The legendary veteran actor Mel Gibson celebrates a decorated filmography filled with epic and critically acclaimed movies. However, at the same time, the actor also has a few awful and disastrous movies in his career, that fortunately didn’t ruin his fame. Gibson’s 2000 movie The Million Dollar Hotel is one such example of a catastrophic disaster.
The idea of the movie first originated in 1987 while shooting a music video for U2’s Where The Streets Have No Name. However, it took 13 years to finally come up with a script adaptation and turn it into a movie featuring Mel Gibson as an FBI agent. Somehow, despite taking more than a decade to develop the movie, The Million Dollar Hotel turned into a massive box office failure.
Mel Gibson’s 2000 Movie The Million Dollar Hotel
Mel Gibson seems to balance his career with an equal number of critically acclaimed movies and box office disasters. On one hand, while Gibson offers masterpieces like What Women Want, on the other hand, he drops bizarre movies like The Million Dollar Hotel. Speaking of which, the actor once criticize his own movie.
The 2000 movie directed by Wim Wenders, took 13 years to take shape, as the original idea was formed by Bono in 1987. While filming a music video, on the roof of a liquor store, the climactic scene for the movie was developed. While it might seem bizarre, Bono mentally came up with the idea for the movie based on just one scene.
However, it took years to come up with a script for the movie, which was adapted by Nicholas Klein to give shape to The Million Dollar Hotel. Finally, the German director Wim Wenders collaborated with Mel Gibson to get him to play the role of an FBI agent. The movie narrated the story of Gibson’s character, who had been investigating the death of an LA mogul’s drug addict son.
Mel Gibson Called His $59K Movie Boring
While the story sounds incredibly simple, Mel Gibson claimed the movie turned out to be worse than its flat plotline. Despite having an A-lister star cast, The Million Dollar Hotel failed miserably at the box office. It struggled to attain audiences, which affected its box office collection, and simply earned $59K at the global box office.
Following the box office catastrophe, the veteran actor claimed it was a disastrous choice. However, previously, during its premiere at the 2000 Berlin International Film Festival, Wim Wenders’ movie took home the Jury Prize. But somehow, the movie failed to perform well following its release in February 2000.
Facing awful reviews in America, and getting tags like nonsensical, lost, and pretentious, Mel Gibson kicked up the controversy further by calling his own film boring. Appearing at the Australian press tour, Gibson stated that The Million Dollar Hotel was “boring as a dog’s *ss”. No matter how awful the movie was, criticizing his own film turned out to be a further disaster for the actor. Thus, in the end, Mel Gibson and his movie, both earned a toxic reputation.
Watch The Million Dollar Hotel on Amazon Video.
Source: Decider
