Charles Shyer and Nancy Meyers' "I Love Trouble" was supposed to be a throwback rom-com in the mold of a Spencer Tracy-Katharine Hepburn classic. The pairing of Nick Nolte and Julia Roberts as a couple of quarrelsome newspaper reporters seemed relatively promising. Roberts was one of the most bankable stars in Hollywood at the time, while Nolte was two years removed from being named People's Sexiest Man Alive. This duo was nothing if not photogenic. Surely, they could generate enough chemistry to keep movie theaters packed throughout the summer of 1994. The erstwhile movie magazine Premiere was bullish enough on the film to predict it would be the fifth highest grossing movie of the season. It felt like a can't-miss proposition.

But miss is exactly what it did. The 45 million film opened to a paltry 7.9 million in late June, barely finishing fifth ahead of Mike Nichols' "Wolf," which was...