Credit: Far Out / Warner Bros. Pictures
Wed 29 July 2026 14:30, UK
Elizabeth Taylor had muted enthusiasm about one of the biggest box office disasters ever.
There tends to be both a fascination and fixation among cinephiles when it comes to major box office disasters, as it’s interesting to see why something missed the mark in such a significant way. In many instances, the most famous financial disasters aren’t necessarily those that lost the most money, but films that flopped so hard that they have broader ramifications for the industry itself, such as Heaven’s Gate and Cutthroat Island.
Those are among the most significant box office meltdowns of the past 50 years, not just because they resulted in entire studios folding, but because Heaven’s Gate marked the end of the New Hollywood era of studio experimentation, and the Cutthroat Island caused filmmakers to shy away from the swashbuckling genre, and yet, few flops are more culturally remembered than Cleopatra, the 1963 epic that starred Elizabeth Taylor as the young Queen of Egypt, Richard Burton as Mark Antony, and Rex Harrison as Julius Caesar.
Cleopatra was the highest-grossing film of 1963 and received strong reviews, and even earned nine Academy Awards, including ‘Best Picture’ and ‘Best Actor’ for Harrison, but the film’s budget spiralled out of control during a chaotic production, and it ended up being a money-loser for 20th Century Fox.
The failure of Cleopatra can be attributed to the lack of enthusiasm for historical epics, as the genre that had dominated the previous decade was beginning to fade away. Although Taylor was among the most respected female stars in the world, there were concerns about her taking on such a specific historical role, given that she was best known for playing modern characters.
Despite giving a performance that is arguably the best part of the film, she claimed that she never had a ton of personal attachment to the titular role of Cleopatra.
“I have never wanted to be a queen!” Taylor said, “Cleopatra was a role, and I am an actor, so it was fun to play one, but it’s not real. The real Cleopatra had an incredibly complicated life, and she had to be very, very canny to survive as long as she did. For me, the most interesting thing about her was her passion. The things that are important to me, being a mother, a businesswoman, an activist, are all things that were borne out of great passion.”
Further reading: Cutting Room Floor
Taylor’s perspective on the film was healthy; while she was able to connect with the character of Cleopatra and find things to admire about her, she also wasn’t so invested in the part that the film’s failure was personally devastating to her. It helped that none of the perceived issues with it at the time were her doing. While Taylor, Harrison, and Burton all delivered strong performances, the film simply wasn’t engaging enough to justify a running time of over four hours, especially when compared to more competent historical epics of recent years, such as Ben-Hur, Spartacus, and Lawrence of Arabia.
Many have assumed that Cleopatra is a role that has been cursed, as many subsequent attempts to make a new film about her have failed. Although there was a unique and thoughtful depiction of the queen in the second season of the acclaimed HBO drama series Rome, the show was unfortunately cancelled before it got the chance to conclude its story.
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