This Action Comedy Made $11 at the Box Office
Even when Katherine Heigl loses big, she can’t win. The Grey’s Anatomy star’s movie career has been on a downward slide over the past couple of decades, bottoming out when she starred in the vowel-challenged Zyzzyx Road in 2006. Upon its release, Zyzzyx Road set a new record for box-office lows, with gross ticket sales of only $30. It gets even worse — six patrons paid five bucks each to see the film and two got their money back, meaning $20 was the ultimate take. If you have to tank, tank big — Heigl’s movie was the all-time box-office loser! That is, until another movie snatched away her title.
That indignity now belongs to a 2011 action-comedy prophetically called The Worst Movie Ever! (exclamation point included in the title). The film’s premiere and two-day run attracted exactly one paying customer, earning $11 for the filmmakers. Sorry, Heigl, you have been erased from the record books.
The Worst Movie Ever! indeed looks terrible, with embarrassing green-screen special effects resembling a feature-length Tim and Eric sketch minus the laughs. Written, produced, directed by and starring Glenn Berggoetz, Worst Movie Ever features stock horror-film characters invading a suburban neighborhood. Presumably, conflict ensues that is somehow resolved. Or not.
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Understandably, because no one paid to see it, Worst Movie Ever! has no critic reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. The dozen or so people who’ve sought it out — apparently, the movie has made its way to some of the more obscure streaming outlets on Roku — confirm that it’s as bad as advertised.
“I wanted to see the worst movie ever and I got the worst movie ever,” said Braxton R.
Another anonymous viewer warned, “It’s a holocaust! DON’T WATCH IT!”
“they are not joking about this piece of shit being the worst movie,” agreed a third. “hell i would rather drink a bucket of snot while eating dog shit than to watch this movie.”
Ironically, setting the record for the lowest box-office take is the kind of curiosity driver that might encourage masochistic viewers to seek out Worst Movie Ever!. But director/writer/star Berggoetz insists he wasn’t trying to pull off some cynical marketing ploy. The film ran two nights as part of a midnight-movie series, with no one showing up at all for the Friday exhibition and only one for Saturday’s showing. “There was some miscommunication, there were some delays in confirming stuff,” Berggoetz told Movieline as if that explained it.
Who was the one person who shelled out $11? “We’re anxious to find out as well,” said Greg Laemmle, who runs the movie theater. “We need proof. Glenn said he’s already had a few people claim that they were the ones. I think we need a ticket stub here.”
Did that unlucky patron ever admit to seeing the film? “I would be thrilled to know who it was who attended the screening,” said Berggoetz, “so I can put him or her in my will.”
