00:00Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the movies whose billion-dollar
00:11box office hauls left us scratching our heads.
00:14We're not necessarily saying all of these movies are terrible, but we are saying that
00:19their limited quality did merit such enormous success.
00:2410.
00:28The Fate of the Furious There's nothing inherently wrong with giving
00:32audiences exactly what they want.
00:35Nevertheless, one can point to The Fast and Furious Saga's eighth chapter as the moment
00:40where Dom Toretto's platitudes about family finally started losing their touch.
00:50The Fate of the Furious doesn't skimp on what makes these movies easy to enjoy, but
00:54as the first film to be released after Paul Walker's passing, it frequently struggles
00:59to carve out an identity for itself.
01:16The movie tribute paid to the actor in Furious 7 was justifiably cause for celebration, but
01:21without an everyman like Brian O'Connor to keep things grounded, the tonal inconsistencies
01:27and implausible logic become far more noticeable.
01:42Fate allowed this movie to coast off its built-up fanbase rather than its own merits.
01:489.
01:49The Hobbit – An Unexpected Journey Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy
02:01took in nearly $3 billion and a collective 17 Academy Awards, so it was only a matter
02:08of time before filmgoers would get to return to Middle Earth once more.
02:12While the first Hobbit film's billion-dollar haul made it clear that love still remained,
02:17the decision to split a relatively slim novel into three films quickly showed signs of weakness.
02:37While the characters, both old and new, are all mostly likable, the sense of adventure
02:42is hampered by endless exposition and a misguided use of CGI to bring certain creatures to life.
02:49The action would pick up in later installments, but notably reduced box office receipts indicates
02:54that An Unexpected Journey did not make the greatest first impression.
03:018.
03:07Aladdin – Aladdin Like most of the live-action remakes Disney
03:23has tackled, Aladdin flies a magic carpet for nostalgia in its best moments, but is
03:28egregiously miscalculated in its worst.
03:31It deserved credit for trying something new with the story we all know and love, but the
03:35changes it opts for cause it to lose the very magic that made the originals so beloved.
03:46Despite having everything from an energetic Will Smith to immortal music at its disposal,
03:52Aladdin never fully wishes itself free from the shadow of its predecessor.
03:56It's more than a little frustrating when something with promise settles for being average
04:01and squanders its chance to find its place in our hearts.
04:04But you know what they say, Phenomenal cosmic powers, but itty bitty living space.
04:107.
04:11Minions – Love em or hate em?
04:13The Minions were a phenomenon in the early 2010s, but they are animated proof that you
04:19can have too much of a good thing.
04:32Their hilarious slapstick made them an endearing aspect of the first two Despicable Me movies,
04:37but their best qualities only emerge when they have a villain to follow.
04:41This origin story, which sees the little yellow guys search throughout history to find the
04:45perfect master, is ultimately a harmless and occasionally wholesome adventure.
05:01But the comedy isn't as fresh as it once was, with the Minions' indecipherable gibberish
05:07quickly wearing thin on even the most patient viewer.
05:11When your target audience is kids and they're paying families, sometimes simplicity is the
05:16name of the game.
05:246.
05:28The Lion King It's no surprise that goodwill toward The
05:45Lion King propelled this live-action reimagining to a staggering $1.6 billion in revenue.
05:52But that number should be taken with a grain of salt, as it's likely a reflection of
05:56how many people saw the movie, and not how many times they saw it.
06:01Once you remove your nostalgia-tinted glasses, this Lion King has little to offer on the
06:05first watch, let alone multiple watches.
06:20A beat-for-beat recreation, its startling lack of originality is worsened by its pursuit
06:25of realism.
06:26While not lacking in technical prowess, its phoned-in performances and CGI-ed cast of
06:31animals leave it deprived of the soul that makes the original such a timeless classic.
06:36We can't feel the love with this one.
06:525.
06:54Star Wars Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker
07:02Star Wars is always going to do good business, yet it's hard to know who is most responsible
07:08for taking the saga to such an egregious low.
07:11Regardless of where you stand on The Last Jedi and its bold choices, The Rise of Skywalker
07:16did virtually nothing to rectify its predecessor's reputation.
07:32If the question was whether Episode IX would finish the established story, or give in to
07:37viewer demands, the answer was a deafening, neither.
07:41Entire plot threads were wiped off the slate, while characters we were just getting invested
07:46in were practically exiled so that the series could pointlessly resurrect its biggest antagonist.
08:01It was an illogical attempt to salvage credibility, and it amounted to one of the least satisfying
08:06finales in recent memory.
08:094.
08:10Alice in Wonderland It was the wrong movie at exactly the right
08:27time.
08:28Alice in Wonderland represented just the kind of mind-expanding 3D adventure people were
08:32craving in a post-Avatar landscape.
08:35On top of that, it made the idea of re-experiencing a Disney classic in live-action a rather fresh
08:41concept.
08:42Unfortunately, despite turning a huge profit, its biggest selling points turned out to be
08:47temporary novelties.
08:59Although the film's visuals were fitting for director Tim Burton, the over-indulgence
09:03in style left much of the story struggling to keep up.
09:06In fact, the movie thoroughly misunderstands Lewis Carroll's original text by casting
09:11its eccentric characters aside to make way for an out-of-touch story of warricked factions.
09:17Suffice it to say, Disney didn't learn many lessons from this one.
09:253.
09:27Pirates of the Caribbean on Stranger Tides Considering this was once the most expensive
09:46movie ever made, the executives at Disney probably breathed a sigh of relief when it
09:50crossed the billion-dollar threshold.
09:52And it's a good thing, too, as this unnecessary Pirates of the Caribbean continuation hasn't
09:58inspired many re-watches since.
10:00On Stranger Tides has an intriguing premise on paper, as Captain Jack Sparrow squaring
10:05off against Blackbeard on a hunt for the Fountain of Youth sounds like an adventure for the
10:10ages.
10:22But the welcome return of Jack and Hector Barbosa were done dirty by the confusing plot
10:27and uninteresting new characters.
10:29What should have been a back-to-basics quest is instead padded with poorly written humor,
10:34underdeveloped action, and enough superfluous side-plots to fill a treasure-chest.
10:392.
10:50Jurassic World Dominion To paraphrase Ian Malcolm, the producers of
11:04the Jurassic World series were so preoccupied with whether or not they could resurrect this
11:09franchise that they didn't stop to think if they should.
11:13While not without state-of-the-art CGI, Universal's wild overestimation of the saga's critical
11:18capabilities reached a fever pitch with this sixth and sadly not final chapter.
11:40Dominion already does fans a disservice due to the lack of chemistry between its old and
11:44new school characters.
11:46But in fashioning a plot around a locust plague, it does the unthinkable by making
11:50the dinosaurs almost completely irrelevant.
11:53Throw in action sequences that really belong in other franchises and Dominion ironically
11:58evolves into one of the power-mad, money-hungry beasts the Spielberg original tried to warn
12:04us about.
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12:391.
12:42Transformers Age of Extinction In hindsight, nothing was going to stop Michael
12:55Bay from finding new ways to enrage Transformers fans as long as his movies kept making money.
13:022011's Dark of the Moon should have been all the proof we needed that a billion dollars
13:06could make up for obnoxious characters and incoherent action.
13:11And yet Age of Extinction took the franchise to an all-time low three years later.
13:21Quadrupling down on the franchise's biggest flaws, it not only serves up a story more
13:26convoluted than the first three films combined, but also overhauls its human cast to disastrous
13:33effects.
13:34The worst part is that Bay lifelessly directs the movie as if box office success is a guarantee.
13:40He makes all of the wrong choices simply because he can.
13:54Is there a movie you were surprised made a billion dollars?
13:58Let us know down in the comments.
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