“Cutthroat Island” was released in 1995. The pirate adventure film was directed by Renny Harlin and starred Geena Davis as Morgan Adams, Matthew Modine as William Shaw, and Frank Langella as the villainous Dawg Brown.
The movie became famous for its financial failure. Its production budget was reported at roughly $92 million to $115 million, but it earned only about $16 million worldwide. The combination of costly production problems, script rewrites, and weak theatrical performance made it one of the most notorious box-office bombs in film history.
The failure also damaged Carolco Pictures, the company behind major hits such as “Terminator 2” and “Basic Instinct.” Carolco filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy shortly before the film’s release and later ceased operations. A common mix-up is confusing the film with later pirate successes such as “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl,” which arrived in 2003.