20 Recent Box Office Flops EVERYONE Saw Coming

The Hollywood box office can be a cruel mistress, and it's certainly gotten crueler since the

pandemic heavily impacted audience attendance and habits. We've had a lot of bombs in recent years

and they happen for all kinds of different factors. Maybe the movie's concept itself is

peculiar enough to alienate the mainstream, or maybe the casting for Attache didn't inspire

much confidence at all. Whatever the reason, I'm Ewan, you're watching WhatCulture

and here are a few recent box office movie flops everyone saw coming

First up, Tron Ares. Ooh yeah, despite the passion of its fanbase, the Tron franchise has always firmly been a cult IP

with a limited, broader appeal, which in business terms seems fundamentally incompatible with a

sky-high budget. The original 1982 Tron grossed a decent $50 million against a $17 million budget

while 2010's Tron Legacy grossed a middling $409.9 million at a $170 million budget

It was easy to be pretty skeptical then about the commercial prospects of the third film

big ol' albatross around its neck that was Jared Leto's polarizing casting in the lead role

Mediocre marketing that failed to emphasize the film's must-see event appeal didn't help

nor wildly mixed reviews that ensured it failed to attract many beyond the die-hard Tron faithful

Ares ultimately fell far short of Box-Ommers predictions in its opening weekend, and after

three weekends at the time of recording is currently sitting at a brutal global total

of barely 120 million dollars, making it all of the biggest blockbuster flops in recent years

And yet, so so many people saw this one coming a mile away, and word now indicates that Disney

will be putting the big Strange Tron franchise on ice for the foreseeable future

Do you also ever find yourself locked in the existential crisis of wanting to watch the 1985

classic witness starring arison ford and kelly mcgillis but you don't know where to begin because

same me from the future you dummy if you wanted to watch the 1985 classic witness directed by peter

weir all you had to do was sign up to paramount plus using the link in the video description

this limited time offer means it's just 2.99 for two months that's five dollars off the essential

tier and $10 off Paramount Plus with Showtime which includes shows like Twin Peaks and Dexter

Original Sin. Witness and Twin Peaks? Sounds like the perfect remedy for those cold winter

nights we're having. I'm gonna go sign up right now and ignore this grave violation of the laws of

time and space. Sounds like a plan. Mickey 17 Even accepting that director Bong Joon-ho was fresh off the Oscar winning success of his global

mega hit Parasite, which grossed an astonishing $258.1 million against a mere $11.5 million budget

few were expecting his follow up Mickey 17 to repeat the same level of success

For one, it's based on a rather niche and strange sci-fi novel, which in conjunction with a $118

million budget left the break even point at almost $300 million. Sci-fi has always been a box office

wildcard considering the larger budgets they typically command, hence why the most successful

ones tend to have a broad easily understandable marketing hook, like gravity or interstellar

But Nikki 17 was more of an esoteric black comedy whose marketing didn't do a particularly stellar

job of selling its premise or tone, which coupled with good but not great reviews

caused it to settle at a hugely disappointing $133.3 million globally. In many respects, this is exactly the sort of wild swing a filmmaker gets to make after winning

Best Picture and Best Director Oscars, but it's probably fair to say that Bong won't get to play

around with this size of budget again for a good while, if ever

Next up, Elio There's no denying that the once bulletproof pigstar has struggled

massively at the Fox Office since the pandemic, when animated films were often sent direct to

streaming and families became conditioned to wait, save money and just watch them at home

Last year, Inside Out 2 did at least prove the enduring viability of Pixar's tried and true

franchises, given that it grossed an eye watering 1.699 billion worldwide, making it the highest

grossing Hollywood animation of all time, but didn't exactly suggest smooth sailing for the

studio's original IP. And so there was a lot of skepticism that their new film, Elio, could really

go the distance. With the budget estimated to be between $150 to $200 million, that left Elio

needing to gross at least $375 million to be deemed a success, but it ended up topping out

at just 154. This made it the lowest grossing non-pandemic Pixar film by a huge margin and was

basically the very predictable result of numerous adverse circumstances conspiring against it

Now for one, the marketing didn't do much to sell the uniqueness of Elio's concept or its

characters. It simply looked like a bog standard lower tier Pixar film one could easily skip and

catch on Disney Plus in a few months time. As for reviews, well they were just kind of like

nah. And additionally, attention was stolen away by the far more successful live action remakes of

Lilo and Stitch and How to Train Your Dragon. Not to mention the brilliant K-Pop Demon Hunters

which released on Netflix the very same day that Elio hit cinemas

With Elio's failure and the general struggle for original Pixar movies to hit commercially

it's little surprise that within the next few years we're gonna get Toy Story 5, Incredibles 3

and Coco 2. Next up, Mission Impossible The Final Reckoning. As ridiculous as it might seem to call any movie that grossed almost $600 million a flop

it all comes down to budgeting, and in the case of Mission Impossible The Final Reckoning

it's costs spiralled way out of control. The quote unquote final Mission Impossible movie's

price tag balloon to an estimated $400 million by the end of its production, said to be a result of

delays caused by both the pandemic and Hollywood writers strikes resulting in shooting taking more than two and a half years to actually complete Using the typical two and a half times rule for blockbusters the final reckoning therefore needed to gross in the vicinity of one billion dollars to turn a profit theatrically

which it fell far, far short of, ending its run at just under 600 million

For a more modestly priced affair of maybe, I don't know, 200 million, this would have been a fine result

And with such ludicrously high costs and following on from the commercial underperformance of the series' previous entry, Dead Reckoning Part 1, it caused the franchise to rather unceremoniously sputter out at the finish line, even if the movie itself is a pretty good time

A Big, Bold, Beautiful Journey Romance films have struggled massively since the pandemic, with a few exceptions

given the perception of many that they're not cinematic enough to warrant a trip to the movies

and why so many of them are now produced directly to streaming services

And apparently, even having the A-list likes of Colin Farrell and Marco Robby can't move the needle all that much

as evidenced by their recent romantic fantasy flop, A Big Bold Beautiful Journey

Now, to be fair, the picture's fantastical road movie premise was always going to make it a tough sell to some audiences

And the fact it was being helmed by acclaimed art house filmmaker Kogonada, whose first two

films, Columbus and After Yang, both flopped at the box office, likely didn't help much either

And you throw in reports of poor test screenings, a $45 million budget, suspiciously quiet marketing

that suggested Sony knew they had a dud on their hands, and ultimately wildly mixed reviews

that it was easy to see the films mere $20 million box office coming a mile away

It'll be interesting to see if this polarizing piece becomes something of a cult success in the years to come

but in terms of big screen business, it was finally rejected by audiences at large this year

Next up, The Accountant 2. Benaflix's 2016 thriller The Accountant was a solid box office hit

grossing an impressive $155.2 million on a $44 million budget, enough that it's genuinely surprising that it took almost an entire decade for a sequel to actually get made

However, during that time the theatrical landscape changed a lot, with mid-budget action thrillers

aimed at adult demographics struggling ever since the pandemic. And so, it probably didn't bode well

that The Accountant 2 was budgeted at almost $80 million, almost double the cost of the original

in a theatrical environment which was a little more hostile to its existence. Unsurprisingly

the sequel failed to deliver the results to pay off its larger budget, grossing $103.2 million

globally. The only saving grace here is that the film was produced and distributed by Amazon

who basically used a theatrical release to promote its subsequent streaming bow on Amazon Prime

where it drew a massive 80 million viewers within its first month on the platform

which should cushion the blow just a wee bit. On the way, Black Bag

Black Bag is sadly the sort of movie that struggles to get audiences out of their homes

A more quote unquote modest genre film without epic CGI set pieces no matter the plaudits of

its exceptional ensemble cast. Black Bag to be clear is one of my favourite movies of the year

In addition to distributor focused features barely marketing Steven Soderbergh's terrific spy thriller, it was produced for a budget of 60 million dollars, which is an undeniably high

figure for a film that largely takes place in just a few locations. Sure, accounts including

Cate Blanchett, Michael Fassbender, Naomi Harris, Reggie Jean Page and Pierce Brosnan isn't going

to come cheap, but this still seems like an inordinately high figure given the story's

confide nature and overall brevity, clocking in at just 94 minutes. Despite scoring rave reviews from many critics, Black Bag sadly topped down at just 43.4 million

globally. Though it has quite predictably performed better on streaming, helping to

mitigate some of those losses. It's certainly a shame that well crafted genre fare like this

struggles to ignite the box office nowadays, especially with so much talent behind and in

front of the camera. But the writing was probably on the wall from the very get go

Next up, the Phoenician scheme. Wes Anderson is in an immensely enviable position for any filmmaker to be in

considering that his movies are financed by Billionaire Steve Rales and his production company

Indian Paintbrush, ensuring that Anderson seemingly never has to worry about his features

underperforming commercially as they often do. But Anderson's latest film, The Phoenician Scheme

was perhaps the surest box office flop of his career, and it didn't come down to anything other

than the film's title. Even the most Wes Anderson-y Wes Anderson film prior to this had a

title that was interesting or at least amusing, but considering that a great many moviegoers have

no idea what the hell a Phoenician is and might even struggle to say it to an actual ticket teller

it put the movie on the back foot before anyone had even seen it. Then there's the sentiment

amongst some that Anderson's style is beginning to feel just a bit stale and even self-parodying

at this point in his career and so the novelty factor of this distinctive filmmaking style

isn't quite what it used to be. With that in mind, the Phoenician scheme barely cracked $40 million

on a $30 million budget, making it Anderson's lowest grossing release since 2007's The Darjeeling

Limited. All it'll take for Anderson to bounce back is a banger like the Grand Budapest Hotel

but even if that doesn't materialize, he's seemingly got a blank check to keep making

whatever the hell he wants. And honestly, good for him. Next up, Eddington

Though Ari Aster's first two films, acclaimed horror flicks, Hereditary and Midsommar, were massive successes for A24

his third feature, Bow is Afraid, which was a far more ambitious swing of a black comedy horror

was a rather predictable flop. It's mainstream alienating premise rustling up just $12.3 million

against a $50 million budget. Everything we heard pre-released about Aster's fourth film

Eddington, was that it was another not particularly commercial genre bending experiment that served

as a satire of the entire Covid era. Okay, so for one, there are many who just aren't interested

in watching a movie that revisits the most miserable period of their lives, even through

a darkly satirical lens and on top of this reviews were wildly mixed enough that even an all star cast led by Joaquin Phoenix Pedro Pascal Emma Stone and Austin Butler couldn much help it Even with a more hemmed in million budget

compared to Boaz Afraid, Eddington cracked at only $12.7 million, just a fraction more than

Astor's previous film. Yeah, it'll be interesting to see if these flops back to back impact Astor's

relationship with A24, but considering he's still one of the most singular filmmaking voices working

today, hopefully he'll keep getting to produce his visionary and not-for-everyone kind of art

Wolfman In theory, there were many, many reasons that Wolfman was set to be a solid hit at the box office

For one, it had Lee Whannell working as writer and director, who did a fantastic job reinventing

Invisible Man back in 2020 to both critical and commercial success. With the supremely talented

Christopher Abba and Julia Garner leading the small cast, and a mere $25 million budget

this seemed like an incredibly low risk, can't miss project. That was until the months leading

up to Wolfman's premiere, when there was significant backlash against the TIE Hulk

creature's apparent bleak design, prompting Whannell and company to spend much of the

marketing campaign in damage control mode. This, combined with a mid-January release

typically a dumping ground for bad horror movies, did little to help its box office tracking leading

up to its release, and Universal ultimately got desperate enough that they spoiled the Wolfman's

actual transformation in a clip released shortly before the film even came out

Wildly mixed reviews ultimately dropped just two days before its release, and basically

delivered the death knell to Wolfman's prospects, causing it to end its run at a shockingly low $35.2

million. It was a far enough result that even the film's own producer Jason Blum publicly

tweeted his disappointment about it. Which, eh, ouch. Next up, Hurry Up Tomorrow

Hurry Up Tomorrow is yet further proof that having two extremely prominent entertainers leading your

film means absolutely nothing in the modern theatrical climate, especially if the film

itself isn't that good. Even with General Tager and The Weeknd headlining this psychological

thriller from acclaimed director Trey Edward Schultz, who directed It Comes at Night and

Waves, the warnings were many and often. The Weeknd proved in HBO's controversial TV series

The Idol that his acting skills are quite limited, the intensely vague marketing failed to really

tell audiences what the hell this movie was about either, and the review embargo lifted just a day

before it hit cinemas. Unsurprisingly, the reviews were absolutely scathing, and even on a seemingly

sensible $15 million budget for a production of this size, Hurry Up Tomorrow absolutely tanked

netting just $7.8 million in cinemas. Even Ortega and The Weeknd's respective fandoms

couldn't be relied upon to make this a success. Which suffered from nuclear word of vowels after

it's opening weekend have never recovered. Enough that Hurry Up Tomorrow as a whole has largely

been forgotten already. Next up, In The Lost Worlds While George RR Martin's name might have carried some box office cache a few years ago

Game of Thrones' calamitous final season pretty much put that to bed for mainstream audiences

As such the new fantasy actioner in the Lost Lands wasn't even able to coast off the fact

that Martin wrote the story on which it is based. But there's one key factor that killed this one

dead. It's a $55 million budgeted film from Paul W.S. Anderson who hasn't enjoyed much

commercial success outside of his Mortal Kombat and Resident Evil video game adaptations

Also the trailer looked absolutely terrible. Neither Mia Jovovich nor Dave Batista are box office

drawers fitted off themselves either, and it was scarcely marketed before being quietly dropkicked

into 1370 North American cinemas earlier this year. Largely negative reviews then sealed the deal

and In The Lost Lands went on to gross a miserable 6.2 million dollars

dollars. Hoo hoo, boy that's a big ol' stinker. Needless to say, it'll be interesting to see if

Anderson can still get decently budgeted genre films made after such a catastrophic failure

Next up, The Alto Knights. It's been said time and time again that purely adult

skewing films have been struggling immensely at the box office in recent years, and The Alto Knights

provides further proof of that. Despite starring Robert De Niro in not one, but two roles

and being penned by Goodfellas writer Nicholas Pelleggi, this crime thriller was a gigantic bomb

netting just $9.6 million on a $50 million budget. This fate was painfully clear from the moment

Warner Brothers decided to call the movie The Alto Knight, a terrible title that tells Joe

public absolutely nothing about the film from a passing glance. As boring and uninspired as

generic crime thriller titles might be, they do ultimately get more eyeballs on a project

and this is definitely a case where a more approachable title would have boosted the

box office at least a little. Of course, it didn't help that even cinephiles were likely

deterred by mixed negative reviews, ensuring many likely waited to watch the Alto Knights

on streaming if they even did that at all. Next up, The Life of Chuck

In another timeline where Neon released The Life of Chuck in 2024 and not 2025

it's easy to see it being way more successful, even if it wasn't an outright hit. After all

Mike Flanagan's acclaimed adaptation of Stephen King's fantasy story won the Audience Award at

last year's Toronto International Film Festival, which is usually a reliable indicator that a

film will be nominated for the Best Picture Oscar nomination in the coming years. But rather than

capitalize on all this buzz, Neil left the life of Chuck on the shelf for 9 whole months. Only

releasing it this past June when all that free release buzz had just basically gone BOOM

There were certainly other factors to consider as well though. The title tells you almost nothing

about the movie and the marketing seemed almost afraid of fully detailing its tricky premise

painting it instead as a more straightforward, mawkish melodrama. And finally even those who

wanted to see it couldn't necessarily do so easily, as Nealon barely released it into a thousand

cinemas domestically Though we still don know the movie full budget there absolutely no way it turned a profit with a box office haul of just million If Neon had struck while the iron was hot last year it surely would have performed

way better. Instead, Flammagin's film was a resolute flop and has little to no chance of scoring

any Oscar recognition early next year. Next up, Honey Doped. In 2025, there was always going to be a limited big screen appeal for a neo-noir

no matter who's starring or making it, because it's a genre many are quite content to catch on

streaming a few weeks later instead. While one might assume that having one of the Coen brothers

that would be Ethan Coen in the director's chair, might carry some commercial sway

his previous solo venture last year's Drive Away Dolls categorically proved that not to be the

case. That film, which also starred Marvick Qualley in a different role, grossed just $7.9

million globally, and even with Honey Don't additionally counting Aubrey Plaza, Chris

Evans and Charlie Day among its ensemble, there wasn't that much hope for it. It probably didn't

help either that the film misguidedly premiered at Cannes back in May, allowing mixed to negative

reviews to linger around for three full months before its full premiere. Between this and

terrible audience scores, it wasn't in any way shocking that the picture made just 6.7 million

theatrically, which was even less than drive away dolls. With a third entry into this thematic B

movie trilogy, Go Beavers already in the works, it probably wouldn't be a surprise if that one

ends up skewing even lower on the box office register. Next up, The Ritual

Horror is one of the most reliable of all genres where box office is concerned. It's pretty much

critic proof, and that's especially true when we're talking about exorcism films

So on paper The Ritual should have had something going for it, especially as it stars Al Pacino

and Dan Stevens as priests who reluctantly team up to save an allegedly possessed woman

But distributor XYZ Films absolutely buried this one, barely marketing it at all before

quietly releasing it this past summer without screening it for most critics, which means the

writing was firmly on the wall. Unsurprisingly it was near universally panned by the press and

even undemanding audiences craving some basic possession thrills didn't rate it much either

As such it was easy to predict its $5.7 million final haul which oh my god is pretty bad. While

the ritual's full budget hasn't been publicly disclosed, it clearly wasn't made for a pittance

so there's no chance it turned a profit theatrically. On the way, Love Hurts. Love Hurts is a film that a lot of people were rooting for. A romantic

action comedy vehicle for the great Ki-Huai Kwan who seemed to finally be getting juicy roles

following his 2023 Best Supporting Actor Oscar win for Everything Everywhere All At Once

With its appealing lead actor and a release just before Valentine's Day there was potential that

strong reviews could push the $18 million film to solid-ish success, but as Love Hurts' release

neared, it became clear that Universal had no confidence in it. For one, they barely marketed

it at all, and then the review embargo lifted just a day before release, and said reviews were also

largely negative. Then there's the 83 minute long runtime, which left many assuming that it had been

hacked to pieces in post production, and the fact that many simply found the advertised romance

between Quan and the 20 years younger Ariana DeBose totally unappealing. And so Love Hurts

couldn't even recoup it's base budget, grossing $17.6 million and basically vanishing off the

face of the earth within two weekends. A frustrating outcome as Quan clearly deserves so much better

than this. Next up, Ballerina. While you can't really blame Lionsgate for wanting to expand the

John Wick series with spinoffs aplenty, there is a fundamental inescapable fact that Keanu Reeves

is John Wick, both as a character and a franchise. Although I'm hoping that theory isn't true because

the spinoff involving Donnie L and Rina Sawayama, I'm really rooting for that one. But yes, anyway

Even though Reeves was heavily marketed as making a supporting appearance in Ballerina

it simply wasn't enough to lure most fans of the series out of the house

As kickass and skilled an actress as Ana de Amas is, Ballerina's marketing largely made it look like a

paint the numbers action thriller with action sequences a fair few runs to lower the main

John Wick franchise. All that pre-release hubbub about extensive reshoots probably didn't help

shift that perception either. It was perfect, wait for streaming fodder, which is hardly what any

studio bankrolling a film to the tune of 90 million dollars wants to hear, which is just 10 million

less than the cost of John Wick Chapter 4 despite Reeves appearing for just a few brief scenes

Ballerina ended up grossing just 137.2 million, leaving it miles away from profitability and

grossing less than every single mainline Wick movie except the first which was produced for

just 30 million back in 2014. As such, well it's little surprise that Lionsgate is now pushing

extra hard for John Wick Chapter 5 to go into production. Whatever that might look like isn't

during the ending of Chapter 4 and also the state of Keanu Reeves' needs

And lastly we have The Unbreakable Boy. It's never ever a good time when a film sits on the

studio shelf for years, and so it was a given that biographical drama The Unbreakable Boy

was destined to flop. Even though faith based films tend to perform well at the box office of

the demographic who will reliably turn up to support them, Lionsgate didn't make much effort

at all with this particular one. The movie was shot in late 2020 and didn't release until February

this year. Apparently a result of the political climate in the US and the one to release the

unbreakable boy at the quote unquote right time. Which is very suspicious and weird

But I digress. Despite landing an A cinema score and a stonking 97

audience approval rating on the tomatometer, it seems that awareness wasn't there for it

Perhaps in part because Lionsgate released it in under 2000 theatres domestically. Given the

wildly hit and miss track record of production company Kingdom Story Company, it was easy to

doubt the prospects of this particular film, especially with such an egregious and weird release delay