ever!'” recalled Gore Verbinski in an engaging (and lengthy) interview published on Collider in March 2021.

Cutthroat Island faced numerous issues, including the withdrawal of Michael Douglas and the recasting of his role with Matthew Modine. Incredibly costly actual wooden ships were built and then rebuilt. From an initial budget of $60 million, the funds quickly flared to $100 million and then $115 million.

It also severely damaged the career of its lead actress, Geena Davis, who was at that time married to Harlin and had also set up her own production company for the film. It took her years to climb back up, and even then, only marginally.

The ultimate nail in Carolco Pictures’ coffin

Technically, “Cutthroat Island” didn’t kill Carolco, but it was indeed the last nail in the coffin for the company founded by renowned film investors Mario Kassar and Andrew Vajna in 1976. Carolco had notably acquired the rights to the Terminator franchise, re-engaging James Cameron and Arnold Schwarzenegger for “Terminator 2: Judgment Day.”

The company had also produced notable films like “Angel Heart,” “Cliffhanger,” “The Doors,” “Total Recall,” “Chaplin,” and “Basic Instinct.” A remarkable portfolio wiped out by the misadventure of Cutthroat Island. Carolco disappeared in 1996, after selling its assets to Twentieth Century Fox for $50 million. Ironically, the film was supposed to be the company’s last chance for survival, already struggling with severe financial issues.

In a painful irony, the company had long hesitated over another project, which cost millions of dollars in pre-production and never materialized. The famous crusades film that Paul Verhoeven was working on with Arnold Schwarzenegger since 1994, which was expected to be extraordinary. Frightened by the controversial nature of its subject and also because it had greatly overestimated its financial capabilities to produce such a film, Carolco Pictures decided to put all its eggs in what was considered a less risky basket, “Cutthroat Island”…