As 2006 is slowly coming towards its end, the charts of 'best of' and 'worst of' are already beginning to appear. 'Variety' is among the first media outlets to take a closer look at the world of cinema, pointing out that a flick in which only A-listers are cast does not necessarily mean that it would be an instant box-office hit.

'Variety' doesn't imply that the chart includes only poor movies (in fact, some of them are really very good) but just those films released in 2006 that failed to attract an audience and whose budgets are totally absurd as compared to their ticket sales. Actually, this was the main equation by which the top ten was composed.

The fact of having A-list actors in a movie usually supposes huge costs for the studio and the producers because they (the stars) have to be given the best of everything (including a salary that can rise up to $30 million) for their performance. All their demands are met with, in the hope that the movie will be so good and so appreciated as to get some of the money back.

This certainly was not the case this year for Oscar-winner Sean Penn, Russell Crowe and Nicholas Cage. Penn starred in the political drama 'All King's Men', a movie that brought raving reviews after its Toronto premiere but which proved too political for the US public. Although all the actors in it (Jude Law, Kate Winslet, Sir Anthony Hopkins and James Gandolfini) did their best to render the atmosphere of the 1935 Louisiana, the audience was not impressed. As a consequence, 'All King's Men' opened in the final five positions of the North American box-office and was gone altogether from the top ten by the time it reached its second week.

Russell Crowe, an actor universally acclaimed for his professionalism and the depth he brings into all his characters (but not for his temper), bombed big with the romantic comedy and self-discovery story of 'A Good Year'. His flop was so quiet that many didn't even notice that it opened. Not the same happened for Nicholas Cage, who starred in a remake of the horror flick 'Wicker Man': not only did he opened last in the box-office chart, but he was also criticized for being a part of something that completely ruined one of Hollywood's classics.

The hall of shame also includes famous directors who had a bad year, by releasing movies which no one ever dreamed they would make. This goes for M. Night Shyalaman ('Lady in the Water') and Wolfgang Petersen ('Poseidon'), two household names that were one step away from entirely ruining their careers because of the bombs their movies turned out to be.

And now we get to the actual flops: the movies that cost tens and even hundreds of millions to make, only to cash in a couple of millions. First, we have 'Basic Instinct 2', the sequel to the now legendary erotic thriller 'Basic Instinct', which was meant to be at least half as good as the previous one. While Michael Douglas was no longer willing to bare butt and reprise his part, Sharon Stone had probably been waiting for this part for the last ten years of her life.

Instead, 'Basic Instinct 2' came for her to continue the line of box-office flops in 11 years of career. The movie had a budget of well over $70 million and all it got from ticket sales in the US was a mere $5 million. Plus, the movie got another negative accolade, by being also named 'worst trailer of the year'.

Another spectacular misfire was a family comedy, an animated story of an uptight, upper class little mouse that accidentally gets flushed into the sewer system, where he discovers a brand new world, 'Flushed Away'. It had a deficit between cost and domestic sales of over $90 million and, yet, there was another movie that topped it. 'Poseidon' registered a domestic loss of an estimated $100 million, although the balance began to tip once it got released overseas.

Again, this short summary of the biggest box-office bombs of 2006 is not to be confused with the top of the worst movies of the year. While the latter focuses only on the quality of the films it analyzes, the main concern of the first one is entirely economical. So, if you didn't get the chance to see the movies that made it into 'Variety''s hall of shame, make sure you do: they are truly worth a couple of hours of your life.