The only thing moviegoers love more than car crashes and explosions is watching a high-profile film go up in flames. Every season brings a number of financial disappointments, but it takes extraordinary circumstances for a screen project to become a truly iconic disaster like "Ishtar" or "Waterworld".

A longtime industry insider and acclaimed Hollywood historian goes behind the scenes to tell the stories of 15 of the most spectacular movie megaflops of the past 50 years, such as "Cleopatra," "The Cotton Club", and "Waterworld". He recounts, in every gory detail, how enormous hubris, unbridled ambition, artistic hauteur, and bad business sense on the parts of Tinsel Town wheeler-dealers and superstars such as Elizabeth Taylor, Clint Eastwood, and Francis Ford Coppola, conspired to engender some of the worst films ever.

Acknowledgments.Introduction.1 Cleopatra (1963).2 The Chase (1966).3 Paint Your Wagon (1969).4 The Wild Party (1975).5 Popeye (1980).6 The Cotton Club (1984).7 Shanghai Surprise (1986).8 Ishtar (1987).9 Last Action Hero (1993).10 Cutthroat Island (1995).11 Showgirls (1995).12 Waterworld (1995) and The Postman (1997).13 Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000 (2000).14 Town &
Country (2001).Afterword.Appendix A: Filmography.Appendix B: Hollywood Feature Films That Were Box-Office Disappointments in Domestic Theatrical Release (1960a

2004).Bibliography.Index.