"Like every Paul Verhoeven film, Showgirls is very unpleasant. It's about surviving in a world populated by assholes, and that's his philosophy... He loves clichés, and there's a comic strip side to Verhoeven, very close to Roy Lichtenstein."  ~ Jacques Rivette, director of 'La Belle Noiseuse' and 'Celine and Julie Go Boating'.

The reputation of Paul Verhoeven's Showgirls has slid up and down a greased pole over the past 20 years. Although Showgirls is the highest-grossing NC-17 film of all time—at just over $20 million—it was actually a box office bomb due to studio expense ($45 million budget) and much bigger expectations from the success of the previous sex-filled smash collaboration between screenwriter Joe Eszterhas and Verhoeven, Basic Instinct.