If you make even the occasional trip to your local theater, you know that bad movies come out all the time. (In fact, you can see a bunch of them this weekend!)

The Worst Date Movies of the Last 30 Years Behold, the lowest-grossing Valentine's weekend fare to bomb at the box office in recent memory.

But every once in a while, Hollywood gifts us with a movie so bizarre, wrong-headed, and obviously destined for failure that it practically demands further exploration—your Oogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure, or your Mortdecai, or your Nine Lives, or, now, your Monster Trucks. How does a movie like Monster Trucks happen? A bunch of small, bad decisions, parceled out over several years, until a movie no one wants to release—let alone see—somehow crash-lands into theaters anyway. Here’s how it happened.

July 31, 2013: In an exclusive story, infamous gossip columnist Nikki Finke reveals the existence of Monster Trucks to the world. "Who hasn’t seen boys big and small intently watching monster trucks do their stuff?" writes Finke, bizarrely, adding that Monster Trucks "could hopefully become a Transformers-like franchise the way Paramount sees it." She also pegs the budget at $100 million. (It would eventually rise to $125 million.)

Chris Wedge, who helmed the original Ice Age (and provided all the grunts and gasps for its obnoxious prehistoric squirrel), is tapped to direct. And—in a description that will eventually hang like an albatross around his neck—Finke reports that Monster Trucks is specifically a "priority project" for Adam Goodman, the president of Paramount’s Motion Picture Group. It is later widely (and somewhat misleadingly) reported that the concept for Monster Trucks originated with his 4-year-old son, though the Los Angeles Times says Goodman was merely inspired by watching his son play with toy trucks and cars. In any case, the project was greenlit with the explicit goal of both sequels and toys.

Most tellingly, Finke’s story doesn’t actually spell out the bizarre premise at the heart of Monster Trucks: that the title is meant to be taken literally, because the movie centers on a kind of vehicle/creature hybrid nicknamed "Creech."

Feb. 8, 2014: The Wrap reports that Lucas Till and Jane Levy are the top choices to star in Monster Trucks. Till’s character is described as "a bad boy with a good heart"; Levy’s role is described as "what one might imagine Tina Fey was like in high school." Both actors eventually sign on.

April 1, 2014: With the leads in place, Paramount fills out Monster Trucks with a talented supporting cast, including Amy Ryan, Danny Glover, Thomas Lennon, Barry Pepper, and Frank Whaley. Later that month, Rob Lowe joins the cast, but the movie's actual plot details—rather ominously—are still "being kept under wraps."

June 17, 2014: True to form, Paramount issues a press release not about Monster Trucks, but the toys it will spawn. Paramount partnered with Spin Master, a company whose previous licenses include The Secret Life of Pets and Angry Birds. "We are thrilled to be working with Paramount on such an exciting, adrenaline-packed movie which has great toyetic appeal," said Spin Master’s Vice President of Global Licensing and Business Development.

Finke, bizarrely, added that Monster Trucks "could hopefully become a Transformers-like franchise the way Paramount sees it."

This is as good a place as any to note that this "great toyetic" deal seems to have quietly fallen apart somewhere down the road. The exhaustive catalogue of branded products available for perusal on Spin Master’s website doesn’t include a single Monster Trucks toy.

July 10, 2014: Monster Trucks wraps a three-month shoot at a variety of locations in Canada, including Chilliwack, British Columbia. On-set photos reveal a ton of green screen and a couple of vaguely monstrous-looking trucks. The Chilliwack Times reports that the town’s residents see the invasion of Monster Trucks as "both a blessing and a nuisance," but a member of the Chilliwack Film Commission estimates that the local economy will see a $500,000 to $750,000 boost over the course of the shoot. He also speculates that Monster Trucks may provide long-term value to Chilliwack as diehard fans flock to see the actual locations where the movie was shot. "It may bring a bit of inconvenience to a few but over the long term we all benefit," he argued.