To many of our readers, 'It's A Wonderful' life will be considered the quintessential Christmas movie, so it might come as a surprise to hear that it completely wrecked the company who made it at the time of its original release. It's become a classic years later, thanks to re-screenings of the movie and the joy of DVDs and streaming, but life was anything but wonderful for Liberty Films back then.
If anyone should shoulder the blame for the box office failure of the film, it's Liberty Films themselves. For reasons that will never make sense to anybody, they decided the best time of year to release their heartwarming Christmas tale was July. Predictably, cinema-goers didn't want to see Christmas films at the height of summer, so they didn't go. Liberty, who'd spent big on the production, recovered less than half their costs. That wasn't enough for them to carry on trading.
To insure one’s house, one’s car or to underwrite a life insurance policy, that is common practice. But who would pay an insurance premium for his/her thumb, legs or smile? Stars, of course.
At the top of the ranking are the legs of Mariah Carey, worth 810 million USD: The diva became, in 2006, the Gillette brand muse for the advertising campaign «Legs of a Goddess». She then took out an insurance policy with London Lloyds to protect her legs, a decision that is far from being insignificant. Among its customers, the London insurer then included several icons of music, such as Bob Dylan or Rod Stewart.
David Beckham’s body insured for 195 million USD: European champion with Manchester United in 1999, David Beckham was in 2006 the most renowned footballer of the planet. In relation to his sporting activities, he took out an insurance cover for his legs. The huge amount paid for his insurance would reportedly exceed the 103 million USD disbursed by Real Madrid for the cover of Christiano Ronaldo in 2009. The fashion model would later extend his insurance cover to his entire body.
15 million USD in insurance for Kim Kardashian’s curves: The curves of Kim Kardashian are her number one beauty asset. The reality TV star, who is crazy about plastic surgery, has underwritten an insurance policy worth 15 million USD to protect her famous butt.
The culinary critic Egon Ronay assured his taste buds: The famous Hungarian culinary critic has insured his taste buds since 1957, for the amount of 400 000 USD. An original insurance policy which allows him to cover his sense of taste without which he will no longer be able to practice his job.