Ooh, that reminds me of another Hanks clunker, the Burbs.
He had done Joe vs. the Volcano, Turner and Hooch, and the Burbs coming off of his big breakthrough in Big. That's a pretty bad stretch of films, right before he started hitting box office homers with League of Their Own, Sleepless in Seattle, Philadelphia, Forrest Gump, and Apollo 13. But as somebody said, before you can be a star you gotta put food on the table.
In the 80's, movies didn't have to be good. Probably 8 new movies came out every weekend and we all generally just picked one and went. It just needed a good 2 minute preview to show for coming attractions and a bankable star. They didn't usually have special effects, and didn't need to make $200 million to break even.