The White House Correspondents' Dinner this weekend quickly became a fierce competition between Barack Obama and Jimmy Kimmel for funniest of the night. While Kimmel's speech turned into a hysterical roast of practically every celeb and political figure in the room, the president certainly gave the late-night host a run for his money... especially since he "forgot" his mic was on backstage.
There were a lot of stars that showed up to the White House Correspondents' Dinner this weekend, but it was Jimmy Kimmel's speech (or should we say "roast"?) that truly made the event worth watching.
Football star Eli Manning is set to host 'Saturday Night Live' on May 5, making him the latest athlete to step off the field and in front of the comedy show's cameras. We're all waiting to see if his quarterbacking skills, which led the New York Giants to another Super Bowl victory this year, will serve him well in front of the late-night audience. But looking back on all the pro athletes who've previously graced the 'SNL' stage, are his chances of succeeding really that high?
After a couple poor weekends out of the gate, 'John Carter' is poised to become one of the worst movie investments in history. Analysts expect the Walt Disney Co. to take a $165 million loss that will earn it the indignity cast upon forgettable films like 'Ishtar' and 'Howard the Duck.' A variety of reasons for the movie's poor performance have been floated -- from casting to plot to promotion. Whatever the cause, it wouldn't be the first time Hollywood banked on a splashy blockbuster and lost big. Here's a look back at some of Hollywood's most colossal failures.
St. Patrick's Day brings out the superstitious side in all of us. Lucky charms come front-and-center this week as we head into the holiday weekend. Though St. Patrick's Day doesn't get the same love in cinema that other high-profile holidays receive, Hollywood does have a rich tradition of crediting "Lady Luck" for certain milestones and achievements. Here are 10 "lucky" movie quotes that you can pull out on St. Pat's Day.
This vehicle for former couple Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez gained notoriety in 2003 for its callousness and general atrociousness. To make matters worse, the two leads broke off their real-life relationship shortly after the movie failed to win over viewers.
It cost $54 million to make and brought in only a small fraction of that at the box office. As Manohla Dargis said in her LA Times review, "The pair should reconsider working with anyone who thought well of a movie hinged on jokes about the disabled, switch-hitting lesbians and the sight of a dead man's brain splattered across an aquarium."
This animated debacle lost over $100 million and is considered the worst flop of 2011. Lambasted by critics for its stiff, creepy motion-capture animation and rejected by audiences, 'Mars Needs Moms' caused studios to reconsider whether or not family-friendly CGI movies are really a safe bet.
Its failure, along with the similar audience rejection of movies like 'Red Planet,' inspired the makers of 'John Carter' to ditch the "of Mars" part of the Edgar Rice Burroughs' novels on which the film is based. Clearly Hollywood needs to stay off Mars.
This utterly forgettable film is one that the studio probably wants to forget as well. It lost $95 million in 2001, despite boasting stars like Warren Beatty and Diane Keaton.
How did a seemingly modest ensemble comedy end up costing so much? The film went through multiple rewrites and reshoots, taking several years to be made.
By the time it finally limped into theaters, much of the excitement that originally surronded the project had dissolved, and the studio cut their losses with a small marketing campaign. The film was such a disaster, Beatty hasn't acted since.
Back in 2003, it was hard to image that anything 'American Idol' winner Kelly Clarkson and runner-up Justin Guarini (remember him?) could touch wouldn't immediately turn to gold. But they endured the other side of the entertainment industry when their musical earned only $5 million at the box office. In fact, it was so bad that a new Razzie Award, the Governor's Award, was created for it.
Clarkson told Time magazine, “I knew when I read the script it was going to be real, real bad, but when I won, I signed that piece of paper and I could not get out of it. Two words: contractually obligated.”
This 1997 film took place in a post-apocalyptic 2013. But it only brought in $18 million on an $80 million investment. And director and star Kevin Costner, who had previously starred in the equally costly sci-fi dud 'Waterworld,' was held responsible for the flop.
Vanity Fair wrote: "Audiences were in no mood to watch a movie which begins with Costner reciting 'MacBeth' to his donkey before once more martyring himself for three hours." Costner did a lot of on-screen martyring during the '90s.