What are you people talking about?

Rating: Null/10 (17 January 2000)

"The announcement came as Carrey's latest film, Man on the Moon (1999), seemed certain to become the comic actor's biggest failure." - January 17th, 2000 IMDB NEWS BRIEF.
I fail to understand what that news story meant... Jim Carrey gave an Oscar worthy performance as Andy Kaufman... I know the film is not at #1 right now, I don't know if it ever got to that point, but I don't see it as a failure.
Originally I wasn't going to make a comment on this film because the comment on the main page sums it up well. I just don't understand the statement.