A John Hughes Flop Was Bigger Than ‘Star Wars’ in India

Following the massive success of Home Alone, legendary writer-director John Hughes churned out more than a few half-baked scripts for family movies in which low-level criminals are brutalized by small children and/or adorable dogs. There was Dennis the Menace, Beethoven, heck, even the live-action version of 101 Dalmatians updated the classic story to include shabby crooks getting electrocuted in the balls.

But perhaps the wildest example of this trend is Baby’s Day Out, the 1994 comedy in which Joe Mantegna tries to kidnap an infant, with near-fatal results. 

Unlike Home Alone, Baby’s Day Out wasn’t exactly a big hit. The film, which came out 30 years ago this week, made just over $16 million at the domestic box office, but cost $48 million to make. This was seemingly due to its cutting-edge animatronics. Had the filmmakers simply opted to imperil a real baby atop a skyscraper, it probably would have been a whole lot cheaper. 

Part of the problem was that the movie opened just two weeks after one of the most successful family movies of all-time. As director Patrick Read Johnson recently revealed, after the “dismal opening,” he received a call from a studio executive, who told him, “Fuck! Who knew The Lion King was going (to) be so huge?”

And the critical community wasn’t too kind to Baby’s Day Out either. In a memorably heated episode of Siskel & Ebert, Roger Ebert proclaimed that he “hated” the movie. When Gene Siskel defended it on the basis that it would surely entertain kids, Ebert fired back, “You should be ashamed of yourself,” adding, “I think a little child who sees this baby about to fall off of tall buildings, and be crushed by big cars, isn’t going to know it’s funny.”

So you can imagine Ebert’s surprise when he found out that the movie was a monster hit in South Asia. 

While visiting India for the Calcutta Film Festival, Ebert chatted with a local movie theater owner, and asked "What is your all-time most successful film?" His response? “That is an easy one to answer. Baby's Day Out.”

Ebert was taken aback, recalling that the movie was a big flop stateside. “It ran and ran and ran,” the cinema owner explained. “Seventeen weeks at least, filling every seat in our largest auditorium, 1,400 seats. Let me tell you, business would be better if every film were that good.” 

Keep in mind, this was while the theater was playing Star Wars: Episode 1 — The Phantom Menace.

In 1995, Variety noted that the movie’s Indian release, in both an English-language version and a version dubbed in Hindi, had “exceeded expectations.” It was so popular in India that it was remade multiple times, in several different languages, including 1995’s Telugu version Sisindri.

Somewhat confusingly, the 1999 Malayalam version was titled James Bond, despite the fact that it was still about a small baby who goes on precisely zero martini-fueled spy missions. 

Maybe the time is right for Hollywood to finally give us a Baby’s Day Out sequel about a grown man trying to cope with an inexplicable fear of busy traffic and tall buildings.

You (yes, you) should follow JM on Twitter (if it still exists by the time you’re reading this).