Watch Out! It's Summer's Five Biggest Star Bombs!

Gigli, Waterworld, etc. We're talking box-office failures so spectacular they took out the big names who backed 'em

So, where does the just-released late MacGruber rank among summer's all-time box-office bombs?

It doesn't. It was a Will Forte comedy, for non-A-list sake. The true summer box-office bomb is spectacular in size, scope—and star failure.

Here are our picks for five beach-season bombs so devastating they blew up careers:

1. Gigli: You can find any number of more expensive disasters, but you won't find many others that so completely took out one of Hollywood's young leading men. Ben Affleck has gone onto fine work (see Hollywoodland—please), but he's been off the Leo-Matt track ever since this hit-man comedy, released in August 2003, got terrible reviews, grossed a terrible $6.1 million domestically (off a $54 million budget) and became synonymous with, you guessed it, terrible. Jennifer Lopez deserves an Oscar just for surviving the blast, not to mention her PR-wreck of a real-life romance with Affleck.

2. Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines: OK, first off, yes, we get Box Office Mojo, too. We know this $200 million behemoth made $433 million worldwide, and spawned at least one more sequel. But we also know that, one, it was a poster child for the underperforming, sequel-bloated summer of 2003, and, two, Arnold Schwarzenegger was out of Hollywood, and running for governor of California within one month of its release.

3. The Love Guru: Sorry, Mike Myers, but after this 2008 bust, you don't get to be Peter Sellars anymore. (Although for a presumably smaller budget than $60 million-something, you do get to satisfy your Anglophile urge in your long-planned Keith Moon biopic.) 

4. Waterworld: Here lies the tentpole career of Kevin Costner, even if, to be honest, the reputation of his and director Kevin Reynolds' 1995 movie is much worse than its actual performance. (The $175 million bad-press magnet made its money back overseas, and stayed atop the box-office here for two weekends.) As any poor, bedraggled high-school kid can tell you, though, reputation matters. A lot.

5. Superman Returns: It's hard to bomb when you make $200 million domestically, but easier when you cost $270 million. And while its worldwide box-office total erased the budget deficit, it didn't erase the notion that the 2006 film's true star, one Man of Steel, was just not worth the trouble. And certainly not worth a sequel. (Lucky for Brandon Routh that he found Chuck.) Were it not for the kindness of Christopher Nolan, who will oversee yet another franchise relaunch, the guy in tights probably would still be grounded.