another list:
http://skymovies.sky.com/50-movie-flops
but somehow "Heavens Gate" is THE definition of a movie flop, not just monetary, also considering what else happened during shooting:
Quote:
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Considered one of the most notorious screen disasters in the history of film. After struggling with personal films that went nowhere, Michael Cimino finally got to make The Deer Hunter (1978), a very personal project that brought him critical and commercial success and earned five Academy Awards. Afterwards, United Artists was willing to allow him anything he wanted. Cimino got $11.6 million to make his next project, which was initially budget at $7.5 million (according the Steven Bach's "Final Cut"). The film was to be a simple lower-budget western about a land war in Johnson County, Wyoming, featuring a first-rate cast. The film went over budget almost immediately, mostly due to Cimino's insistence on absolute perfectionism. Stories abounded that Cimino was tearing down sets for no reason and hiring and firing crew members almost weekly. Many of the stories were exaggerated, but the film ballooned to a then-astronomical sum of $40 million. When Cimino presented the film to United Artists, it ran well over 5 hours. After some squabbling, Cimino agreed to trim it down to less than 3 hours. The film was a commercial and critical disaster that destroyed Cimino's career as a director and nearly caused United Artists to file bankruptcy. When UA was sold to MGM, MGM acquired UA's pictures. That year MGM had a hit in For Your Eyes Only (1981). Cimino didn't get work for another five years. To date, his career has never recovered. When Waterworld (1995) was being made in the mid-90s, its production encountered so much difficulty and Kevin Costner received so much negative press concerning the shooting, it was called "Kevin's Gate", a sly reference to this film.
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