Despite having all the elements that can make a movie a hit, certain projects flop at the box office regardless of their quality. Though some highly built-up movies do turn out to have poor critical and audience reception, other films have genuine merit but still fail to capture attention at the theaters. Occasionally, it’s difficult to tell if a movie bombs at the box office, because it appears it’s selling out plenty of screenings. However, the film’s budget must be considered, as how much money was spent on the movie determines the profit margin.
Certain movie franchises end with box office flops, discouraging any potential future for the franchise. This has been an obstacle for movies based on comic books and superheroes in the past few years, as there’s been an oversaturation of the market and an overall dip in the quality of these films. However, even films with outstanding cinematography, well-known directors, and beloved actors have been overlooked many times. Movies like this are a harsh reminder of how fickle the world of cinema can be, and how unexpected the next hit can be.
Wonder Woman 1984 was a hotly anticipated sequel after DC’s success with the first film, Wonder Woman. It’s no secret that as a studio, DC Comics hasn’t had the success of its competitor, Marvel. However, Wonder Woman was a breakout hit for the company. It was also an exciting prospect for audiences as it centered on a female superhero and was directed by Patty Jenkins. Hoping to spin Wonder Woman into their first prominent and lucrative franchise, Wonder Woman 1984 was released, but it couldn’t have come at a worse time.
Released at the end of 2020 when the COVID-19 Pandemic was still at its height, Wonder Woman 1984 didn’t stand a chance. The limited number of people who saw it in theaters, and its availability to rent on streaming platforms contributed to this failure, but the film itself was part of the problem. Though it had its strong points, the movie didn’t have the stakes that made the first installment so good, and bringing Chris Pine’s character back from the dead made audiences feel as if there were no permanent consequences for the character’s actions.
Surprisingly, one of Keanu Reeves’ biggest box office bombs includes one of the Matrix movies, but the ill-timed reboot, The Matrix Resurrections, failed to capture the magic of the first three films. The original trilogy told a complete story, and returning to the Matrix universe after so many years was going to be either a nostalgic success or fade into obscurity. Unfortunately, The Matrix Resurrections didn’t have an original narrative and felt more like a ploy to sell tickets rather than an earned expansion of the universe.
Compared to Reeves’ achievements at the box office with John Wick: Chapter 4, which premiered just two years later, it was a major failure. Additionally, though at the end of 2021, people were returning to the theaters, the film was released both in theaters and made available to stream, which has been proven to hurt movie sales rather than help. This, combined with the absence of Laurence Fishburne and the inconsistent thematic tone, made the fourth film underperform.
Reboots like the 2016 Ghostbusters make the case for the importance of female-led films with an original story. The Ghostbusters franchise is one of the most famous and successful in the comedy-horror genre, and the initial cast of the movies is just as iconic. In 2016, reboots were beginning to be overdone, and reimaginings of male-centric films with a cast of women, like Ocean’s 8 a few years later, were gaining traction. The ensemble cast of great female comedians that Ghostbusters: Answer The Call assembled could have succeeded if they had their own story.
The movie failed not because of sexist backlash from the internet, but because it was a copy-and-paste reboot of the 1984 film, which felt tired and lazy to audiences. Though the recent sequels, Afterlife and Frozen Empire, haven’t been massive successes, they’ve reached larger audiences because they expand on the existing world of Ghostbusters instead of rehashing it. Whether there will be additional Ghostbusters movies in the future will depend on how the franchise can reinvent itself.
Denis Villeneuve’s Blade Runner 2049 is an excellent film and one of the few sequels to come out of the late 2010s that earns its place in its franchise. However, much like its predecessor, it didn’t make the mark at the box office the producers and filmmakers were hoping for, despite its influence on cinema. 2049 is one of Ryan Gosling’s best movies and proves his range as a performer in this classic addition to the sci-fi thriller genre. Had the movie come out now after Villeneuve’s success with the Dune movies, it might have gained more traction.
At the time, it went relatively under the radar. Additionally, the film was a massive undertaking and cost quite a lot to produce. It takes more than cinephiles going to the movies to bring in enough money to balance that kind of investment. In many ways, Blade Runner 2049 improves upon the issues of Blade Runner and explores deeper themes about the nature of humanity and consciousness, not to mention its gorgeous visual style. As time passes, it will only grow in audience and critical estimation.
The 2021 West Side Story had a lot going for it on paper, but movie musicals are an inherently risky proposition especially if they’re based on an already beloved adaptation. Narratively, West Side Story is timeless as it’s based on the Shakespeare play, Romeo and Juliet. However, despite some of the dated aspects of the 1961 film, it’s an iconic iteration with some of the best choreography of all time. When Steven Spielberg decided to take on a reboot, fans were skeptical, if cautiously optimistic.
In the end, West Side Story had too much going against it to earn a place as one of Spielberg’s hits. A few of the stars of the 2021 film, like Rachel Zegler and Mike Faist, have gone on to work on high-profile projects that could garner renewed interest in the coming years. However, it’s too late for the movie to become as synonymous with the musical as the original film. It was an ambitious piece of cinema, worth seeing for any movie musical buff, but after its failure, Spielberg isn’t likely to take on a musical again soon.
Dwayne Johnson has proven himself to be an actor with strong box office appeal, and his work in other action movies and comedies has always been a highlight of the projects. It’s not because of Johnson’s performance that Black Adam was another in a long list of failures for the DCEU. Black Adam is not the worst film to come out of the company, but after it was built up to be an exciting reimagining of the DCEU, it failed to live up to its promise.
However, compared to other recent DC films, its failure is not the worst of the past several years. Black Adam 2 has not been confirmed, but even after its disappointing box office run, it’s not necessarily dead in the water. There had been rumors of Black Adam swirling since the early 2000s, and the fact that it took so long for the movie to be made led to its failure. By 2022, audiences had seen similar films many times before, and the movie didn’t bring anything special or original to the table to justify its addition to the genre.
Damien Chazelle has faced ups and downs in his directorial career, with his first two films, Whiplash and La La Land, earning him great reviews and returns. However, his more recent work, including Babylon, hasn’t reached and inspired audiences in the same way. Babylon is one of the biggest, grandest, and most expensive movies everyone has heard about but no one has seen. After sweeping awards season with La La Land, Chazelle essentially had carte blanche as a Hollywood director and used this to make even more ambitious movies.
Filmmakers and writers love to explore Hollywood history and the inner workings of movie-making, but this subject matter is rarely as exciting for the general audience. This disconnect between artists and audiences can spell trouble at the box office. Additionally, the film’s marketing campaign has been attributed to its underperformance, but its competition at the theater also contributed. Movies like Avatar: The Way of the Water were released in December 2022, and Babylon didn’t have the name recognition or outreach to compete.
Biopics generally perform well both at the box office and during awards season. Getting nominated for a high-profile award is a surefire way for a film to start making more money, and emotionally resonant films like Steve Jobs rely on that. However, though both Michael Fassbender and Kate Winslet were nominated for their performances at the Academy Awards, this didn’t help Steve Jobs make much more money. After Aaron Sorkin’s huge success with The Social Network, exploring the life of another tech founder seemed like a great next step.
However, as companies like Apple, Facebook, and Amazon continue to make their CEOs richer and exploit their workers, few audience members can relate to the plight of the misunderstood and massively wealthy genius. Additionally, most audiences already knew the story of Steve Jobs and the beginning of Apple, so watching the movie rehashed a well-known and too-recent history. The technical jargon and Sorkin’s at times inaccessible dialogue isolated audiences and spelled box office failure despite its critical accolades.
Via Box Office Mojo.