13 Universally Panned Comedies That Raked In A Ton Of Cash

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13 Universally Panned Comedies That Raked In A Ton Of Cash

There are some classic comedies that we end up re-watching once every few years. Then there are a slew of comedies we look back on like, “Oh yeah, that thing.” They’re just these middle of the road, take it or leave it movies with zero memorability — except maybe for a couple dumbass, head-scratcher moments. Here’s the thing… They may have been pretty forgetful to us, but to producers and studio executives, they were creme de la creme cash cows!

Movies like this just prove the age old adage that quality doesn’t necessarily equate to success. And what is “success” really? In these cases, the success lined a lot of big wig pockets, but were they successful to the people who actually worked to make them as good as possible? Probably not. We don’t think anyone sets out to make a bad movie. What really sucks is that they’ll stand as examples to current and future big wigs that mediocrity sells. Well, we looked back on these “successful” comedies, and we’re still wondering how they managed to rake in the big bucks.

Not the Jim Carrey movie that deserves the biggest audience.

CRACKED BRUCE ALMIGHTY Not the worst movie, but of all his gems, how was this the box office beast? Carrey clearly had a built-in audience by 2003 and it made $484,468,608 - The #6 highest grossing comedy of all time.

The Numbers / IMDB 

If sequels are known as cash-grabs, then this was by far the most successful.

CRACKED THE HANGOVER PART II MADE $586,764,305. Hard Rock CAFE BANGKOK Surprisingly the highest grossing comedy of all time for 11 years (until Minions: The Rise of Gru overtook it in 2022), it really was just a less effective carbon copy of the original - in Bangkok this time!

Hollywood Reporter

Thanks a lot Look Who’s Talking!

CRACKED LOOK WHO'S TALKING At just under $300 million, this is the talking baby movie we can blame for all the copycat talking baby premises that plagued the '90s.

IMDB

Delving straight into the trope of, “Here’s the same thing but on summer break!”

CRACKED AMERICAN PIE 2 Yes American Pie was a standout comedy of the late '90s, but the sequel just doubled the raunch and halved the effort. Jim has a super glue masturbation incident and Stifler gets a golden shower that raked in $286.5 million.

Reelviews / Rotten Tomatoes 

Wild Hogs was a cocky over-produced comedy that unfortunately made people rich.

CRACKED WILD HOGS You can just see the salivating studio execs proclaiming, Highway to Hell blares as Tim Allen gets hit in the balls! At a quarter of a billion dollars, they were right! Watching John Travolta attempting comedy is just painful.

YouTube

Like Sandra Bullock’s transformation, this was a surprise success.

CRACKED MISS CONGENIALITY ة RS Fans continue to celebrate April 25th as the perfect date ('Cus all you need is a light jacket.) So there's some cultural relevance here, but overall it's a pretty silly premise that we're surprised made $213,420,951.

NY Post / Crooked Marquee 

Jim Carrey didn’t need these wacky premises! Chip his tooth and let him do his thing!

CRACKED YES MAN MADE $225,990,976. Remember when Jim Carrey couldn't tell a lie?! Okay, what if now he has to say Yes to everything?! These 3-minute sketch premises stretched into movies need to stop!

IMDB 

This Navy Seal has seen it all… Except babysitting in suburbia!

CRACKED THE PACIFIER Action stars in a kid's world is basically its own subgenre. The Spy Next Door, Spy Kids, Kindergarten Сор, and with Mr. Nanny & Suburban Commando, Hulk Hogan had two! Why this one hit $198,006,880, we'll never know.

YouTube

Dunking on these Sandler movies simultaneously punches up and punches down.

CRACKED YOU DON'T MESS WITH THE ZOHAN Always on a list of the worst Adam Sandler movies, we're left head-scratching after Zohan raked in over $200 million!

Goliath / AMC 

Comedies with kids seem to be a winning formula or something.

CRACKED DADDY DAY CARE MADE $164.4 MILLION. A slew of solid Eddie Murphy movies are amongst the top-grossing comedies of all time, and a slew are amongst the worst comedies and biggest flops of all time. Daddy Day Care is right in the middle. An unfortunate money maker with even worse sequels.

IMDB 

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