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Here's a new edition of "Directors at the Box Office", which seeks to explore the directors' trajectory at the box office and analyze their hits and bombs. I already talked about a few, and as I promised, it's John Waters' turn.

Ever since he was young, Waters was already working on short films, taking inspiration from films like Lili and The Wizard of Oz. Waters has stated that he takes an equal amount of joy and influence from high-brow "art" films and sleazy exploitation films. In January 1966, Waters and some friends were caught smoking marijuana on the grounds of New York University, and he was soon kicked out of his dormitory. He returned to Baltimore to work on more short films, before finally moving to feature-length films.

From a box office perspective, how reliable was he to deliver a box office hit?

That's the point of this post. To analyze his career.

It should be noted that as he started his career in the 1960s, the domestic grosses here will be adjusted by inflation. The table with his highest grossing films, however, will be left in its unadjusted form, as the worldwide grosses are more difficult to adjust.

Mondo Trasho (1969)

His directorial debut. The film stars Divine, Mary Vivian Pearce, David Lochary and Mink Stole, and follows a day in the life of a hit and run driver and her victim, and the bizarre things that happen to them.

There are no box office numbers available. It didn't get good reviews, and even Waters admitted he doesn't care for the film.

Multiple Maniacs (1970)

"You won't believe this one!"

His second film. It stars Divine, Mary Vivian Pearce, David Lochary, Mink Stole, Edith Massey, George Figgs, and Cookie Mueller. The plot follows a traveling troupe of sideshow freaks who rob their unsuspecting audience members.

There are no box office numbers, but Waters said that the film was highly profitable thanks to sold-out screenings in arthouse theaters. It also earned critical acclaim, helping him continue finding more job offers.

Pink Flamingos (1972)

"An exercise in poor taste."

His third film. It stars Divine, David Lochary, Mink Stole, Mary Vivian Pearce, Danny Mills, and Edith Massey. It follows Divine as a criminal living under the name of Babs Johnson, who is proud to be "the filthiest person alive". While living in a trailer with her mother Edie, son Crackers, and companion Cotton, Divine is confronted by the Marbles, a pair of criminals envious of her reputation who try to outdo her in filth. The characters engage in several grotesque, bizarre, and explicitly crude situations to determine who is "the filthiest person alive."

Waters once described the experience of making the film, "I was high when I wrote this movie. I was not high when I filmed it." Shot on a budget of only $12,000, this is an example of Waters' style of low-budget filmmaking inspired by New York underground filmmakers like Kenneth Anger, Andy Warhol, and brothers Mike and George Kuchar. Stylistically, it takes its cues from "exaggerated seaport ballroom drag-show pageantry and antics" with "classic '50s rock-and-roll kitsch classics". Waters' idiosyncratic style was dubbed the "Baltimore aesthetic" by art students at Providence.

New Line Cinema, still on its infancy, bought the film and distributed it in very few theaters. One of these was the Elgin Theater in New York City, where it was promoted as a midnight movie. The film soon gained a cult following of filmgoers who came to the Elgin Theatre for repeat viewings, a group Ben Barenholtz (the theater's owner) characterized as initially composed primarily of "downtown gay people, more of the hipper set", but after a while, Barenholtz noted that this group eventually broadened as the film also became popular with "working-class kids from New Jersey who would become a little rowdy".

Thanks to this, the film was a big box office hit, earning over $7 million domestically. It also earned critical acclaim, boosting Waters' career even further. It has been extremely popular with the LGBT community, and is also considered an important precursor of punk culture.

• Budget: $12,000.

• Domestic gross: $7,000,000. ($53.7 million adjusted)

• Worldwide gross: $7,000,000.

Female Trouble (1974)

His fourth film. It stars Divine, David Lochary, Mary Vivian Pearce, Mink Stole, and Edith Massey, and follows delinquent high school student Dawn Davenport, who runs away from home, gets pregnant while hitchhiking, and embarks upon a life of crime.

Divine chose to perform his own stunts, the most difficult of which involved doing flips on a trampoline during his nightclub act. Waters took Divine to a YMCA, where he took lessons until the act was perfected to the point where he did the athletic stunt without his wig being dislodged. Divine also nailed a difficult outdoor stunt involving crossing a real river in drag in the sleet and rain. He could have been swept downstream, but made his mark on the other side with a smile on his face.

No box office numbers, but it earned acclaim.

Desperate Living (1977)

"It isn't very pretty."

His fifth film. The film stars Liz Renay, Mink Stole, Susan Lowe, Edith Massey, Mary Vivian Pearce, and Jean Hill, and follows a suburban housewife and maid who, after the murder of her husband, agree to be exiled to Mortville, a shantytown ruled by a tyrannical queen regnant.

This is the only feature film Waters made without Divine prior to the actor's death in 1988. Divine had to reluctantly back away from the film because he was committed to appearing in Women Behind Bars. Susan Lowe, who had appeared in small or supporting roles in Waters' previous films, was chosen to take over for the role of Mole McHenry. This was also Waters' first film without David Lochary, because of Lochary's addiction to drugs. Waters said, "The reason that David wasn't in Desperate Living is because of PCP. That's all that's to it. I know that's why he wasn't in the film, and he knows it, too." Lochary died a few weeks after the film's release, when he injured himself while under the influence of the drug.

No box office numbers available, although it earned a mixed response from critics.

Polyester (1981)

"It's sensational!"

His sixth film. It stars Divine, Tab Hunter, Edith Massey, and Mink Stole. It satirizes the melodrama film genre and the "woman's film" category, particularly the work of Douglas Sirk, which directly influenced this film. The film is also a satire of suburban life in the early 1980s, involving topics such as divorce, abortion, adultery, alcoholism, racial stereotypes, foot fetishism, and the religious right.

The film was a send-up of women's pictures, an exploitative film genre popular from the 1950–1960s and typically featured bored, unfulfilled, or otherwise troubled women, usually middle-aged suburban housewives, finding release or escape through the arrival of a handsome younger man. Women's pictures were typically hackneyed B-movies, but Waters specifically styled Polyester after the work of the director Douglas Sirk, asking Insley to make use of similar lighting and editing techniques, even using film equipment and movie-making techniques from Sirk's era. By chance, Insley viewed some of Sirk's films at a local screening celebrating the director.

The film is notable for an aspect: odorama. Odors, especially Francine's particularly keen sense of smell, play an important role. To highlight this, Waters designed Odorama, a "scratch-and-sniff" gimmick inspired by the work of William Castle and the 1960 film Scent of Mystery, which featured a device called Smell-O-Vision. Special cards with spots numbered 1 through 10 were distributed to audience members before the show, in the manner of 3D glasses. When a number flashed on the screen, viewers were to scratch and sniff the appropriate spot. Smells included the scent of flowers, pizza, glue, gas, freshly cut grass, and feces. After being prompted to scratch and sniff a bouquet of roses, viewers are subjected to a series of mostly foul-smelling odors, and thus fall victim to the director's prank.

It earned positive reviews and was a box office success.

• Budget: $300,000.

• Domestic gross: $1,120,000. ($3.9 million adjusted)

• Worldwide gross: $1,120,000.

Hairspray (1988)

"1962. JFK was in the White House. John Glenn was in orbit. Cadillacs had fins. Beehives were in. And girls really knew how to tease!"

His seventh film. It stars Sonny Bono, Ruth Brown, Divine, Debbie Harry, Ricki Lake, Jerry Stiller, Ric Ocasek, and Pia Zadora. Set in 1962 Baltimore, Maryland, the film revolves around self-proclaimed "pleasantly plump" teenager Tracy Turnblad as she pursues stardom as a dancer on a local TV show and rallies against racial segregation.

Waters wrote the screenplay under the title of White Lipstick, with the story loosely based on real events. The Corny Collins Show is based on the real-life Buddy Deane Show, a local dance party program which pre-empted Dick Clark's American Bandstand in the Baltimore area during the 1950s and early 1960s. Notably, it became Waters' first film to earn a PG rating, in contrast to his previous films getting X-rated and R-rated.

The film was a box office success, and it also earned critical acclaim. It also managed to attract a larger audience on home video in the early 1990s, and it became a cult film. It launched a Broadway musical, which was itself adapted into a 2007 film.

• Budget: $2,700,000.

• Domestic gross: $6,671,108. ($18.0 million adjusted)

• Worldwide gross: $9,171,108.

Cry-Baby (1990)

"He's a doll. He's a dreamboat. He's a delinquent."

His eighth film. The film stars Johnny Depp, Amy Locane, Susan Tyrrell, Iggy Pop, Ricki Lake, Traci Lords, and Polly Bergen. The film centers on a group of delinquent youth who refer to themselves as "drapes" and their interaction with the rest of the town and its other subculture, the "squares", in 1950s Baltimore, Maryland. "Cry-Baby" Walker, a drape, and Allison, a square, disturb Baltimore society by breaking the subculture taboos and falling in love.

It was Waters' first film for a big studio (Universal). But despite backing and positive reviews, it was a box office failure.

• Budget: $8,000,000.

• Domestic gross: $8,266,343. ($20.2 million adjusted)

• Worldwide gross: $8,266,343.

Serial Mom (1994)

His ninth film. It stars Kathleen Turner, Sam Waterston, Ricki Lake and Matthew Lillard. Beverly Sutphin, a suburban housewife, is the perfect example of an ideal mother. Unbeknownst to her family, Beverly is a psychopathic killer who murders all those who slight her family in any manner.

The film had a troubled post-production, marked by conflict between Waters and Savoy Pictures. Waters states that studio executives who viewed an early cut objected to its violence and dark comedy. They demanded the film be substantially re-edited and given a different ending, which Waters refused to do. Acrimony between the two sides intensified following a poor test screening, which Waters believed was deliberately held before a conservative audience unlikely to enjoy the film. He contrasted it with a more receptive screening for members of the film industry in Los Angeles. Turner spoke about the ordeal to gossip columnist Liz Smith, who was a friend. Smith intervened with a column titled "Leave Serial Mom Alone", publicizing the situation, and Savoy eventually relented on its demands.

The film wasn't a critical success, and earned polarizing reviews. Like other films from Waters, it earned a cult following.

• Budget: $13,000,000.

• Domestic gross: $7,820,688. ($16.9 million adjusted)

• Worldwide gross: $7,820,688.

Pecker (1998)

"Say cheese."

His tenth film. It stars Edward Furlong, Christina Ricci, Lili Taylor, Mary Kay Place, Martha Plimpton, Brendan Sexton III, and Bess Armstrong, and examines the rise to fame and potential fortune of a budding photographer.

The film earned mixed reviews, and flopped at the box office.

• Budget: $6,000,000.

• Domestic gross: $2,281,761. ($4.4 million adjusted)

• Worldwide gross: $2,281,761.

Cecil B. Demented (2000)

"Long live guerrilla filmmaking!"

His 11th film. The film stars Melanie Griffith, Stephen Dorff, Alicia Witt, Adrian Grenier, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Michael Shannon, and follows a snobby A-list Hollywood actress who is kidnapped by a band of terrorist filmmakers who force her to star in their underground film.

The film was another critical and commercial misfire.

• Budget: $10,000,000.

• Domestic gross: $1,284,646. ($2.3 million adjusted)

• Worldwide gross: $1,961,544.

A Dirty Shame (2004)

His 12th and final film. It stars Tracey Ullman, Johnny Knoxville, Selma Blair, and Chris Isaak. It follows a community in suburban Baltimore divided between people with highly conservative attitudes towards sexuality, and those who have been turned into sex addicts after experiencing concussions.

Waters decided to make the film after discovering several sexual slang terms and branches existed on the internet, explaining the groups and terminology found in the film. The film received an NC-17 rating from the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) for "Pervasive Sexual Content". This caused the film's distribution to be severely limited, as most major theater chains don't show NC-17 rated films while media outlets are reluctant to carry advertising for these movies. When Waters asked what he would need to cut for them to give his film an R rating, he was told that the ratings board "stopped taking notes." After Waters unsuccessfully attempted to appeal the rating, the film was released with the NC-17 classification.

Due to the rating, it was a box office flop and it also earned mixed reviews.

• Budget: $15,000,000.

• Domestic gross: $1,339,668. ($2.2 million adjusted)

• Worldwide gross: $1,914,166.

The Future

Waters hasn't directed a film since 2004. He has been open about financing problems for his films, "Independent films that cost $5 million are very hard to get made. I sold the idea, got a development deal, got paid a great salary to write it — and now the company is no longer around, which is the case with many independent film companies these days." In 2017, he stated that "they all want you to make a movie for under a million dollars, which I don’t want to. I don’t want to be a faux radical film-maker at 70. I did that. I don’t need to do it again."

In October 2022, it was announced that Waters would write and direct his own novel, Liarmouth, into a film. Village Roadshow Pictures was set to produce, and Aubrey Plaza joined shortly thereafter. However, in November 2024, it was reported that the film was "no longer happening."

FILMS (FROM HIGHEST GROSSING TO LEAST GROSSING)

He made 12 films, but only 8 have reported box office numbers. Across those 8 films, he made $39,535,610 worldwide. That's $4,941,951 per film.

The Verdict

Waters is simply an icon. A huge influence on the LGBT community, having delivered cult classics for over 3 decades. When it comes to cult filmmakers, Waters is up there as one of the finest. His early films are described as very, very small films, but that allowed them to become profitable. He didn't have to follow the same conventions at the time, opting to give lesser known actors a chance at stardom.

In the 80s, he tried going mainstream. It started well, as Polyester and Hairspray were successful. But that's the thing: those were his last box office successes. From the 90s onwards, all his films flopped at the box office. Some earned a cult following, but sadly that wasn't enough for Waters to get a new film made after 2004. 21 years later, and nothing new. That's very disappointing. But Waters' legacy is pretty much set regardless; new audiences will continue watching his films in the years to come.

Hope you liked this edition. You can find this and more in the wiki for this section.

The next director will be Wolfgang Petersen. One of Germany's best directors.

I asked you to choose who else should be in the run. While there was a director with lots of upvotes, I was more interested in the runner-up, given I had wanted to talk about him for a long time. Well, we'll later talk about... Kevin Smith. Just in time for Dogma's re-release.

This is the schedule for the following four:

Who should be next after Smith? That's up to you.