Owen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic In movies, the word “bomb” has always meant two things, generally at the same time. The first and most important definition of bomb is that a movie has lost a disastrous amount of money.
Movies, in general, can’t afford to do that — they’re too expensive to produce. Bombs happen, but as a business model they’re not sustainable.
A movie that bombs commercially has never been something to write off as a trivial matter. The second definition of bomb, which is linked to the first (though not automatically), is that a film is spectacularly bad.
It is, of course, not axiomatic that a movie that bombs commercially has failed as a work of art. There are movies we think of as classics that crashed and burned at the box office — like “It’s a Wonderful Life” or “Blade Runner” or “Intolerance” or “The Long Goodbye.” It’s become almost trendy to rescue certain films from the scandal of their box-office infamy.
Read more on variety.com