Why a star-studded Gothic horror film became a notorious Hollywood box office bomb

Entertainment · Published 3 October 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: When Julia Roberts and John Malkovich teamed up for a Victorian psychological thriller, expectations were sky-high. Yet, the 1996 film Mary Reilly collapsed under the weight of its own production, failing to connect with audiences or critics. Behind the scenes, the project was a chaotic saga of shifting creative visions.

The journey of Mary Reilly began in 1989 when producers Jon Peters and Peter Guber acquired the rights to Valerie Martin’s 1990 novel, which reimagined Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic tale through the eyes of a maid. The project initially attracted director Roman Polanski, but after Guber became CEO of Sony Pictures Entertainment, the film moved to TriStar Pictures. By 1993, Tim Burton had signed on to direct, intending to cast Winona Ryder in the lead. However, Burton departed the project that same year following disputes with the studio, leading to the hiring of director Stephen Frears and a complete overhaul of the cast.

The production was plagued by reports of internal animosity and constant revisions, with the screenplay undergoing as many as 25 drafts. Frears shot three different endings, but studio executives and test audiences rejected his preferred, more ambiguous conclusion for being too downbeat. When the film finally premiered in February 1996, it was met with poor reviews and a dismal box office performance. While the budget was reported at $40 million, the film earned only $12.3 million worldwide. An unnamed source close to the production later suggested the film had become 'too big, too expensive, too Hollywood,' transforming a dark, intimate story into a bloated commercial failure.

Despite its reputation as a flop, the film remains a point of contention among critics. Many reviewers, such as those at Entertainment Weekly, criticized the lack of chemistry between the leads and the film's academic, muted tone. However, others, including Roger Ebert and critic David Thomson, defended the work. Ebert praised the film for focusing on the psychological horror of the characters rather than special effects, while Thomson argued that it remains the best screen adaptation of the Jekyll and Hyde story ever made, lamenting that its commercial failure led to its unfair neglect.

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