Vanity projects are movies created to showcasea single individual’s talents, vision, or ego.
With this in mind, this list highlights ten of the most infamous cinematic vanity projects.
While some have gained cult followings for their sheer audacity, others are simply abysmal.
Image via Warner Bros. Pictures
Similarly,the central performance is showy and overly sentimental, ultimately coming across as pandering and simplistic.
It reduces a complex, three-dimensional person to a caricature.
While the premise had potential, the finished product is weighed down by Stallones heavy-handed direction and uneven script.
Image via Lionsgate
Despite its sincere intentions,Paradise Alleyis fundamentally boring.
It represents Stallone’s vision at its most unfiltered, without constraints or second opinions.
This disappointing sci-fi adventure starsWillandJaden Smith, with Will also serving as the producer and story creator.
In 2015, hecalledAfter Earth"the most painful failure in [his] career."
He also leads the cast as Forrest Taft, an oil rig firefighter turned environmental crusader.
There’s a half-baked environmental message somewhere in there, hidden under over-the-top action sequences and preachy monologues.
Unsurprisingly, critics evisceratedOn Deadly Ground, with many ranking it among the very worst movies of 1994.
It rightly won Seagal the Razzie for Worst Director.
The whole thing is shockingly self-absorbed, like the worst kind of student film.
It’s also pretentious, aspiring to be arty but winding up lame and confusing.
That said, some critics and filmmakers have praised its aesthetics and supposed honesty.
In the end, however, Gallos exploration of his own self-loathing doesnt translate into compelling filmmaking.
He clearly found it fascinating and brilliant, but most viewers will find it distasteful.
Professional motorcycle racer Bud Clay heads from New Hampshire to California to race again.
It also seems to misunderstand the main ideas of the 1974 Italian original.
Image via Universal Pictures
The characters completely lack realism.
They speak in non sequiturs and their actions frequently defy logic.
“Battlefield Earthis the complete inverse ofThe Roomin that its awfulness makes it actively unpleasant to watch.
Set in 1940s New York, three brothers from Hell’s Kitchen enter the world of professional wrestling to escape their tough lives. Their rise to fame and fortune tests their bonds and forces them to confront personal demons, ambition, and loyalty.
A stupid script, shoddy special effects, and jarring camera angles quickly wear out the viewer’s patience.
Many scenes strain credulity and the plot oscillates between dull and ridiculous.
Indeed,Glitterwas quickly canonized as one of the worst movies of all time.
Even Carey has admitted that it was a stinker.
It lost a lot of grit.
It was gritless, in fact.
I kind of got in over my head,” she hassaid.
He plays Rick Bode, a former cop who uncovers corruption while trying to clear his name.
Its a bizarre revelation of insecurities and narcissism that is unlike anything else.
Image via Columbia Pictures
For this reason,Get Evenis a cult classic among ‘so bad it’s good’ aficionados.
NEXT:The 10 Best Nicholas Hoult Movies, Ranked
Image via Warner Bros.
Image via Wellspring
Professional motorcycle racer Bud Clay heads from New Hampshire to California to race again. Along the way he meets various needy women who provide him with the cure to his own loneliness, but only a certain woman from his past will truly satisfy him.
Image via TPW Films
The Room is an experimental romantic drama film by the infamous Tommy Wiseau that sees the writer/director/producer star in the lead role of Johnny, a successful man with a comfortable life whose world is turned upside down when his best friend begins an affair with his wife. Considered a box-office bomb initially derided for its off-putting performances and completely erratic subplots, the movie has emerged as a quintessential cult classic and sees regular theater viewing events across the United States. The film later went on to have a dramatization of the true story based on Greg Sestero’s book, The Disaster Artist.
Image via Warner Bros.
Image via 20th Century Fox
