22 movie blockbusters nobody remembers
Movies like Wild Hogs, San Andreas, and S.W.A.T. earned huge bucks—and we forgot them the moment we left the theater
Film Reviews Michelle Pfeiffer
Many blockbusters stand the test of time. They had us at “hello.” And frankly, my dear, we love quoting their best lines. Then there are the blockbusters nobody remembers. Most of these forgotten films benefitted from an enormous marketing push which stoked nine-figure interest, but by the time a critical mass of the moviegoing public rendered its verdict, the studio had already run home with our money. Some of these films were actually decent, but they’ve flitted away from the public consciousness, history deeming them no more than a fine way to escape the heat of a Phoenix summer day. And others have barely stood the test of the moment, much less time (Clash Of The Titans has entered the chat).
Whatever the reason, it didn’t take us long to come up with a list of 22 films that made a boatload of money but weren’t good enough or memorable enough to seep into our collective consciousness. For the record, we’re looking at full-on theatrical releases (so you’re spared Bright, The Ridiculous 6, and 6 Underground) that opened no earlier than 1990 and grossed at least $100 million (regardless of the film’s budget). So check out our alphabetical list of forgotten blockbusters and then, if history is any guide, forget them again.
314 Comments
I get why most of the movies on this list are forgotten. But “Con Air” is one of those movies I personally find very rewatchable… I guess it’s a guilty pleasure, but it also seems pretty ubiquitous on streaming platforms and cable TV and seems to have become part of the pop culture zeitgeist.
My mom told me she rewatched Con Air on TV just last week, commercials and all, which prompted me to rewatch it on streaming because it rules. I agree about its ubiquity; it feels like it’s always been playing on some cable channel my whole life. I was in the comments calling it a perfect movie recently because a writer on this site referenced Con Air in pointing out that the upcoming Flight Risk sounds similar to it. It’s definitely part of the zeitgeist.(Also it’s better than The Rock.)
No. No Connery.
Sure, we can all agree that loshersh always hwhine abut their best and winnersh go home and fuck the prom queen, but I just could never get on board with The Rock, or Michael Bay movies in general, my pure and true love for Ambulance aside.
The 90s action work of Nicholas Cage in Face Off, Con Air and The Rock is chefs kiss enjoyable on rewatch. Honestly, I may have to do a weekend where I watch all three!
Yeah for a while Con Air was right up the with Shawshank Redemption in that you could find it one some channel every weekend. Now the Harry Potter movies have kind of taken that spot in that like either USA or SyFy will run a marathon of the movies it seems like EVERY single weekend all day long.
You’ve just made me realize I’ve never seen Shawshank all the way through; I just felt like I had because it was always on TBS or something…
“(Also it’s better than The Rock.)“Yeah but The Rock has Sean Connery slapping everybody in the face with his dick and it’s fucking awesome, even if the film isn’t.
Con Air is a ridiculous film, but also a very memorable one, and for the same reasons. I never tire of watching it!
I paused halfway through the slideshow to say the same thing. This movie is about as far from forgotten as a 90s action flick can get. “Should have been better”?? In what way? It’s ridiculous in all the right ways.
Con Air was fucking fantastic. I can’t believe anyone would say “nobody remembers it”. It’s one of the best action movies of that era.
The mid 90s? I dont know about that. Enjoyable popcorn flick is what I would say….with a murderers row of great character actors: Cage, that guy who played Chief O’Brien whose name i dont know but who i love in everything he pops up in, Malkovich, the Busc, Ving, Chappelle, just a great cast.
Colm Meaney.
“that guy who played Chief O’Brien”Colm Meaney
That’s the Ayatolla Colm Meaney, thank you very much.
I remember that past AV Clubber
Yup! This writer(s) is a jackass.
You know why. The author was not alive when it came out.
I love Con Air. It’s stupid and millennials and gen xers who saw it in theaters will never forget it.
Yup. I saw it in the theater. I was 13 years old. It was fucking awesome.
We had a movie theater that actually took checking ID seriously so we had to have a parent with us which we didn’t. I think we bought tickets for Father’s Day with Robin Williams and then just snuck into the Con Air screening. I hate being that older person that says “in my day” but I do feel bad for kids today. Me and my friends roller bladed/rode our bikes over to the theater and played in the arcade after and were just no contact with our parents for about 6 hours. It was awesome.
We did that with Species 2 haha
As long as people are obsessed with Nicolas Cage there will be discussions of Con Air. So forever basically. I’m perplexed by calling Godzilla 98 a blockbuster – the blurb even notes that it barely made back its budget, and it tanked Emmerich’s stock in Hollywood for years. Overall, though, it’s a solid list. I saw at least half of these movies but forgot about them. I’m still not sure if I watched “We Are the Millers” or if I’m misremembering “Little Miss Sunshine.”
The movie also launched a ton of memes, so there is some current cultural currency there
Seriously, the list was fine outside of that! But I swear some of these writers on this site don’t have any normal friends and don’t understand what is or isn’t pop culture. Like Con Air? GTFO, I can tell you what theater I saw that in!
I remember buying vhs tapes of Con Air and The Rock at the same time. I think I’ve watched Con Air more frequently. Can’t imagine it counts as “forgotten”.
This was my first thought reading this list. I mostly agree with it, but: Con Air? Con Air is a lot of things, but highly forgettable is not really one of them.Also: Can a movie that won best picture like Slumdog Millionaire really be on the forgettable blockbuster list? Other than that, I do agree with most of the list.
Con Air should absolutely not be on this list.
Yeah, that was by far the most ridiculous choice on the list. Everybody remembers Con Air. It is THE classic “so bad it’s good” movie. It is still always on… I stumbled across it while flipping channels just last week.
This is how I feel about S.W.A.T. I haven’t seen Con Air, but it seems like the kind of movie that’s really fun to watch.
We had Con Air release and then Face/Off the next week in my country. It was a great day for cinema in 1997 in Australia.
Con Air does not belong on this list
no one forgot con air.
Con Air has no business being on this list. It’s pretty much a cult action movie classic at this point.
Also- how exactly are we defining “blockbuster”? Are we measuring it by box office success or by money spent on making/marketing the film? I mean, Slumdog Millionaire made serious bank but I’d never call it a blockbuster in the manner that I typically think about them. And also- didn’t it win an Oscar??
Exactly. Con Air is a genuine trash classic that is ALWAYS mentioned in “good bad movies” lists and was part of the Summer of Cage along with Face/Off.
Nobody remembers Con Air?Whatever AI wrote this is shit.
Yeah I was gonna guess the writer was like… 19. But looking at his twitter he looks more like he’s in his 40’s, so this is extra confusing.
There are plenty of forgettable Nic Cage movies, Con Air is not one of them.
Hey, AV Club:Put. Ian. Spelling. Back. In. The Box.
Maybe included it as rage -bait.
I’ve watched the daylights out of Tron:Legacy. May not be an earth shattering movie but it’s a great stylish movie to waste some time into.
Completely agree. Not a great movie, but stylish with a few great scenes (light cycles, End of Line club, Jeff Bridges’ line delivery of “yeah” to CLU, even the opening at Encom) to keep it moving along at a good pace.
The soundtrack absolutely slaps if you have a decent home theater.
Or a great set of headphone. I downloaded a copy of the soundtrack even before I saw the movie and have been listening to it to this very day.
Download Tron Legacy: Reconfigured. Love it more than the OST as the tracks are longers and some are better than the originals.
Daft Punk not getting nominated for an Oscar for the soundtrack was a horrible snub. The score makes the movie.
Also:“Legions of fans revered Tron, a wildly ambitious sci-fi epic hampered by dodgy (even for 1982) FX.”Huh? Those special effects were groundbreaking at the time.
Exactly. Tell me you weren’t born yet in 1982 without telling me you weren’t born yet in 1982.
Based on this list I would say not born in 1992. 2002 seems like stretch but I would guess that the person writing this doesn’t remember 9/11
100% this, as someone born pre 82, hell pre 80, I VIVDLY remember Tron and still to this day love it, even though it isn’t a great movie by traditional standards. But the CG in that movie was fucking MIND BLOWING, like in the same level of holy shit how’d they do that that you got with the first Avatar movie. Tron was way ahead of it’s time visually. And I also loved the second, again not a great movie, but a blast to watch IMO, so much so I bought the 4k UHD special edition when it came out that was bundled with a 4k version of OG Tron and came in a light up data disc case. It’s on the shelf next to my Big Lebowski special edition that came in a bowling ball.
Yeah, I went back to look at the first slide and found this. Not sure why this is the demarcation except to say either “I don’t know movies before 1990″ or “even you old people don’t remember movies from before 1990″. For the record, we’re looking at full-on theatrical releases (so you’re spared Bright, The Ridiculous 6, and 6 Underground) that opened no earlier than 1990 and grossed at least $100 million (regardless of the film’s budget).
The author did this on drugs. Bad drugs.
I remember the video game at the roller rink more than the original movie, but I’d call Legacy forgettable, while the original impacted us for a long time. Standing on tables in the dorm study lounge and throwing frisbees at each other and calling it playing “Tron” 20 years after the movie came out was real.
Thank you! I thought we did an okay job.
God, I loved that movie. I can still remember the trailer: “…where love [closeup on Bruce Boxleitner kissing the girl] and escape do not compute.” Jeff Bridges seemed endlessly cool and I loved the name “Sark.” ‘80s movies rock.
I only wish he had minions named Guernsey and Jersey.
Well, the lightcycle scene was state of the art. Not so much the humans walking around in clunky suits (which weren’t CGI but practical effects). I’m old and saw it in the theater.
I can take or leave the movie, but the soundtrack…
I wanted it to be a big budget 3d daft punk video, which is what they should have leaned into.
I remember a period where it was on every single TV in Best Buy or any other TV-Selling store. The Soundtrack was FANTASTIC and really helped the visuals, and I love the idea of the universe itself (the cartoon is the best of the three).
Also: “Dodgy FX” means the writer knew absolutely nothing about how revolutionary it was at the time and now I wonder if CLU wrote this.
I mean, that’s how I feel about the original.
I can’t co-sign the movie but I listen to the vinyl soundtrack once every few months
I really enjoyed the movie. It’s nothing special, but it’s a lot of fun. Not enough is said about Michael Sheen’s scenery chewing. It seemed like only he and Jeff Bridges had any fun making the film.
Tron: Legacy is not so secretly one of my all time favorite movies. A weird hill I die on sometimes, but I love it.
Tron:Legacy is in my top five for sure. Slightly bumped by Chronicles of Riddick, but both are up there.
I have literally used a gif from Tron Legacy in a comment section this week.https://www.avclub.com/jeff-bridges-tumor-has-shrunk-to-the-size-of-a-marble-1850467955
It’s an appropriate sequel to Tron in that it has great visuals and a great soundtrack but doesn’t really make sense. But that’s okay!
Say what you want about Troy, but the duel between Hector and Achilles – the centerpiece of the film – was utterly perfect. One of the greatest fight scenes of all time, IMHO.
Troy was totally overshadowed by Gladiator, but, if you want to talk about a totally forgotten blockbuster featuring Orlando Bloom and swords, you gotta go with Kingdom of Heaven (had to google the name it was so forgettable – Google says it made $218 million, so it definitely fits this list).
I also really enjoy the opening fight when Achilles thrusts his sword through the top of the guy’s shoulder like he was made of room-temperature butter. It shouldn’t work, but it does.
The weirdest movie like this for me is Beverly Hills Cop. Yes I know it had 2 sequels. But it came out in December of 84 in between Ghostbusters and Back to the Future. But even though it was R rated and came out in December it made more money than either of those movies (domestic). But for some reason it doesn’t have anywhere near the cultural relevance of either of those movies.
Huh? I’ll agree that Ghostbusters and Back to the Future are bigger names. But Beverly Hills Cop seems hardly forgotten to me. It’s the essential Eddie Murphy persona.
I don’t know, I bet if you asked most people to name an Eddie Murphy movie they would think Shrek, something where he wears a fat suit or maybe Delirious. Compare that to say Back to the Future where they are regularly doing new home video releases, merch, conventions, Late Night bits and commercials. Where is a Tonight Show but with Eddie and Judge Reinhold?
“I don’t know, I bet if you asked most people to name an Eddie Murphy movie they would think Shrek”
Correct, you DON’T know, so maybe shut up?
If you want to talk about forgotten, you know what movie came out a few months before that and made even more money? Crocodile Dundee.
Beverly Hills Cop just had a pilot filmed (and dropped for a few reasons that may not include quality.) I’d argue that “Axl Foley,” and his theme, are still known, even if not as known.Crocodile Dundee may have disappeared as a film, but I’d also argue that it’s remembered, if only as a punchline (and the genesis of Outback Steakhouse.)
I don’t think anyone has forgotten:
That’s not a knife, that’s a spoon.
Crocodile Dundee came out in 1986.
Beverly Hills Cop lacks the toyetic, kid appeal of Ghostbusters and BTTF.
Troy is a film I think about all the time, because it exemplifies what Hollywood does to a lot of great stories, which is having an excellent art department, brilliant casting (Eric Bana as Hector, Brian Cox as Agamemnon, Peter O’Toole as Priam etc.), but tries to shoehorn complex characters into blockbuster archetypes, like turning Paris from a spoilt, pretty-boy coward into a romantic hero, or making the gay lovers Patroclus and Achilles into cousins with a younger brother and older brother vibe. They even had Sean Bean as Odysseus, but only gave him about five lines. Sean Bean!
The best parts for me were Bana as Hector (that Achilles/Hector fight is really good) and Peter O’Toole in Priam’s scene asking Achilles for the return of Hector’s corpse. The rest, not so much.
Eric Bana has consistently been overlooked. I dont know why he never caught on as a bigger star. He is good in everything, even when it is bad. Pitt is awful in this movie. The studio leaned into Pitt as the big name star too much. Bana was just amazing as Hector.
I agree, Bana was fucking great as Hector!
Bana is one of those actors that Hollywood tried to make happen, but couldn’t, like Thomas Jane. The problem is they keep giving them bland roles. Joel Edgerton was almost that guy, but he’s done really good work in The Green Knight and The Underground Railroad.
I happen to love Bana as well (and his performance as Hector solidified it—he was incredible, so grounded and believable and tragic) but the one blip on his resume is the 2009 Star Trek reboot. His shrieking “I want Spock! SPOOOOOOOOCCCCCCK!” was—well, he needed a director to guide him to a different performance. I’ll leave it at that because I really do love him (and I love that reboot, minus his shrieking).
That’s because he peaked in the 90s:
It’s also kind of hard to make Achilles a sympathetic hero. He’s pretty much a straight-up asshole in The Iliad.At least the movie didn’t fall into the trap of making Hector a villain.I’d like to see an alternative version of this film that just plays the plot of The Iliad more or less as written (we can skip the chapters with the funeral games or the detailed description of the shield). The cast they had could easily have pulled it off.
I would love to see a film of limited series adaption of the book Song of Achilles.
being an asshole by modern sensibilities does not make one an asshole to the people of the day
Except that the text of The Iliad makes it clear that the other Greek warriors are not exactly happy with Achilles sitting around moping and not contributing to the fight. Hell, even the first sentence makes it clear what we’re supposed to think of Achilles:“The wrath sing, goddess, of Peleus’ son, Achilles, that destructive wrath which brought countless woes upon the Achaeans, and sent forth to Hades many valiant souls of heroes, and made them themselves spoil for dogs and every bird”
He wasn’t moping he was a mercenary who’s pissed off at the leader of the Achaeans for taking both captured women for himself instead…and like every other time in history, half of the population wants to shit on the guy not willing to be taken advantage of because they also will benefit from the guy’s labor. If you want the best fighter on the planet that you specifically brought with you to fight for you, maybe don’t shaft him on what he’s promised before the battle.
At least the movie didn’t fall into the trap of making Hector a villain.Hector is a villain. He actively aids his brother in the kidnapping of Helen. He defends his lowlife, philandering coward brother from Menelaus when Paris is losing his duel. He epitomizes my country right or wrong” when he absolutely knows his country is in the wrong. He is not a hero.But he also isn’t the worst villain in the film.Achilles is very much a sympathetic hero. He fights for honor and glory. He makes that very clear. And then Agamemnon, an utter asshole, makes a very public point of disrespecting him. Should he swallow his pride, accept being shit on and continue to serve a leader who treats him with contempt?As Achilles points out to Briseis, the war was going to happen anyway. His participation in it cannot affect that reality. And while fighting in the war will bring him immortal glory (which is his goal), it will also shorten the war. Yes, his sword will kill many men. But those men are going to die anyway. And those men, the very ones he will kill, are out there with everybody else trying to kill him and the other Greeks. In order to, as mentioned above, protect a philandering coward from justice.But Achilles also has some unsympathetic traits. He’s vengeful, for example. Because the Greeks understood that heroes, while larger than life characters, are still men with the failings and foibles of men. They considered a “perfect” hero, a paragon to be the absurdity it is. That’s why their heroes are more compelling, more honest, more human than so many modern/Christian heroes. Galahad isn’t a person. He’s an unattainable ideal.
The “Patroclus and Achilles were gay lovers” meme never ceases to amuse.
I remember Troy, I remember liking it, but I mostly remember it for introducing me to Rose Byrne.
Hello.
I saw this in theaters but forgot a lot about it. I will re-watch it for Rose Byrne, however.
or making the gay lovers Patroclus and Achilles into cousins with a younger brother and older brother vibe. That’s odd, I thought that was pretty obvious from the jump. Never picked up on a younger/older bro relationship, seemed straight forward that they were lovers.
It’s not a great movie, but I found it pretty watchable, and rewatchable. For a while it was on HBO all the time, and I found myself watching it whenever it was on. Like you said, great cast, and it looks cool.
The one thing about Troy that really cements its legacy for me, though, is that it was pretty much the last proof we needed about Brad Pitt: He’s a supporting actor with a leading actor’s looks. He hasn’t really been the solo lead of any big blockbuster since, has he?
World War Z.
I don’t know if I’d call them blockbusters but Mr & Mrs Smith, World War Z, Babel, Benjamin Button and Inglourious Basterds all made well over their budget back.
Right, but other than World War Z, Pitt wasn’t really the lead/headlining star. Benjamin Button is the perfect example- it seems like it’s a Brad Pitt-starring role, but you could argue Cate Blanchett was really the lead, as Pitt is just there to be digitally aged/de-aged, and his character is simply—as the title says—a curiousity. Mr. and Mrs. Smith had that whole thing to drum up attention. Inglourious Basterd was a Tarantino movie that was always gonna be big. Babel made it’s money back, but the budget was barely more than Pitt’s salary on most films.
My favorite thing about Troy is that I had taught the Illiad to 10th graders that year, many of whom went to see it opening weekend. They disrupted class on Monday in the absolute best way possible, complaining about all the things the movie got wrong (“Miss, HOW do you have a movie about the Trojan War and NOT have any gods?!”) or how their reactions were taken by their family (“My mom kept interrupting as asking who everyone was!”, “My mom says she won’t go to the movies with me anymore because I kept getting annoyed at the choices they made in making the movie.”). They were fantastic little proto-critics of adaptation, and it was kind of cool how much they had retained.
On my end, I didn’t care about choices of Patroclus and Achilles as lovers because I was too busy ranting that Patroclus is TEXTUALLY older, more experienced, and nobler than Achilles.
But Sean Bean IS my favorite part of casting simply because of the irony of casting Sean Bean as the one single person who HAS to survive the Trojan War because he is the one gets a sequel.
Oh, that’s adorable! You indoctrinated them in the most wholesome way.
I remember watching it and kept thinking, why didn’t you just adapt the Odyessy with Sean Bean you fools!?
Troy is a movie that we refer to all the time at our house… because of the damn llamas in the market place. How did they get there from South America??? LLAMAS IN TROY is our rallying cry for when something is so stupid and wrong it ruins a movie or show because you can’t stop thinking about it.
Young me was so mad at the waste of such a great cast. I remember this movie as one of the first where I was aware that just because you have great people, it doesn’t mean you’ll get a great movie.
I was reading Classics at uni when Troy came out, and we went on a department trip to see it with our lecturers. Their open-mouthed and vocalised disdain for what was happening was the best part of the whole night – particularly when Menelaus died.Now I think more highly of it because I only ever watch it in small chunks when teaching the Iliad (or endlessly rewinding Priam’s fainting with shock when Hector dies, which is my favourite moment of hammy acting ever). It gets the idea of kleos at least partway right, and Hector (who has always been my favourite character) is perfect. It also looks appropriately opulent. It’s just a bit boring, really.I never got around to watching the recent TV adaptation, Troy: Fall Of A City. a few years ago beyond the first episode; I get the impression it is a more faithful adaptation, but despite being relatively lavish for a TV show it’s nowhere near as skilfully shot, alas.
Not sure if it’s a controversial opinion, but 2012 slaps. It’s extremely dumb and thrilling in the best ways. Your brain won’t risk being stimulated in the slightest but that’s not what you enter a rollercoaster for anyway.
It’s inoffensive. Sort of like that Dennis Quaid movie where Manhattan floods or freezes over or whatever. I might watch it again now that I’ve been reminded of its existence.
Funny enough 2012 and the day after tomorrow had the same director.
I want to see a movie where Roland Emmerich attempts to sing “New York, New York” at a karaoke bar, but completely destroys it.
There’s nothing “funny enough” about that.That’s pretty much the only kind of movie he makes.In fact, he’s flat out come right out and said that he only loves making movies where he gets to destroy the world or a city (…or preferably many).
Day After Tomorrow?
I honestly get that and 2012 confused. Both Emmerich trash.
It’s pretty amazing that the “happy” endings for films like this come after millions to billions of people have been killed in these disasters.
Sort of like that Dennis Quaid or maybe Randy movie where Manhattan or Newark floods or freezes over or or explodes or melts whatever…
The Day After Tomorrow. Also by Roland Emmerich (same director as 2012).
The problem I had with 2012 is that it peaks way too early, there’s that great sequence where Cusack is driving in an earthquake and the roads are being torn apart as he desperately tries to escape, but while there’s some decent enough scenes after that I didn’t find any of them as exciting as that part had been.
As I recall, the movie starts with a bunch of crazy stuff happening, and then becomes a race to backfill the plot so there’s some semblance of a story. But we’re so worn out from the crazy stuff happening we don’t have any patience for the plotty nonsense of the second half of the movie.
It’s one of those compulsive watches – the kind that, prior to the On-Demand Era, you’d stop while channel surfing and watch on your local network station when they’d repeat it.Although I do hate that the little girl’s Pull-Ups drama was a legitimately major plot point.
Yeah, with the death of the monoculture we are all kind of deprived of a shared culture of movies to some degree. That everyone sees a big marvel movie is a given…but as someone who grew up in North Jersey in the 80s and 90s, we all had a shared movie lexicon from those super hot summer days or rainy saturdays when there was nothing to do and you just watched the movies they played on WPIX 11: Starwars triology, Indy, Goonies, Princess Bride, Big Trouble in Little China, Rocky 1-4, Twins, lower tier Stallone and Schwarzenager movies, and im just scratching the surface. Back when you would just go to blockbuster or palmer video (or whatever your preferred rental place was) and grab any comedy or action movie in the new release sections.
It’s somewhat ironic to say in the age of the Internet, where there is a channel for every weirdness and voice, that I miss the UHF and public access channels of my youth.It’s impossible to convey to younger people what it was like to have three Big Networks and then, on the UHF dial, this motley collection of hangers-on who would be responsible for airing all of the non-mainstream stuff. If it weren’t for UHF, I’d never have discovered Robotech and, after that, anime, or stayed up late at night to see Heavy Metal, or any of a dozen other “fringe” culture things that opened my eyes to what was outside of my Typical American silo.
I also miss that as kids and teens (i had cable as a teen, but we hadnt completely exploded into 9 million niche channels completely yet…mtv and vh1 both still played music primarily) when you were bored and channel surfing…since cell phones were not mass adopted, and internet was still on dial up and paid for by the minute….you just watched whatever sitcom or cartoon you came across. Plus re runs were a thing. Ive seen a whole lot of Married with Children…which was completely on new episodes…but i just watched like 2 hour blocks of reruns on another channel. And when you couldnt find anything…you just watched random…dramas, reruns, etc. Now, the minute a kid is bored, they can just find something else. Nowdays I have a never ending backlog of movies, tv series, video games, comics to get to….let alone when i feel like rewatching something. Also, i caught Robotech on scifi channel before schools and used to record it on vhs so i never missed anything. First episode of its scifi run was literally my first day of school for middle school.
WPIX! Palmer Video! Wow, you really ARE from New Jersey!
You go knowing exactly what you are in for (destruction of major landmarks) and with certain expectations and it more than delivers. I personally love the big budget disaster movies. They’re a ton of fun. We spent our anniversary watching Moonfall in the theater. The low budget ones are great too for an entirely different set of reasons. They are glorious in their ineptitude and poor cgi.
Any chance to share my initial “viral” video I made for io9 way back when.
Using “slaps” and “banger” need to be fined around here. Think of what it could raise for charity!
Yeah, it’s one of the better Emmerich films.
If “Johnny Deep” isn’t a porn star name, it damn well should be.
I wonder how many of these movies were released when there was pretty much zero competition at the box office. If it’s the only new movie around, it’s going to be the one everyone goes to see…..
Eraser is a great example. It was a Schwarzenegger action flick, which meant it was going to make a baseline amount of money if launched at the right time of year, but probably in the bottom half of his filmography.
This. I only recently remembered this movie existed. But do remember watching it in the theater. It’s one of the few movies on this list that belongs there.
It pops up on basic cable every now and then and when I come across it, it typically takes a while for me to recognize what I’m seeing.
I think it’s a stretch to call Eraser a blockbuster. It had mediocre box office, I don’t know a single person who went to see it and the ad campaign was laughable.
Yeah, fair point. It was a middle-budget action flick that was probably considered low-risk/moderate return when made. Something like Troy on the other hand was a massive spectacle that just turned out to be kind of boring. I don’t know that nobody remembers Troy anymore, just that they weren’t blown away at the time and today it’s mostly met with a shrug when mentioned at all.
This list should be renamed, “Behold the power of international box office.” The bulk of these movies made solid, but not spectacular box office domestically but made 75 percent or more of their total gross overseas.
Which is part of the reason why Hollywood is so, so awful these days. Fortunately, they starting to realize that placating the Chinese isn’t the gold mine it used to be.
So only North America has good taste in films? And specifically, China has an awful taste in films? Interesting.
This just seems like a kind of random list of movies. Nobody forgot Con Air.
It’s been on cable TV constantly for nearly 20 years. Impossible to forget.
And it spawned multiple memes.
oh what didn’t?
Every other movie on this list?
You guys are spawning memes?
Also, We’re the Millers is one of the funniest comedies of the 2010’s (especially the unrated version). It’s on basic cable pretty consistently as well.
Exactly. Not to mention the fact that the “no ragrets” tattoo from that movie is constantly referenced online and in person.
“Really? Not a single letter?”Scotty P’s the best/worst.
Between Comedy Central and TNT, I doubt we’ll forget it anytime.The writers have a funny definition of “nobody”.Also, is it just me or does AVC suddenly seem to pushing these slideshow-listicles extra hard lately? I think there has been a new one every day this week. I suppose they are easy to put together and they usually get a lot of comments (if only to complain about the choices), so I get why they might do such a thing. My problem with this tactic is that it is everywhere on the web. If this site want to succeed (rather than just scraping by), I think they need to offer something that can’t be found on every fly-by-night site out there: develop your writers (so they become name-recognizable) and encourage them to tackle interesting writing projects, stuff that goes beyond listicles and hot-take op-eds.
Yeah, this has been listicle week on this site for sure. It’s more than a little embarrassing.
Or Slumdog Millionaire.
Yeah, I remember the plot, because it’s a great film. I think the listicle author is speaking for themselves only.
22 movie blockbusters nobody [under the age of 20 who isn’t really into movies] remembers
Thank you! This is a clearly a list from the mind of a single individual. One person doesn’t remember the plot and all of a sudden “everyone” has forgotten it. Well directed, fantastically paced, surprising at times, and clever, not to mention a big award winner! As a movie buff of COURSE I remember more than the song associated with the movie, I am not a toddler.
Con Air is awesome. This list must be AI generated, no sensible human would call it forgettable.
I didn’t realize anyone forgot Slumdog Millionaire
Textbook clickbait article, designed to engage interaction through negative response.
It is that.Slow day at work though and I don’t want to get involved in anything big because I have a 4 day weekend coming up. So they’ll get my clicks but no ad revenue because ublock ftw.
Right, some of these are on constant re-runs on the networks. Now it’s true no one is re-watching Clash of the Titans, because Sam Worthington just doesn’t actually exist, is my theory, but a lot of these are definitely not forgotten.
Who could forget “Put the buhnny back in the box”?
Another misguided article/slideshow. People don’t remember CON AIR? And for me, a third of this list are films I’ll stop and watch BECAUSE I RECALL what wonderful garbage they are. Stop putting out sub-par clickybaity nonsense like this.
Weird list. Troy is very much liked and remembered, Con Air also and a few others on the list.
Quite a lot of these films are still very remembered. Some for good reasons, some for bad ones. It’s very clear that you just hit a button on a randok generator to come up with these. Especially with Con Air, a film that few people will ever forget!
I know that AV Club could never get a journalist of his caliber to write here, but a man named Nathan Rabin used to write a column about “Forgotbusters” for The Dissolve that’s worth checking out.
I’ve never seen I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry. I didn’t feel the need after seeing an Australian film with the same set-up three years earlier, and starring far more likeable actors (Paul Hogan and Michael Keaton in Strange Bedfellows). Apparently the ensuing lawsuit ended when the producers of Chuck and Larry came up with a draft of the script which predated Strange Bedfellows – but I still find the whole thing a bit … dubious.
God help me, I’ve seen Chuck and Larry. I can’t remember why, maybe it was someone else’s turn to pick.
or you lost a bet bigtime.
Michael Caton*
Bloody auto-correct. 😉
michael keaton???
I wouldn’t remotely class We’re the Millers as a blockbuster, but I agree with the description here – it’s a much funnier film than I was expecting when I first watched it. And it’s very rewatchable.
Catch the unrated version if you can. It’s one of my favorite (relatively) recent comedies.
It made $150+ million domestic, one of the last big hit comedies theatrically.
Good numbers for a comedy. Not a blockbuster. I think of blockbusters as typically being big budget films where people are queuing around the block on the first weekend.
“Good numbers for a comedy. Not a blockbuster. I think of blockbusters as typically being big budget films where people are queuing around the block on the first weekend.”
Cool.
The article sets out the parameters they used.
I remember most of these but maybe I have a good memory.
Dinosaur, a tale of an orphaned dino (voiced by D.B. Sweeney) who finds a new family with a bunch of lemurs after a meteor turns everything around them inhospitable.To nitpick just a bit (and cause my dinosaur-obsessed 5 year old has watched this movie like a dozen times), he is “family” with the lemurs before the meteor hits. He (in his egg) gets stolen and dropped in a river and makes a trip to the lemur island in the first few minutes of the movie where they raise him. A big plot theme before the meteor strike is that he’s “alone” as he’s the only dinosaur there.
There’s no way Con Air is forgotten. Nor, likely, is Runaway Bride or Slumdog Millionaire.Some of these have completely disappeared, but while some are truly forgotten, those are definitely remembered. And Con Air hasn’t really all that disappeared, if only for Nic Cage and his hair and accent. It’s far inferior to his other action films, but Nic Cage’s consistent relevance (as a respected actor or punchline, depending on the day) has kept the films he made as The Biggest Action Star in the World remembered.
What even is this list? Con Air is forgotten? I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry is a blockbuster? Slumdog Millionaire is both a blockbuster and forgotten, somehow?
There’s definitely some bait on here:2012 – everyone who has cable or a cable TV streaming service remembersCon Air – come on!Slumdog Millionaire – everytime there’s a big movie from/about India, Americans remember the first huge Indian* hit in the USTroy – who doesn’t remember platinum blonde Brad Pitt and that amazing Achilles-Hector fight? Although this one might be personal as my wife was pregnant with our twins, and during one of the battles I felt them kick for the first time. Godzilla – anyone over 30 remembers, if not for it bombing but for “yo quiero taco bell”*although I believe it’s considered a British movie
IIRC, Taco Bell’s Godzilla promotion was the summer after their Batman and Robin promotion, which had put Alicia Silverstone’s face on all their packaging. Godzilla could never measure up. And that Puff Daddy x Led Zeppelin song didn’t help.
On the Puff Daddy bit, I don’t remember the song at all but I do remember the great SNL parody from that fall where Puff announces that he’s currently working on another rock collab for a major motion picture called “Come With Me (Part 2)”. He hits play and nods along as Aerosmith’s “Don’t Wanna Miss a Thing” plays, with Puff awkwardly shouts “COME WITH ME/COME WITH ME, AGAIN” between the existing lyrics.
The dog actually doesn’t say “Yo quiero Taco Bell” in the main Godzilla ad, which was essentially just a Jaws spoof:
Slumdog won 8 Oscars, including Picture!Who forgot that?Con Air, Tron, Godzilla , half this list is absolutely wrong.
As for Slumdog Millionaire, it doesn’t really seem to fit the mold of a “blockbuster.” Blockbusters are high-budget studio releases that are designed to to big business, while Slumdog was a $15 million festival darling that blew up.
Still, a third Tron is in the works, with Jared Leto attached to star.Why does this man keep getting work?
Right. I don’t know anyone who wants to see Jared Leto as a headliner for a film. His recent performances in big movies are all terrible (Suicide Squad, Mobius). Whenever I see a new movie with Jared Leto, I instantly roll my eyes.
You get a pretty long leash when you’re an Oscar winner. Although if the new Tron bombs he’s probably going to find himself at the wrong end of the Cuba Gooding, Jr. spectrum.
Seriously. I realize I’m in the minority, but I’d love for them to continue from Tron: Legacy. That being said, I have zero interest in Jared Leto being anywhere near the project.
Jared’s agent must be a total workhorse.
To anyone who hasn’t seen Over the Hedge: do. It’s a cracking cast, animation that’s cartoonishly (as opposed to “realistic”) fun in a way that’s been lost from CG movies in later years, and a corker of a Ben Folds soundtrack – I challenge you not to cry when “Family Of Me” starts up.
If you watched the Garry Shandling doc, Shandling also threw himself into the role and hung around during post production doing endless rewrites and joke punch-ups. He was really invested in it in a kind of adorable way.
he seems like he was a great guy. i enjoyed watching him.
Honestly its one of the few movies on this list I actually do believe most people forgot but its a good time for sure. Even Bruce Willis seems like he is giving a shit.
Exactly what I thought! It’s definitely the most “forgotten” of these.
Yeah, it’s not a deathless classic, but it’s a fun movie that gets B+ marks in pretty much every department (though I’d grade the villains as B-, as I find the human villains irritatingly annoying rather than amusingly annoying). Well worth a watch, with or without the kids.
“Over the Hedge” was a riot and my kids and I reference scenes from it at least once a month. Waaaay better than a bunch of other animated misfires I could name.
Agreed. While it’s never in danger of reaching the heights of truly excellent children’s animation, it’s a solidly enjoyable flick, and way better than lots of its contemporaries. Some of the jokes are actually funny, some of the action sequences are genuinely thrilling, and the vocal work is mostly on-point. As someone else said, a firm B+ in its category.
Don’t forget Avatar.
The Sky People deserve to suffer for forgetting what they did to Home Tree.
The who to the what?
They just called it “The Last Airbender” and it deserves to be forgotten.
The reason nobody cares about the 1998 Godzilla is that the movie was a desperate attempt to capitalize on Jurassic Park fever – turning Godzilla into “biggest velociraptor ever.” Hell, the whole marketing campaign behind it laid it out pretty baldly – unsurprisingly, since The Lost World had just come out the year previous.
I found it at the time to be a perfectly serviceable, if very stupid, big NYC disaster movie. It really was the marketing blitz that did it in, with the studio trying to hide the monster design as long as possible (The “Size DOES Matter” campaign, with lots of ads that pushed the scale rather than the creature itself; stuff like bus wrap ads that shouted “ITS FOOT IS AS LONG AS THIS CITY BUS.”) They were clearly banking on audiences’ desire to actually see Godzilla being enough to get people into the theaters. Then it turned out to be “Larger, slinkier T-Rex” (and the movie was, again, pretty stupid) and people felt cheated.
Yeah, but we got Jean Reno as a DGSE agent taking the piss out of Americans with a terrible Elvis impersonation.And both Moe Szyslak and C. Montgomery Burns.
Also, after decades of this subject, why do they have to keep digging up the same thing again and again without a shred of improvement? Godzilla, King Kong, etc. Nowadays my sympathy is with the big guys not the exploitative humans and I am weary hearing about another reboot ad nauseam. Stop, just stop. It is no longer thrilling or necessary.
Anybody with MTV wasn’t allowed to forget this movie. Diddy haunted us for an entire summer.
Duh-nuh-nuh duh-nuh-nuh duh-nuh-nuh duh-nuh-nuh duh-nuh-nuh…screw you Jimmy!
Uh huhYeah
I remember seeing an interview with Diddy where he told the interviewer — “admitted” probably isn’t the word to use, as he didn’t seem to show any shame at all — that he discovered Led Zep’s “Kashmir” through one of those late-night ads for rip-off CD collections that were everywhere in the nineties. Now that’s a very Diddy thing to do.
Pretty solid soundtrack though. Listen to it (specifically A320 and Heroes) a fair bit. That and that silly Puff Daddy “Come with me” shows up in my workout playlist from time to time.
Yeah, Godzilla wasn’t Godzilla. No atomic breath, no skreeeeonk, no Akira Ifukube theme. Legendary’s Godzilla atleast knows how to make a Godzilla feel like a Hesei era Godzilla film.
No one likes it, but it’s silly for AV Club to say that no one remembers it. Every time a new Godzilla movie comes out (which, between the Godzilla/Kong American films and the ongoing original Japanese franchise, happens about every 2 or 3 years) there’s a bunch of hot takes and thinkpieces reminding everyone how ugly and dumb the 90’s American version was. And all of them are right.
Of course it was – Emmerich has always shown, explicitly, that he is a fan of Spielberg, quoting him in entire scenes of his films… until Spielberg did the opposite in “War of the worlds”, quoting the first ray of death from Independence Day. I went with those expectations and was very happy with the result, but also because there is something about the camp sensibilities of Emmerich that gets to me.
There are a lot of horror movies people don’t reference as being “best” of the last 25 years, but “What Lies Beneath” is actually a very decent Saturday night Popcorn movie. And it’s fun to watch Ford play bad for once.
I remember Tron Legacy, I thought we were going to get a movie that would essentially be a two hour 3d Daft Punk video…..i was sorely disappointed. I remember Godzilla. I had a buddy who loved Zepplin and thought the puffy use of kashmir was a crime. I was in hs and didnt really know Zep at the time. I retroactively agree, though the Godzilla soundtrack had No Shelter by Rage on it, and that track slaps. Troy….my wife’s father used to love any action movie (period pieces included), so they always had a ton of B to B+ movies on dvd lying around and didnt have cable so we would just toss in movies on holidays in the living room. My brother in law’s gf (now wife) noticed that like three years in a row we had troy on….it was a tradition until there were toddlers around and they wanted something toddler appropriate (though we always mention it). I didnt forget about any of these movies, i just dont think about them all the time because they are mediocre.
I completely forgot about the Godzilla soundtrack until I saw this and now I sort of feel like digging it out of the basement to see how it holds up.
Also a owner of the Godzilla sountrack, and one of the most bizarre inclusions is Green Day’s “Brain Stew” but with a Godzilla roar SFX spliced in.
Troy is constantly on cable, so hard to miss that one. I’ll add to the dogpile about Con Air being an absolutely glorious, rewatchable trainwreck of excess. And We’re the Millers has kind of been immortalized by the Will Poulter meme.
Between this listicle and the one yesterday about “hit songs that you didn’t know were covers”, the BuzzFeed-ifying of the AVClub is becoming ever more apparent. I hate this kind of shit.
It’s been like that for a few months now. AVClub lists used to be fun, but they’re pretty lazy these days.
Yeah, but it worked so well for Buzz Feed, why wouldn’t you copy it?
I guess Nathan Rabin has been gone long enough that nobody even cares about ripping him off, huh?
There was a brief—five seconds, maybe?—span when I thought this was going to lead to a Forgotbusters revival, or something similar, but no, another pointless listicle. But yay clicks! Hate clicks count just as much as love clicks, so why try?
I know we keep waxing nostalgic on that Rabin and O’Neal era like Chicago Bulls fans for Jordan & Pippen, but goddammit it there’s no reason to stop.
Siiiiiiiiiims!
I can’t forget S.W.A.T. for the weirdest reason – because I more or less forgot about it as I was watching it. I was there opening weekend with my friends because we were 19/20 year old dudes (who did not drink,) we had a week or two before we went back to college, we wanted to hang out that Saturday night and it was the only new major release that early August weekend.
I just remember sitting there and thinking “This is such a nothing movie” as it was happening; when Jeremy Renner showed up for his heel turn late in the second act I was amazed to realize that I forgot that his character had even been in the movie. Just a truly, staggeringly generic film (though given the source material, that’s almost to be expected.)
Troy is great. STFU.
Nobody should be smiling like that as they aim a sniper rifle.
Somewhat fun fact! What Lies Beneath was written by Agent Coulson himself, Clark Gregg and I saw it in the theaters. I went to the theater a lot in the early 2000’s.
A decent-ish movie utterly spoiled by the marketing, which reveals what should have been a major twist at the halfway point of the movie. Ugh.
Its the first movie I ever completely ignored in favor of making out with a girl I was dating at the time. Honestly given how that relationship turned out, I regret not watching the movie
I saw this movie in the theater when it came out and it scared the living shit out of me. That scene where the dead girls appears in the water made me absolutely fucking HATE seeing our swimming pool out the giant glass windows of my house at night. For years. Probably far longer than I should have given my age lol.
That wasn’t the only Robert Zemeckis movie released that year to be spoiled by the trailers. The other was Cast Away.
They absolutely made the right call with Cast Away. There is virtually nothing else to give you the sense that he might not just be on the island forever and it was a Christmas (Dec 7 technically) release date and no one was going to want to go see a movie where Tom Hanks is alone on an island forever and might not make it off. It takes the tension off to just enjoy his trials and tribulations without worrying that he isn’t going to make it. Sure there are people that yearn for that shit and go watch Open Water, but that isn’t most people and they’d rather a movie that takes long enough to make another movie in between starting and finishing it make a profit.
And if I recall correctly, Zemeckis basically made What Lies Beneath specifically because of Cast Away — in that, he had to wait something like eight months for Hanks to lose weight to film the second half of that movie so he knocked out What Lies Beneath during his hiatus.
I also saw it in theaters. Would’ve been 11 at the time. My parents were pretty strict about what I watched growing up (I was still a few years from being allowed to see anything rated R), so this was one of the scariest, most intense movies I’d seen to that point. The climax still sticks with me to this day. The whole paralysis drug thing was such a contrived plot device, but damn if it wasn’t a terrifying experience for a middle schooler.
This movie scared the CRAP outta me when I was 14. Or at least I think it did. Maybe I’m thinking of a different movie? There was a bathtub involved.
Streaming platforms are doing their best to make sure old movies are not forgotten because they do not want to pay for new content. (just making a joke)
Nah, streamers have been shedding library content now for years and years because it doesn’t drive subscribers and they don’t want to pay for them.
What are you talking about? Streamers are not shedding library titles, they’re shedding *recent* titles.
Plus “forgotten” = cheap to license. Its why Pluto and those other free with ads services are so much fun to browse. Its like a memory hole
HBO used to have a new movie every week, now they have a new movie now and again and a “Classic” for all the other weeks filling in. Showtime and Starz even more. You nailed it. I don’t mind watching some of the old stuff now and again.
Every time I go to one of these goddam lists I can’t get back to where I left off in the AV Club. This site has gotten buggier then Max, with the quality of the Discovery Channel crap.
Totally forgot about Over the Hedge. Never saw the movie (Bruce Willis as RJ? No thanks.) but loved the comic strip. In a true testament to How Hollywood Works, the forward to the third strip compilation book referenced the “upcoming Over the Hedge movie” in 1997.
Many of these films are most definitely remembered. The list you’re really trying to assemble here is movies that were huge hits, but sucked. And while there are no Citizen Kane’s in this group, a few of these didn’t suck. One (Slumdog Millionaire) is excellent.
I watch We’re the Millers at least once a year.
I remember most of them. Other than Con Air, Tron and Slumdog Millionaire, the rest were trash.
Sure to most of these. But Con Air and Slumdog Millionaire? Con Air is a ‘90s action classic, and Slumdog won Best Picture!
I have seen precisely two of these; 2012 and San Andreas. 2012 I’ve watched a few times, San Andreas will never be troubling my screen again. A film I enjoyed but again nobody seems to mention these days is Life from 2017, it made its money back but then just disappeared from everyone’s consciousness. Worth another look, I’d say…
How the fuck is Twister not on this list? That was a legit blockbuster (a lot of the movies on this list were middling performers at best) and dominated the pop cultural conversation that summer, until it completely escaped the public consciousness like it was swept away by its own titular weather-related disaster and no one’s thought about it since.
I feel like if you got a ride in the theme park, you can’t be considered forgotten.
Does anyone remember the “Mr. Toad” movie, though???
I’ll add Congo to the mid-90’s movie swept up in a genre hysteria, then completely and totally forgotten list. Congo was basically Jurassic Park 2. It arrived, made a crap-ton of movie, and disappeared into the ether.
I think you can make a case that Roland Emmerich’s entire filmography belongs on this list.
And most disaster movies, in general.
Good point.
Not Stargate or ID4, but pretty much everything else yeah
Sorry, but those have also long been relegated to the dustbin of cinematic history.Stargate was completely forgotten even before it launched its TV show spinoff. And now its reputation has been utterly eclipsed by the show(s), which are themselves on the cusp of being utterly forgotten, too.Independence Day was huge for that summer, for sure, but had no real tail in the pop culture memory and its long-delayed sequel disappeared in a blink.
ID4 plays on TV every year around July 4thStargate, maybe has faded a bit, but its soundtrack still gets used for trailers for other movies to this day
That’s not true about ID4 at all. People still reference it from time to time. The White House destruction scene featured on the poster is iconic as hell, as is Will Smith’s “Welcome to Earth” quip. It’s practically synonymous with “90s blockbuster.” The sequel just came far too late, even in terms of the whole nostalgia-sequel/reboot craze of the 2010s. The world and American culture had just changed too much since 1995. It not only capitalized on the hunger for mega-scale disaster movies at the time, but also the renewed interest in alien conspiracies following the release of the Roswell Report in 1994.
Wow, what in the actual fuck are you talking about?
I feel the same way about Nancy Meyers. I am supposed to be within the female demographic parameters but find her films predictable, not relatable, lacking even a half-smile with convoluted character interactions, full leg-of-ham performances and ridiculous arcs. Nicole Holofcener does what Meyers never seems to achieve, film after film.
Just watched “You Hurt My Feelings” and I think that’s a great comparison. Nancy Meyers’ movies are broad and cringey. On occasions, she reins in her worst impulses enough to make a watchable movie, but Holofcener is in an entirely different league and it’s a shame her movies are too smart and sophisticated for larger audiences. But there you go.
So glad to hear you enjoyed it! She is invited to a festival nearby showing “You Hurt…” and “Enough Said” and maybe more showcasing will follow. I would love to attend and thank her for that last wonderful Gandolfini role and also for never heading into cheesy territory, gathering wonderful casts and allowing them to do great work. She brings humor and pathos but everything feels honest and realistic. I agree she needs more appreciation than she gets but damn if she doesn’t keep bringing the good stuff with every film she makes!
You couldn’t possibly be more wrong about Troy
That actress they cast as Alice in the Wonderland movie was terrible. No charism. She was bland and forgettable in the role. It was crucial to the film that they cast that part right. After all, she’s the center of the movie, but they blew it.
Knew the list was bullshit the second I saw Con Air
Anyone remembers Super 8 ? I feel this movie disappeared from any kind of discussion or memories as soon as it left the theater. I can’t remember a single thing about it except there is a train crash. I can’t even remember if I liked it.On the other hand the list has some very odd picks (like in yesterday’s covers list). As several people said, Con Air is unforgettable and while I think it is a terrible movie, there is still a lot of love around for Alice in Wonderland. Same for the way less terrible Slumdog Millionaire.
A “potboiler plot” is not what you think it is.
not going to look at the list, not going to look at the ads, I just wish a good day to you guys who have to write these pieces and say from the bottom of my heart : fuck listicles
John Carter needed to be on this list somewhere.
Tron, a wildly ambitious sci-fi epic hampered by dodgy (even for 1982) FX.What? Tron always looked fantastic and still does.
Yeah, everyone was literally talking about how cool it looked when it came out. Dodgy for 1982? Hardly.
I saw What Women Wants AND Wild Hogs on two different terrible dates in high school and college respectively… I would pay money to be able to forget them.It really shows you what a hellish, choiceless monocultural media landscape we had in the burbs in 2000, I genuinely can’t imagine a couple of 16 year olds today would elect to see a broad romcom starring a bunch of adults.
What Lies Beneath had a production budget of 100 millions in 2000? Jesus…
That’s like 175 millions today which is about the budget of a Marvel movie.
And it’s a drama/thriller that takes place all in some lake house. Where the hell did that budget go?
the contractor who built the house ahahah!and Harrison Ford most likely
TRON Legacy is one of my favorite movies.
Never seeing it for obvious reasons I was bored one day and watched “Wild Hogs” when it came on TV. Surprisingly it was even worse than I was expecting.
Hold up, lots of people still love Runaway Bride. And S.W.A.T. is a great movie, I don’t care, I still watch when it comes on TV.
I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry has at least one very memorable scene
I remember almost all of these lol.
Eraser is awesome, though. And What Lies Beneath as well. Beautifully shot.
It was a bad idea to make a Watchmojo list of 22 random famous things and pretend that no one remembers them (as it states in every final sentence).
I had my first boy kiss during What Lies Beneath.
Err didn’t Nathan Rabin do this already as ‘forgotbusters’ over at the now defunct The Dissolve?
Jesus Christ; Wild Hogs… Just hearing anyone express any affection for that movie back then, genuinely made me want to not be around them.
Nobody remembers these? I can tell you I have seen all but Alice in Wonderland and Dinosaur.However, in what universe are flicks like “I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry” and “We’re the Millers” considered blockbusters?
Agreeable list. Con Air doesn’t really make sense, but maybe I’m unique in the way I somehow constantly hear about Con Air year after year? But Troy is a movie I regularly rewatch.
There’s been alot of memes from Troy, I personally loved it and rewatch it
but no one remembers it, much less considers it a classic.Bit of an over used word to me, so not sure what that even means these days, but of the 22, I’ve watched 10 and only 2 of those are forgettable…the rest are easily rewatchable.
This list is pretty wonky and others have already addressed that. But I will say that Angels & Demons is pretty spot-on. That movie came out like immediately after Da Vinci Code made money, so it was obviously trying to strike while the iron was hot (as opposed to Inferno, which came much after the moment had passed). IIRC, it was slightly better reviewed than Da Vinci Code or at least comparable, probably made decent money, was a cromulent way to kill about 2 hours… and no one ever mentions it. Da Vinci Code still gets the odd mention for various reasons, but Angels & Demons really is something that sort of disappeared from the public consciousness.Also, unrelated, I seem to recall a Doritos commercial in the early 00s where Godzilla ‘98 is eating a Doritos truck like it was a bag of Doritos. I recall being stunned that Doritos recognized how toxic that movie was and say on that ad and released it a few years later (since they already paid for it) hoping that no one would really remember. I thought that was wild.
i don’t think “slumdog” has been forgotten but what do i know? the “chuck & larry” trailer is stomach-turning bad. i liked “we’re the millers.” i saw “what women want” with my mom. it was a mom movie.
It doesn’t help that 2012 was goddamn terrible. I mean, I am down for a good disaster movie. You give me some fun effects and some characters to care about, and a sense of actual danger and possible sacrifice and I’m all in, but this movie was just too damn ridiculous.-characters escape by plane down a collapsing runway not once, not twice, but THREE frigging times. In the first hour-speaking of, during the 3rd time there is an extremely dedicated air traffic controller telling them they can’t take off even though a volcanic doom cloud is seconds away from killing him-the President literally getting squashed by the JFK aircraft carrier-the deleted scene at the end showing that one of the main character’s father and singing partner somehow survived the cruise ship they were on being overturned by a massive tidal wave, deleted I’m guessing because it was too ridiculous..?among a host of other things. There’s a lot I’m willing to overlook for a fun disaster flick, but good lord.
Counterpoint: Con Air is a modern cult classic.
On the other hand, Eraser is on my personal list of worst films ever.
My (mis)understanding is that a place that isn’t actually a diner is still dining out on the “Wild Hogs” connection…. which still brings people through town.https://www.turquoisetrail.org/stops/detail/the-great-madrid-gift-emporium-maggies-diner/Here as with many other films on this list, just because something didn’t have a pop-cultural footprint like King Kong (the original, not the remakes) doesn’t mean “nobody remembers.”
Excuse me. What is “Con Air”, possibly the best action movie of the Nic Cage 90s, doing on this list? This movie is compulsively rewatchable. It goddamn SINGS.
Harrison Ford was brilliant in what lies beneath! One of his very best performances, although the film itself was only ok.Weirs list apart from that, surely the vast majority of blockbusters meet the criteria. Fnally, Con air, really?
Just came here to make sure it wasn’t a mistake and they did actually include Con Air on this list. One of the most memorable action movies of its era.
Con Air was and still is awesome. Also, I watching 2012 just last night. I’ve had a soft spot for that movie since it came out. Also rewatched San Andrea not long ago.
I can report that there is STILL Oz: the Great and Powerful merch on the shelf at Ollie’s stores, 10 years later. Now that’s a sign of a forgotten movie.
Saying no one remembers Con Air or Troy is an absolutely bonkers statement….
Pedro Pascal calling TRON a video game adaptation 🤣 It wasn’t adapted from any video game. The game Tron is made up for the movie. It’s actually the opposite. The two Tron arcade games were adapted from the movie. It is though the first video game movie in the idea that it’s about a video game that a person gets sucked into.
Personally, Troy and 2012 have gotten fairly regular viewings over the years. But I totally see why they are on this list.Con Air, on the other hand, has no business being on this list. It’s a classic and is far from forgotten.
The inclusion of Con Air is legitimately batshit crazy. Who doesn’t remember Con Air!?
I just hate headlines like this and then I hate articles when they include Con Air, one of the best of Nic Cage’s films and a beloved “classic.”
What a ridiculously shit article.
Seriously, haven’t watched it but I’ve been reading the site so long that I can remember when
22 blockbusters people remember. Is an alternative title.
Waiting for the:1 Pop Culture website that no-one remembers.
Yep, the Hank’s “Dan Brown” book movies are forgotten. Probably because the whole “theory” that the stories rested on are now seen as pretty much debunked. But it was all the rage when the books came out.