Box Office Bombs That Drove Studios Out of Business
Raise the Titanic, 1980
It’s ironic that the very feature film concerned with raising the RMS Titanic above the water, sunk its own production house, ‘ITC Entertainment.’ Unlike many other movies based on the passenger liner, this one never went close to being called successful.
The plot surrounded the theory that the sunken giant hid some valuable cargo powerful enough to be used as leverage for the Cold War. For the graphical and technical prowess it took to recreate the Titanic, and its emergence from the body of water, the film’s budget went up to $40 million. Next to this number, the complete earnings of $7 million were insignificant, to say the least. A beat-up Lew Grade, the movie’s producer, famously said of the misfortune, “it would have been cheaper to lower the Atlantic.”
The screenplay was based on the 1976 book of Steve Cussler, by the same name. Cussler was so put off by the portrayal of the characters and depiction that he decided not to allow any further screen adaptations of his books.
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