Sahara (2005 film)

Sahara is a 2005 action-comedy adventure film directed by Breck Eisner and based on the best-selling book of the same name by Clive Cussler. It stars Matthew McConaughey and Penelope Cruz.
Though it opened at number one in the US box office, grossing $18 million on its first weekend, Sahara is considered to be one of the biggest financial failures in Hollywood history since Ishtar. From a financial perspective, Sahara was unusual because it performed reasonably well, generating $122 million in gross box-office sales. However, due to its huge budget--including $160 million in production costs and $81.1 million in distribution expenses--its box-office take amounted to barely half of its expenses. The film lost approximately $105 million according to a financial executive assigned to the movie; however, Hollywood accounting methods assign losses at $78.3 million, taking into account projected revenue. According to Hollywood accounting, the film has a projected revenue of $202.9 million against expenses of $281.2 million.