Cleopatra is that rarest of films; while it sat atop the list of movies from 1963, its budget was so huge that it was still a huge box office disaster. The film never had a chance; it had already gone through millions of dollars before real production had even started. Century City would rise up around the Fox backlot because the studio was forced to sell off much of its property to stay solvent. Everyone tried to blame everyone else for this huge failure, but the ultimate mistake was made by the studio itself for believing that the overstuffed film would ever be popular enough to justify the massive costs.
