It's official - Town And Country is the biggest film flop of all time. The picture cost £60m to make and earned just £4m in four weeks of release before the distributors decided to admit defeat, pulling it from US cinemas.

All the more surprising, perhaps, that the movie isn't going straight to video over here but opening in cinemas today, in the hope that European audiences will be kinder than their American counterparts.

The failure of Town And Country is not that unexpected. Films with troubled histories rarely overcome the rumours and industry sniping to strike box office gold.

And boy, has this production had problems since the cameras began turning way back in 1998. Thirteen release dates were set, and then cancelled, by the US distributors.

When it did open, the critics were not kind, calling it "an unfinished, incoherent mess" and noting that "without warning it goes from inept to complete disaster". They were only allowed to see the film shortly before it opened, meaning many missed deadlines and didn't carry reviews, the distributors hoping to entice people into cinemas before the bad notices were published.

Town And Country looked so promising on paper. The cast of the romantic comedy was stuffed with reliable names including Warren Beatty, Goldie Hawn, Diane Keaton, Garry Shandling, Jenna Elfman, Nastassja Kinski and Andie Macdowell. At the helm was British actor-turned-director Peter Chelsom, whose track record included Hear My Song, Funny Bones and The Mighty.

What went wrong is difficult to assess. But a film that begins shooting without a finished script, as this is alleged to have done, is asking for trouble. There were rumours, too, that Beatty exercised his star power to have re-shoots done. The actor publicly denied this, with his lawyer stating that "Beatty was strictly an actor in this film. He did not create it, write it, direct it or produce it".

The last thing he wanted was to be held responsible for another big budget flop after Ishtar, the 1987 critical and box-office disaster in which he partnered Dustin Hoffman.

New Line, the company which made the film, not only withheld it from critics until the last moment but failed to launch it with the usual Hollywood fanfare. There was no glitzy premiere, no publicity junket, no talk show appearances by the stars. Everybody just wanted to forget about it. Unfortunately, as a record-breaking flop, it will live on as one of the Hollywood turkeys that nobody wants at Thanksgiving.

Some flops go quietly straight to video. The $50m baseball drama The Replacements with Gene Hackman and Keanu Reeves suffered that indignity in this country only this month. But Town And Country joins the select band of disaster movies in the Hollywood Hall of Shame. Cast your mind over some of the others:

Battlefield Earth (2000): Filming this sci-fi novel by Scientology founder L Ron Hubbard was a pet project of John Travolta, who played a seven foot alien with dreadlocks. The $80m movie was laughed off the screen by the few who managed to see it.

Cutthroat Island (1995): The husband and wife team of director Renny Harlin and star Geena Davis swashed their buckles on a $92m pirate movie. Michael Douglas wisely backed out shortly before production began. He was replaced by non box-office name Matthew Modine. Davis, at a later date, divorced Harlin.

Heaven's Gate (1980): After The Deer Hunter, director Michael Cimino thought he could do no wrong with this epic western. The first cut ran three and a half hours. The studio re-cut it, made it shorter and still nobody came.

Revolution (1980): Hugh Hudson's American Revolution epic had Al Pacino with a dodgy British accent worrying about his son (played as a young lad by Sid (Rickeeeeee from EastEnders) Owen. "England's answer to Heaven's Gate," wrote one critic unkindly, but rather truthfully.

The Adventures Of Baron Munchausen (1989): Monty Python animator Terry Gilliam battled with financiers to complete his fantasy film based on a German story book. Nominated for three Oscars but audiences stayed away in droves.

Inchon (1981): This 46m dollar Korean War film was the brainchild of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, head of the Unification Church. Laurence Olivier played General Douglas MacArthur in a movie that took four years to make and was hardly released.

Howard The Duck (1986): The title was changed in the UK to Howard... A New Breed Of Hero, but this story about a duck from outer space, based on a Marvel Comics character, was still a dead duck at the box office.

Ishtar (1987): The Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman film failed the ultimate test for a comedy - it wasn't funny.

Cleopatra (1963): Elizabeth Taylor became the first actress to get a million dollars for one film and then nearly died during the early stages of filming. The original director and two male leads (Stephen Boyd and Peter Finch) left, the production moved to Italy although elaborate sets had been built in this country, and Rex Harrison and Richard Burton joined the cast. The on-set romance of Burton and Taylor caused headlines as the budget soared to $44m (getting on for $300m today). The movie lost money but Taylor found a new husband.

The Bonfire Of The Vanities (1990): Tom Wolfe's bestseller filmed by Carrie and Scarface director Brian De Palma with a starry cast (Tom Hanks, Bruce Willis , Melanie Griffith) whom, those who knew the book declared, were totally miscast. Hot Dog magazine labelled it "the worst literary adaptation this side of Thomas And The Magic Railroad, by Hot Dog magazine".

Published: 29/06/2001