30 Years Ago, Demi Moore Led One Of Disney's Worst Movie Adaptations

Disney was basically built upon adaptations, with the studio wisely mining public domain properties for much of the animated output that put it on the map. As Disney moved into the world of live action movies, it continued that tradition, adapting various classic stories in the hopes of finding the same success it had with animation. In 1995, under its Buena Vista Pictures banner, Disney took on Nathaniel Hawthorne's classic 1850 novel "The Scarlet Letter" in what would go down as one of the worst movie adaptations of all time, from any studio.

In a notorious example of a director decision that went horribly wrong, filmmaker Roland Joffé decided that "The Scarlet Letter" should be reinvented as an R-rated erotic thriller starring Demi Moore and Gary Oldman as the main leads. While the original story does involve an unseemly affair between a woman and a minister that results in the woman giving birth to a child out of wedlock, the point isn't to be titillated by the affair — quite the opposite, actually. 

Maybe if it was actually a good erotic thriller, missing the point of the source material wouldn't have been so bad. But "The Scarlet Letter" most certainly is not a good erotic thriller — or even a good movie. 

Critics were brutal in reviewing "The Scarlet Letter," earning it a pathetic 13% score on Rotten Tomatoes. As much as the previous year's "Striptease" almost ruined Demi Moore's acting career, the poor box office performance and critical drubbing that "The Scarlet Letter" received certainly didn't do her reputation any favors. In fact, Moore was nominated for two Razzies for her performance in the movie — worst actress, and worst screen couple with Gary Oldman. Among the additional five nominations the movie received, it "won" the Razzie for worst remake.

Author Nathaniel Hawthorne died more than 130 years before the 1995 movie adaptation was released, so he thankfully didn't have to see it himself. But if he did, he almost certainly would have joined the ranks of writers who hated the horrible movie adaptations of their work. Whether he would have enjoyed what some consider the all-time best movie based on his book, the hilarious and charming 2010 reimagining "Easy A," is anyone's guess — but there's no question which of the two movies he would have preferred if he was forced to pick one.