What The Hell Happened:

The movie was a much more novel idea when it was first in development back in 2008. Originally it was going to star Sacha Baron Cohen, with Ferrell as Watson -- which makes way more sense, considering Cohen has a more Holmes-like profile. And keep in mind, this was before everybody started hammering out fresh takes on the Holmes canon. Holmes & Watson was actually being developed before Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes movie, and this was two years before Sherlock first aired, and four years before Elementary. In fact, it was Ritchie's project that delayed Ferrell's movie, because they didn't want to compete with a less-comedic, far sweatier version of the character.

After the delay, the production stalled and ended up in development hell. Then in 2016 it got going again, eventually being released in 2018. By the time it was made, it had accrued ten years of pop culture references that were dated by today's standards, including poking fun at the now-decade-old Guy Ritchie movie ...

Sony Pictures Releasing

... and the decidedly not-a-thing-anyone-thinks-is-automatically-funny-anymore selfie sticks:

Sony Pictures ReleasingAt least, we think that's what's happening here. We'd left the theater and snuck into Aquaman by this point.

By the time the movie was done, it tested so terribly that Sony just offered it up to Netflix, which rejected it. Yup, Netflix will churn out loads of movies about wacky Christmas misunderstandings, usually involving royalty, but even they didn't want Holmes & Watson stinking up their platform.

Related: 6 Reasons Movies Suck (That Hollywood Hasn't Figured Out)

What The Hell Happened:

Like with most problems in life, we can place the blame for this squarely on our parents. After the release of the first movie, parents and even medical professionals railed against the the Turtles' violent ways, alleging that all that pizza-fueled nunchucking was having a negative impact on children. This led to the watered-down sequel The Secret Of The Ooze, in which the Turtles weren't allowed to use their weapons. This was stretched to the point of straining credibility, such as the scene wherein Michelangelo attacks the Foot Clan wielding a handful of sausages.

New Line CinemaBecause if there's one thing a superhero movie can do without, it's violence.

Even that was too violent for England, and it was cut it out of the damn movie. And the recasting of April O'Neil was allegedly due to this controversy. According to original actress Judith Hoag, her complaints about the violence in the first movie led to her losing the gig.

Perhaps most disappointing for kids at the time, Shredder's new mutant henchman weren't Bebop and Rocksteady like in the cartoon, but rather a wolf and a snapping turtle from, well, nothing. While clearly this plotline was sketched out with everyone's favorite warthog and rhino duo in mind, the Turtles' creators pulled the plug "due to licensing issues" -- meaning some other dude wrote their backstory, and presumably instead of paying him off, the writers just invented two new characters, including yet another turtle. Because who has time to think about what other animals exist in the world?

Then when the third movie came out, the turtles looked waaaay worse. This was not only because by this point, fans were hurtling toward puberty and starting to realize how silly the idea of giant muscular reptiles is, but also because the costumes weren't made by the Jim Henson Company (which had worked on the other movies).

New Line Cinema

New Line CinemaStill, not the worst we've seen done with the franchise.

Why would filmmakers ditch the company named after the dude who made all of our childhoods magical in favor of a company called All Effects, which we're assuming was staffed with rogue Halloween Superstore employees? Cheapness. Henson couldn't match All Effect's bargain prices. But since all the original turtle outfits were owned by Henson, the new guys designed their costumes from scratch. Their only references were VHS copies of the earlier films and a magazine article about the making of the second one.

Related: 5 Annoying Trends That Make Every Movie Look The Same

But since the end result looked less terrifying and more like Muppet cosplay gone horribly wrong, it was scrapped altogether.

Related: 6 Brilliant Explanations For Why Modern Movies Are So Stupid

What The Hell Happened:

This goddamn movie was Travolta's passion project for seven years. It began with John Gotti Jr. and a bunch of producers, who for some reason lacked "Hollywood connections." Originally the story was going to focus on the entire Gotti family, co-starring Joe Pesci and Lindsay Lohan as Travolta's daughter, who presumably would use her mob powers to scream at homeless children. Unfortunately, the producer went to prison for fraud, and was then sued by Pesci, who allegedly gained 30 pounds for a role in a movie that never had proper financing.

Then came a new source of money. A man named Salvatore Carpanzano convinced an Irish construction magnate to invest. Problem solved ... until Carpanzano was also arrested for fraud. Then after losing famed director Barry Levinson (Rain Man, Good Morning Vietnam), the production just hired one of the bros from Entourage to direct. And due to budgetary constraints, the distinctly New York story was forced to shoot in Cincinnati.

Why would Travolta stick through all of this insanity? Well, apparently he thought Gotti was going to finally win him an Oscar. When the distributor wouldn't spring for a "full-scale awards campaign" for what felt like a grade-school production of Goodfellas, Travolta bought the movie from them. Travolta also wanted it to screen at Cannes, but they wouldn't touch it with a ten-foot pole, so he made a deal to have it screened thereby agreeing to teach an acting class and host a screening of Grease. The production also hosted a swank Cannes party. And what says "swank" more than awkwardly gyrating next to 50 Cent?

And then MoviePass decided that the best way to save their endangered subscription service was to get in the distribution game. Seemingly because dumpster fires are magnetically drawn to other dumpster fires, MoviePass bought an equity stake in Gotti "in the low seven-figure range." Part of this deal apparently involved slapping the MoviePass logo on the side of Travolta's private plane to advertise the movie to ... John Travolta?

The movie was, of course, savaged by critics, which in turn led to Gotti pursuing the odd marketing tactic of calling them trolls -- either insulting their integrity or implying that professional film reviewers are crazy-haired bridge-dwelling nudists.

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