{"id":501777,"date":"2026-02-24T21:48:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T21:48:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/501777\/"},"modified":"2026-02-24T21:48:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T21:48:10","slug":"today-in-history-february-25-only-six-people-saw-the-biggest-flop-of-all-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/501777\/","title":{"rendered":"Today in History – February 25: Only six people saw the biggest flop of all time"},"content":{"rendered":"

Zyzzyx Road opened at the Highland Park Village in Dallas, Texas<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The producer had paid the cinema $US1000 to screen the movie at noon every day for a week.<\/p>\n

\"LeoLeo Grillo and Katherine Heigl in Zyzzyx Road. (GoDigital Media Group)<\/p>\n

And despite the cheap $5 tickets, it grossed just $30, meaning only six people went to see it.<\/p>\n

Two of those tickets were sold to the film’s makeup artist and her friend.<\/p>\n

But the film’s star, Leo Grillo, felt so sorry she had paid money to see it that he gave her the money back.<\/p>\n

There was a logical reason for the film screening in just one cinema for just one week.<\/p>\n

Under union rules, there were minimum actor salaries for straight-to-DVD movies.<\/p>\n

But if the film had a cinema release, the producers could pay the actors less.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In spite of the skimpy salaries, they managed to cast two big-name actors for the movie.<\/p>\n

\"ByBy the time Zyzzyx Road came out, Katherine Heigl was a big name from her role in Grey’s Anatomy. (GoDigital Media Group)<\/p>\n

Her following movie, Knocked Up, made more than $200 million at the box office.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, actor Tom Sizemore<\/a> was at a low ebb in his career thanks to his drug addiction.<\/p>\n

Already on probation, he had been arrested for possession. Luckily for the filmmakers, he was allowed to finish his scenes in the movie.<\/p>\n

\"ZyzzyxZyzzyx Road would reportedly turn a profit from DVD sales. (GoDigital Media Group)<\/p>\n

Zyzzyx Road is a thriller with a supernatural element to it. Filmed over 20 days and for a budget of US$1.2 million, it was very much done on the cheap.<\/p>\n

It has been reported that despite selling just six tickets, it ended up making a profit on DVD sales.<\/p>\n

It is not to be confused with Zzyzx, another thriller released just three weeks earlier.<\/p>\n

Both movies are thrillers set on the same remote road in the desert outside of Las Vegas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Zyzzyx Road opened at the Highland Park Village in Dallas, Texas. The producer had paid the cinema $US1000…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":501778,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[64,63,134,344],"class_list":["post-501777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-entertainment","tag-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=501777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501777\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/501778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=501777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=501777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=501777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}