The Most Notorious Vanity Projects Ever Made, from ‘Glitter’ to ‘Battlefield Earth’

When HBO’s “The Idol” premiered to a resounding “ugh, really?” from the general public last month, there was a specific label people were quick to apply to the series: vanity project. Who the show was a vanity project for depended on which creator was being complained about at the time. But haters of the instantly despised pop star erotic thriller were practically universal in their assessment that the show was an ego stroke for star The Weeknd and/or series director Sam Levinson: both of whom took their lashings over the course of the show’s five-episode run.

The pair clearly had sky high hopes for the series, to the point that it received a rare TV premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2023 before its broadcast debut in June. That was criticized by many as a deeply egotistical push, but its inclusion at the festival did put it more in line with other notorious vanity projects of the past. The majority of these can be found on the big screen as opposed to the TV set, and run the genre gamut from comedies and musicals to big-budget action flicks.

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TV shows rarely get the vanity project label in the way films do, in part because its tends to be a more collaborative medium with more people working on writing and directing. Vanity project charges are most often brought against expensive, massive films clearly being lead by a single creative force. Accusations are most often applied when said force is an actor, or when the force is both directing and starring in the project.

What’s the difference between a vanity project and a brilliant work of auteur genius? It’s simple; the former gets bad reviews, and the latter gets good ones. That makes the term “vanity project” a very subjective one, with one star’s disaster being another one’s masterpiece. Hell, popular perception of so called vanity projects can change over time; look no further than “Heaven’s Gate,” the once widely reviled Michael Cimino western epic that has largely been reevaluated and reclaimed as a classic decades after its horrific first reception.

Still, for every vanity project that gets defended, there’s dozens more that remain targets of mockery years later. Some of the most notorious vanity projects come from music artists like the Weeknd expanding their presence into film, such as Vanilla Ice’s “Cool as Ice” or Mariah Carey’s notorious bomb “Glitter.” Others come from film vets who simply took on too much and got burned in the process, like Peter Bogdanovich’s “At Long Last Love” or Kevin Costner’s “The Postman.” Whatever the case, these movies are fascinating windows into the times they were created, when the people driving them were riding career highs, and often didn’t have anyone around them to pull back their worst impulses.

Here are seven of the most notorious vanity projects ever made, listed in order of U.S. release date.

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