In the history of cinema there are countless examples of films that financially failed bitterly and became mega-flops for studios Expensive blockbusters that cannot even begin to recoup their costs are particularly damaging. An example from the sci-fi genre, which our international sister site AlloCiné has now broken down again, is Final Fantasy – The Powers Within from 2001.
Final Fantasy film became one of the biggest flops in recent cinema history
The sci-fi film by director Hironobu Sakaguchi is based on the video game series of the same name by the then studio Square. Similar to the original, the film adaptation was to be completely computer-animated. What was new at the time was that the artificial representation of people in the cinema was a never seen before
qualityLevel should fulfill.
The effort was accordingly high and so the Final Fantasy film eventually had a proud budget of around 130 million dollars, to which another 30 million was added for marketing.
Watch a German trailer for the Final Fantasy film from 2001 here:
Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within – Trailer (German) HD
According to Box Office Mojo, the sci-fi film ultimately only grossed a good $85 million at the worldwide box office, which, adjusted for inflation, cost the studio Loss of $120 million Developer Square, which had not yet merged with its main Japanese competitor Enix, was facing financial ruin due to this disastrous result.
The sci-fi story of the Final Fantasy film was probably too complex at the time
The plot of Final Fantasy – The Spirits Within takes place in the year 2065, when the Earth decades ago devastated by a meteorite impact and populated by alien invaders In this hostile world, researcher Aki Ross (Ming-Na Wen) is working on a way to defeat the aliens. For her mission, eight so-called spirits must be found.
According to AlloCiné, despite its technically impressive visual qualities, Final Fantasy – The Spirits Within failed mainly because of the complicated story, which many today describe as misunderstood. If you want to see for yourself, you can rent or buy the sci-fi flop on Amazon Prime, among other places.