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From "Tron: Ares" to "Mickey 17", explore recent cinematic duds that were doomed from the start. We break down the factors that led to these box office disappointments.
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00:00The Hollywood box office can be a cruel mistress, and it's certainly gotten crueler since the
00:06pandemic heavily impacted audience attendance and habits. We've had a lot of bombs in recent
00:12years, and they happen for all kinds of different factors. Maybe the movie's concept itself is
00:18peculiar enough to alienate the mainstream, or maybe the casting for Rattach didn't inspire
00:23much confidence at all. Whatever the reason, I'm Ewan, you're watching WhatCulture,
00:28and here are a few recent box office movie flops everyone saw coming.
00:33First up, TRON ARIES Ooh yeah, despite the passion of its fanbase,
00:41the Tron franchise has always firmly been a cult IP with a limited, broader appeal. Which,
00:48in business terms, seems fundamentally incompatible with a sky-high budget. The original 1982 Tron
00:56grossed a decent $50 million against a $17 million budget, while 2010's Tron Legacy grossed
01:04a middling $409.9 million at a $170 million budget. It was easy to be pretty skeptical then
01:12about the commercial prospects of the third film, called Tron Aries, which in addition
01:18to costing up to $220 million, had the big ol' albatross around its neck that was Jared Leto's
01:25polarizing casting in the lead role. Mediocre marketing that failed to emphasize the film's
01:30must-see event appeal didn't help, nor wildly mixed reviews that ensured it failed to attract
01:37many beyond the die-hard Tron faithful. Aries ultimately fell far short of box office
01:43predictions in its opening weekend, and after three weekends at the time of recording is
01:48currently sitting at a brutal global total of barely $120 million, making it all of the
01:54biggest blockbuster flops in recent years. And yet, so so many people saw this one coming
02:00a mile away, and word now indicates that Disney will be putting the big-screen Tron franchise
02:06on ice for the foreseeable future.
02:09Do you also ever find yourself locked in the existential crisis of wanting to watch the 1985
02:14classic Witness starring Harrison Ford and Kelly McGillis, but you don't know where to
02:19begin? Because same.
02:22Me from the future? You dummy. If you wanted to watch the 1985 classic Witness directed by Peter
02:29Weir, all you had to do was sign up to Paramount Plus using the link in the video description.
02:34This limited time offer means it's just $2.99 for two months. That's $5 off the essential
02:41tier and $10 off Paramount Plus with Showtime, which includes shows like Twin Peaks and Dexter
02:48Original Sin. Witness and Twin Peaks? Sounds like the perfect remedy for those cold winter nights
02:53we're having. I'm gonna go sign up right now and ignore this grave violation of the laws of
02:58time and space. Sounds like a plan.
03:01Mickey 17
03:02Even accepting that director Bong Joon-Ho was fresh off the Oscar winning success of his
03:08global mega hit Parasite, which grossed an astonishing $258.1 million against a mere $11.5 million
03:16dollar budget, few were expecting his follow up Mickey 17 to repeat the same level of success.
03:22For one, it's based on a rather niche and strange sci-fi novel, which in conjunction with
03:28a $118 million dollar budget left the break even point at almost $300 million.
03:35Sci-fi has always been a box office wildcard considering the larger budgets they typically
03:40command, hence why the most successful ones tend to have a broad easily understandable marketing
03:46hook, like Gravity or Interstellar. But Nicky 17 was more of an esoteric black comedy whose
03:53marketing didn't do a particularly stellar job of selling its premise or tone, which coupled
03:58with good but not great reviews caused it to settle at a hugely disappointing $133.3 million
04:05dollars globally. In many respects, this is exactly the sort of wild swing a filmmaker gets
04:12to make after winning Best Picture and Best Director Oscars, but it's probably fair to
04:17say that Bong won't get to play around with this size of budget again for a good while,
04:21if ever.
04:23Next up, Elio.
04:25There's no denying that the once bulletproof Pixar has struggled massively at the box office
04:30since the pandemic, when animated films were often sent direct to streaming and families
04:35became conditioned to wait, save money and watch them at home. Last year, Inside Out 2 did
04:42at least prove the enduring viability of Pixar's tried and true franchises, given that it grossed
04:48an eye-watering $1.699 billion worldwide, making it the highest grossing Hollywood animation of
04:55all time. But that didn't exactly suggest smooth sailing to the studio's original IP, and so
05:01there was a lot of skepticism that their new film, Elio, could really go the distance.
05:06With the budget estimated to be between $150 to $200 million, that left Elio needing to gross
05:13at least $375 million to be deemed a success, but it ended up topping out at just $154 million.
05:21This made it the lowest grossing non-pandemic Pixar film by a huge margin and was basically
05:28the very predictable result of numerous adverse circumstances conspiring against it. For one,
05:34the marketing didn't do much to sell the uniqueness of Elio's concept or its characters. It simply
05:40looked like a bog standard, lower tier Pixar film one could easily skip and catch on Disney
05:46Plus in a few months' time. As for reviews, well, they were just kind of like, nah. And
05:51additionally, attention was stolen away by the far more successful live action remakes of Lilo and
05:57Stitch and How To Train Your Dragon. Not to mention the brilliant K-pop Demon Hunters,
06:02which released on Netflix the very same day that Elio hid cinemas.
06:07With Elio's failure and the general struggle for original Pixar movies to hit commercially,
06:12it's little surprise that within the next few years we're gonna get Toy Story 5, Incredibles 3,
06:18and Coco 2. Next up, Mission Impossible The Final Reckoning.
06:23As ridiculous as it might seem to call any movie that grossed almost $600 million a flop, it all comes
06:30down to budgeting, and in the case of Mission Impossible The Final Reckoning, its costs spiraled
06:36way out of control. The quote unquote Final Mission Impossible movie's price tag ballooned to an
06:41estimated $400 million by the end of its production, said to be a result of delays caused by both the
06:47pandemic and Hollywood writers' strikes, resulting in shooting taking more than two and a half years to
06:53actually complete. Using the typical two and a half times rule for blockbusters, The Final Reckoning
06:59therefore needed to gross in the vicinity of $1 billion to turn a profit theatrically,
07:05which it fell far, far short of, ending its run at just under $600 million.
07:10For a more modestly priced affair of maybe, I dunno, $200 million, this would have been a fine result,
07:17but with such ludicrously high costs and following on from the commercial underperformance of the series'
07:22previous entry, Dead Reckoning Part 1, it caused the franchise to rather unceremoniously sputter out
07:28at the finish line, even if the movie itself is a pretty good time.
07:32A Big Bold Beautiful Journey
07:35Romance films have struggled massively since the pandemic with a few exceptions,
07:40given the perception of many that they're not cinematic enough to warrant a trip to the movies,
07:45hence why so many of them are now produced directly for streaming services.
07:49And apparently, even having the A-list likes of Colin Farrell and Margot Robbie can't move the
07:55needle all that much, as evidenced by their recent romantic fantasy flop, A Big Bold Beautiful Journey.
08:02Now, to be fair, The Pictures' fantastical road movie premise was always gonna make it a tough sell
08:08to some audiences, and the fact it was being helmed by acclaimed art house filmmaker Kogo Nada,
08:14whose first two films, Columbus and After Yang, both flopped at the box office,
08:18likely didn't help much either. Then you throw in reports of poor test screenings,
08:23a 45 million dollar budget, suspiciously quiet marketing that suggested Sony knew they had a
08:29dud on their hands, and ultimately wildly mixed reviews that it was easy to see in the film's
08:34mere 20 million dollar box office coming a mile away. It'll be interesting to see if this polarizing
08:40piece becomes something of a cult success in the years to come, but in terms of big screen business,
08:45it was firmly rejected by audiences at large this year.
08:49Next up, The Accountant 2. Ben Affleck's 2016 thriller The Accountant was a solid box office
08:57hit, grossing an impressive 155.2 million on a 44 million dollar budget, enough that it's
09:03genuinely surprising that it took almost an entire decade for a sequel to actually get made. However,
09:08during that time, the theatrical landscape changed a lot, with mid-budget action thrillers aimed at
09:15adult demographics struggling ever since the pandemic. And so, it probably didn't bode well
09:21that The Accountant 2 was budgeted at almost 80 million dollars, almost double the cost of the
09:26original in a theatrical environment which was more hostile to its existence. Unsurprisingly,
09:32the sequel failed to deliver the results to pay off its larger budget, grossing 103.2 million globally.
09:40The only saving grace here is that the film was produced and distributed by
09:44Amazon, who basically used the theatrical release to promote its subsequent streaming
09:48bow on Amazon Prime, where it drew a massive 80 million viewers within its first month on the
09:55platform, which should cushion the blow just a wee bit. On the way, Black Bag.
10:00Black Bag is sadly the sort of movie that struggles to get audiences out of their homes. A more
10:07quote unquote modest genre film without epic CGI set pieces, no matter the plaudits of its
10:13exceptional ensemble cast. Black Bag, to be clear, is one of my favourite movies of the year.
10:18In addition to distributor focused features barely marketing Steven Soderbergh's terrific spy thriller,
10:24it was produced for a budget of 60 million dollars, which is an undeniably high figure for a film that
10:30largely takes place in just a few distinct locations. Sure, a cast including Cate Blanchett,
10:36Michael Fassbender, Naomi Harris, Reggie Jean Page and Pierce Brosnan isn't going to come cheap,
10:43but this still seems like an inordinately high figure given the story's confined nature and
10:47overall brevity, clocking in at just 94 minutes. Despite scoring rave reviews from many critics,
10:54Black Bag sadly topped down at just 43.4 million globally, though it has quite predictably performed
11:01better on streaming, helping to mitigate some of those losses. It's certainly a shame that well-crafted
11:07genre fare like this struggles to ignite the box office nowadays, especially with so much talent
11:13behind and in front of the camera. But the writing was probably on the wall from the very get-go.
11:20Next up, The Phoenician Ski.
11:22Liz Anderson is in an immensely enviable position for any filmmaker to be in,
11:28considering that his movies are financed by billionaire Stephen Rails and his production company
11:33Indian Paintbrush, ensuring that Anderson seemingly never has to worry about his features underperforming
11:39commercially, as they often do. But Anderson's latest film, The Phoenician Scheme, was perhaps
11:44the surest box office flop of his career, and it didn't really come down to anything other than
11:50the film's title. Even the most Wes Anderson-y Wes Anderson film prior to this had a title that was
11:57interesting or at least amusing, but considering that a great many moviegoers have no idea what the
12:03LA Phoenician is, and might even struggle to say it to an actual ticket teller, it put the movie on
12:09the
12:09back foot before anyone had even seen it. Then there's the sentiment amongst some that Anderson
12:14style is beginning to feel just a bit stale and even self-parodying at this point in his career,
12:21and so the novelty factor of this distinctive filmmaking style isn't quite what it used to be.
12:26With that in mind, The Phoenician Scheme barely cracked $40 million on a $30 million budget,
12:32making it Anderson's lowest grossing release since 2007's The Darjeeling Limited.
12:38All it'll take for Anderson to bounce back is a banger like The Grand Budapest Hotel,
12:43but even if that doesn't materialize, he's seemingly got a blank check to keep making whatever
12:48the hell he wants, and honestly, good for him. Next up, Eddington.
12:54Though Ari Aster's first two films, Acclaimed Horror Flicks, Hereditary and Midsummer,
12:58were massive successes for A24, his third feature, Bow Is Afraid, which was a far more ambitious
13:06swing of a black comedy horror, was a rather predictable flop, its mainstream alienating
13:11premise rustling up just $12.3 million against a $50 million budget. Everything we heard pre-released
13:19about Aster's fourth film, Eddington, was that it was another not particularly commercial genre bending
13:26experiment that served as a satire of the entire Covid era. Okay, so for one, there are many who
13:34just aren't interested in watching a movie that revisits the most miserable period of their lives,
13:40even through a darkly satirical lens, and on top of this reviews were wildly mixed, enough that even an
13:47all star cast led by Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal, Emma Stone and Austin Butler couldn't much help it.
13:54Even with a more hemmed in $25 million budget compared to Bow Is Afraid, Eddington cracked only
13:59$12.7 million, just a fraction more than Aster's previous film.
14:05Yeah, it'll be interesting to see if these flops back to back impact Aster's relationship with A24,
14:11but considering he's still one of the most singular film-making voices working today,
14:16hopefully he'll keep getting to produce his visionary and not-for-everyone kind of art.
14:22Wolfman
14:25In theory, there were many, many reasons that Wolfman was set to be a solid hit at the box office.
14:32For one,
14:33it had Lee Winnell working as writer and director, who did a fantastic job reinventing The Invisible Man
14:39back in 2020 to both critical and commercial success. With the supremely talented Christopher
14:45Abba and Julia Garner leading the small cast, and a mere $25 million budget, this seemed like an
14:51incredibly low risk, can't miss project. That was until the months leading up to Wolfman's premiere,
14:58when there was significant backlash against the title creature's apparent leap design,
15:02prompting Winnell and company to spend much of the marketing campaign in damage control mode.
15:07This, combined with a mid-January release, typically a dumping ground for bad horror movies,
15:14did little to help its box office tracking leading up to its release, and Universal ultimately got
15:19desperate enough that they spoiled the Wolfman's actual transformation in a clip released shortly
15:25before the film even came out. Wildly mixed reviews ultimately dropped just two days before its
15:31release, and basically delivered the death knell to Wolfman's prospects, causing it to end its
15:37run at a shockingly low $35.2 million. It was a poor enough result that even the film's own
15:44producer, Jason Blum, publicly tweeted his disappointment about it. Which, eh, ouch.
15:49Next up, Hurry Up Tomorrow.
15:52Hurry Up Tomorrow is yet further proof that having two extremely prominent entertainers leading your film
15:58means absolutely nothing in the modern theatrical climate. Especially if the film itself isn't that
16:04good. Even with Jenna Ortega and The Weeknd headlining this psychological thriller from acclaimed
16:09director Trey Edward Schultz, who directed It Comes At Night and Waves, the warnings were many and often.
16:16The Weeknd proved in HBO's controversial TV series The Idol that his acting skills are quite limited, the
16:22intensely vague marketing failed to really tell audiences what the hell this movie was about
16:27either, and the review embargo lifted just a day before it hit cinemas. Unsurprisingly, the reviews
16:33were absolutely scathing, and even on a seemingly sensible $15 million budget for a production of
16:40this size, Hurry Up Tomorrow absolutely tanked, netting just $7.8 million in cinemas. Even Ortega and
16:48The Weeknd's respective fandoms couldn't be relied upon to make this a success. Which suffered from
16:53nuclear word of vowels after it's opening weekend, I've never really recovered. Enough that Hurry Up
16:59Tomorrow as a whole has largely been forgotten already. Next up, In The Lost Worlds.
17:06While George RR Martin's name might have carried some box office cachet a few years ago, Game of
17:12Thrones' calamitous final season pretty much put that to bed for mainstream audiences.
17:17As such, the new fantasy actioner in The Lost Lands wasn't even able to coast off the fact that
17:24Martin wrote the story on which it is based. But there's one key factor that killed this one dead.
17:30It's a $55 million budgeted film from Paul W.S. Anderson who hasn't enjoyed much commercial
17:37success outside of his Mortal Kombat and Resident Evil video game adaptations. Also the trailer looked
17:44absolutely terrible. Neither Mia Jovovich nor Dave Batista are box office drawers in and of themselves
17:52either and it was scarcely marketed before being quietly drop kicked into 1370 North American cinemas
18:00earlier this year. Largely negative reviews then sealed the deal and In The Lost Lands went on to
18:06gross a miserable 6.2 million dollars. Needless to say, it'll be interesting to see if Anderson can
18:17still get decently budgeted genre films made after such a catastrophic failure.
18:23Next up, The Alto Knights. It's been said time and time again that purely adult skewing films have been
18:30struggling immensely at the box office in recent years, and The Alto Knights provides just further
18:36proof of that. Despite starring Robert De Niro in not one but two roles and being penned by Goodfellas
18:43writer Nicholas Pelleggi, this crime thriller was a gigantic bomb, netting just $9.6 million on a
18:50$50 million budget. This fate was painfully clear from the moment Warner Bros decided to call the movie
18:57The Alto Knights, a terrible title that tells Joe Public absolutely nothing about the film from a
19:04passing glance. As boring and uninspired as generic crime thriller titles might be, they do ultimately
19:11get more eyeballs on a project, and this is definitely a case where a more approachable title
19:17would've boosted the box office at least a little. Of course, it didn't help that even cinephiles were
19:23likely to turn by mixed negative reviews, ensuring many likely waited to watch The Alto Knights on
19:29streaming if they even did that at all. Next up, The Life of Chuck.
19:35In another timeline where Neon released The Life of Chuck in 2024 and not 2025, it's easy to see it
19:42being way more successful, even if it wasn't an outright hit. After all, Mike Flanagan's acclaimed
19:49adaptation of Stephen King's Fantasy Story won the Audience Award at last year's Toronto International
19:54Film Festival, which is usually a reliable indicator that a film will be nominated for the Best Picture
20:00Oscar nomination in the coming years. But rather than capitalize on all this buzz, Neon left The Life
20:07of Chuck on the shelf for 9 whole months, only releasing it this past June when all that free
20:13release buzz had just basically gone pew. There were certainly other factors to consider as well
20:19though. The title tells you almost nothing about the movie, and the marketing seemed almost afraid
20:24of fully detailing its tricky premise, painting it instead as a more straightforward, mawkish melodrama,
20:31and finally even those who wanted to see it couldn't necessarily do so easily, as Neon barely released
20:37it into a thousand cinemas domestically. Though we still don't know the movie's full budget, there's
20:43absolutely no way it turned a profit with a box office haul of just $16.2 million. If Neon had
20:50struck
20:50while the iron was hot last year, it surely would have performed way better. Instead, Flanagan's film
20:55was a resolute flop and has little to no chance of scoring any Oscar recognition early next year.
21:01Next up, Honeydoped.
21:03In 2025, there was always going to be a limited big screen appeal for a neo-noir, no matter who's
21:11starring or making it, because it's a genre many are quite content to catch on streaming a few weeks
21:17later instead. While one might assume that having one of the Coen brothers, that would be Ethan Coen,
21:23in the director's chair might carry some commercial sway, his previous solo venture last year's
21:29drive-away dolls, categorically proved that not to be the case. That film, which also starred Marvick
21:35Qualley in a different role, grossed just $7.9 million globally, and even with Honeydoped additionally
21:42counting Aubrey Plaza, Chris Evans and Charlie Day among its ensemble, there wasn't that much hope for it.
21:48It probably didn't help either that the film misguidedly premiered at Cannes back in May,
21:53allowing mixed to negative reviews to linger around for three full months before its full premiere.
22:00Between this and terrible audience scores, it wasn't in any way shocking that the picture made
22:04just $6.7 million theatrically, which was even less than drive-away dolls.
22:09With a third entry into this thematic B-movie trilogy, Go Beavers already in the works,
22:16it probably wouldn't be a surprise if that one ends up skewing even lower on the box office register.
22:22Next up, The Ritual.
22:24Horror is one of the most reliable of all genres where box office is concerned. It's pretty much
22:30critic proof, and that's especially true when we're talking about exorcism films.
22:35So on paper, The Ritual should have had something going for it, especially as it stars Al Pacino
22:42and Dan Stevens as priests who reluctantly team up to save an allegedly possessed woman.
22:48But distributor XYZ Films absolutely buried this one, barely marketing it at all before quietly
22:54releasing it this past summer without screening it for most critics, which means that the writing
22:59was firmly on the wall. Unsurprisingly, it was near universally panned by the press,
23:05and even undemanding audiences creating some basic possession thrills didn't rate it much either.
23:11As such, it was easy to predict it's 5.7 million dollar final haul, which is pretty bad.
23:19While The Ritual's full budget hasn't been publicly disclosed, it clearly wasn't made for a pittance,
23:25so there's no chance it turned a profit theatrically. On the way, Love Hurts.
23:31Love Hurts is a film that a lot of people were rooting for. A romantic action comedy vehicle for
23:37the great Ki-Huai Kwan who seemed to finally be getting juicy roles following his 2023 Best Supporting
23:44Actor Oscar win for Everything Everywhere All At Once. With its appealing lead actor and a release
23:50just before Valentine's Day, there was potential that stronger views could push the 18 million dollar
23:56film to solid-ish success, but as Love Hurts' release neared, it became clear that Universal
24:02had no confidence in it. For one, they barely marketed it at all, and then the review embargo
24:08lifted just a day before release, and said reviews were also largely negative.
24:14Then there's the 83 minute long runtime, which left many assuming that it had been hacked to pieces
24:19in post-production, and the fact that many simply found the advertised romance between Kwan and the
24:2520 years younger Ariana DeBose totally unappealing. And so Love Hurts couldn't even recoup its base
24:32budget, grossing 17.6 million dollars and basically vanishing off the face of the earth within two weekends.
24:40A frustrating outcome as Kwan clearly deserves so so much better than this.
24:45Next up, Ballerina. While you can't really blame Lionsgate for wanting to expand the John
24:51Wick series with spinoffs aplenty, there is a fundamental inescapable fact that Keanu Reeves
24:58is John Wick, both as a character and a franchise. Even though Reeves was heavily marketed as making
25:12a supporting appearance in Ballerina, it simply wasn't enough to lure most fans of the series out
25:19of the house. As kickass and skilled an actress as Ana de Amas is, Ballerina's marketing largely
25:25made it look like a paint the numbers action thriller with action sequences a fair few runs
25:30below the main John Wick franchise. All that pre-release hubbub about extensive reshoots
25:36probably didn't help shift that perception either. It was perfect wait for streaming fodder,
25:42which is hardly what any studio bankrolling a film to the tune of 90 million dollars wants to hear,
25:47which is just 10 million less than the cost of John Wick Chapter 4 despite Reeves appearing for just
25:52a few brief scenes. Ballerina ended up grossing just 137.2 million, leaving it miles away from
26:00profitability and grossing less than every single mainline Wick movie except the first, which was
26:05produced for just 30 million back in 2014. As such, well it's little surprise that Lionsgate is now
26:11pushing extra hard for John Wick Chapter 5 to go into production, whatever that might look like
26:16during the ending of Chapter 4, and also the state of Keanu Reeves' knees.
26:21And lastly we have The Unbreakable Boy
26:25It's never, ever a good sign when a film sits on the studio shelf for years, and so it was
26:31a given
26:32that biographical drama The Unbreakable Boy was destined to flop. Even though faith-based films tend
26:39to perform well at the box office of the demographic who will reliably turn up to support them, Lionsgate
26:45didn't make much effort at all with this particular one. The movie was shot in late 2020 and didn't
26:51release until February this year, apparently a result of the political climate in the US and
26:58the one to release The Unbreakable Boy at the quote unquote right time. Which is very suspicious and
27:05weird, but I digress. Despite landing an A cinema score and a stonking 97% audience approval rating on the
27:14Tomatometer, it seems that awareness just wasn't there for it, perhaps in part because Lionsgate
27:20released it in under 2000 theatres domestically. Given the wildly hit and miss track record of
27:27production company Kingdom Story Company, it was easy to doubt the prospects of this particular film,
27:32it was easy to do, especially with such an egregious and weird release delay.
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