Arlo and the dinosaur look up in wonder in The Good Dinosaur
By
Dalton Norman
Published 47 minutes ago
Dalton is a freelance writer, novelist, and filmmaker from Orlando Florida. He currently lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, and pursues writing full-time. He is an avid reader, film buff, and amateur historian who also publishes novels on the side. Dalton graduated from the University of Central Florida with a BFA in Film and he often applies his industry-specific knowledge when writing about film and television. Along with his blog, Dalton's critical essays on film have been published in various places online.
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Occasionally, there are blockbuster movies that gross tons of money at the box office that still bomb in the long run due to additional costs behind the scenes. Calculating the real finances of a big-budget Hollywood movie is quite tricky, and studios are often secretive about how much they actually spend on their tentpole films.
Production budgets (how much it costs to shoot the movie) are only one small part of the complex financing of feature films. Movies often cost twice what is reported due to the high price of marketing and advertising, but studios can sometimes spend more depending on the project. The biggest flops in history usually fall prey to such costs.
This disparity in budget versus gross can lead to confusion, when a film that makes hundreds of millions of dollars is still listed as a box office bomb. Many movies outgross their production budget, but can't overcome advertising costs, backend payouts, and ticket splits with theaters. In the modern day, more and more movies are bombing because of soaring costs.
Fantastic Four (2015)
Miles Teller looking annoyed as Mister Fantastic in the 2015 Fantastic Four movie
Fox's 2015 reboot of Fantastic Four was an unmitigated disaster from start to finish, and the movie only scored a 9% on Rotten Tomatoes. The well-worn story of Marvel's superhero quartet was given a gritty makeover, but the lackluster storytelling and bland color palette was in stark contrast to what the MCU was producing at the time. Unsurprisingly, it flopped.
However, Fantastic Four doesn't look like a bomb on paper because it made $168 million against a $120 million budget (Box Office Mojo). Due to soaring additional expenses, the movie lost an estimated $80 to $100 million (Variety), and Fox put the kibosh on plans for a sequel almost immediately.
Dolittle (2020)
Robert Downey Jr. looks slyly at a parrot in Dolittle
The COVID-19 pandemic caused many movies to flop in 2020, but Dolittle can't be considered a COVID casualty because it came out in January. The Robert Downey Jr. vehicle dug up the classic character for another go in a CGI-laden romp but with a boring plot and unfunny jokes. Downey Jr. sleep-walked through the would-be blockbuster.
Despite its shortcomings, the movie made $251 million against a $192 million budget (Box Office Mojo). While that may sound impressive, it actually resulted in a loss of $60 million (Forbes). However, due to the vague way that movies are financed, the actual losses are impossible to calculate. Needless to say, Dr. Dolittle left his practice after the 2020 bomb.
Blade Runner 2049 (2017)
Ryan Gosling looks over his shoulder in Blade Runner 2049
Making a legacy sequel to a movie that didn't do well in the first place is always a big gamble, but Blade Runner 2049 didn't need to bomb. Decades after Ridley Scott's neon-drenched sci-fi classic, director Denis Villeneuve delivered a pensive Hollywood tentpole that fulfilled the original spirit of the Blade Runner franchise.
Made for a whopping $185 million, Blade Runner 2049 earned $276 million (Box Office Mojo) during its theatrical run. The Guardian notes the movie needed to make $400 million to break even, meaning the legacy sequel lost well over $100 million. Blade Runner 2049 should have been a smash, but prohibitive costs kept it from ever being successful.
Battleship (2012)
Rihanna stands behind a big gun in Battleship
Long before Hollywood proved that toy movies could actually work with Barbie, goofy films like Battleship clogged cinemas in the early 2010s. Using the popular board game as a name only, the sci-fi action spectacle relied heavily on lots of CGI and a role from pop sensation, Rihanna. The oddest thing was, it actually seemed to work.
Bad reviews aside, Battleship dredged up $300 million at the box office, outgrossing its production budget of $220 (Box Office Mojo). According to Bomb Report, Universal pulled in about $167 million after the movie theaters took their haul, so Battleship's losses were absolutely staggering. There were a shocking number of bombs in 2012, but Battleship was near the top.
Rise Of The Guardians (2012)
Jack Frost talks to the other guardians in Rise of the Guardians
DreamWorks couldn't lose in the Aughts and 2010s, but Rise of the Guardians nearly turned the animation studio belly up. The imaginative story involved Jack Frost teaming with various holiday mascots to protect themselves from an evil entity that wanted to make children not believe in them. It got tepid-but-positive reviews but was set up for failure.
Rise of the Guardians was DreamWorks' first losing effort since 2003's Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas.
An almost unconquerable budget of $145 million meant that its $300 million haul (Box Office Mojo) just wasn't enough to be profitable. Rise of the Guardians lost DreamWorks an estimated $87 million and resulted in massive layoffs within the company (The Wrap). Thankfully, it didn't completely tank the studio, and they rebounded quickly.
A Christmas Carol (2009)
The Ghost of Christmas Present looms over a grumpy Scrooge in A Christmas Carol
Adaptations of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol are numerous, but the 2009 CGI animated film is best left in the past. With Jim Carrey in the lead role as Scrooge, the motion-capture film brought Victorian Era London to live in uncanny vividness, but was too creepy for its own good and had little to offer that other adaptations didn't.
A Christmas Carol grossed $325 million against a $200 budget (Box Office Mojo), but various costs ate up any profit that the Disney movie could have made. The Los Angeles Times reports that the Jim Carrey vehicle lost upwards of $100 million dollars. Mark Zoradi, the President of Walt Disney Studios Motion Picture Group, was forced to resign because of the Christmas debacle.
The Good Dinosaur (2015)
Arlo hugs the dinosaur with tears in his eyes in The Good Dinosaur
Though Disney and Pixar aren't nearly as untouchable as they used to be, The Good Dinosaur's failure was quite the shock back in 2015. In a reimagining of prehistory, the cutesy animated film involved a Neanderthal boy befriending a young dinosaur. It had all the Pixar hallmarks, but was hollow compared to all-time greats like Toy Story.
The Good Dinosaur was Pixar's first box office flop, though it grossed $332 million against a $200 million budget (Box Office Mojo). The studio would have other hits in the ensuing years, but it showed the first cracks in the studio's seemingly unbreakable armor. Pixar has had even bigger bombs in the years since.
Black Adam (2022)
Dwayne Johnson in Black Adam
Though they seem to be getting back on track, DC has always struggled to keep up with Marvel in their movie output. Black Adam was a prime example of their failure, and the vanity superhero project starring The Rock was not what the publisher needed to break their bad streak. It made a lot of money, but not nearly enough.
While bringing in a staggering $393 million, Black Adam failed to break even against a production budget of upwards of $260 million (Box Office Mojo). Though Deadline reported that Black Adam may have actually made some cash thanks to marketing, there's no denying that the movie's theatrical run was a complete bomb.
The Mummy (2017)
Tom Cruise talks angrily to Russell Crowe in The Mummy
Universal's abortive attempt to create a modern monster franchise has seen several notable tries, but The Mummy was a shockingly misguided move. Tom Cruise was tapped to lead the action spectacle that took a page from the popular Brenden Fraser films from the early Aughts. Sadly, it was a formulaic snooze-fest from start to finish.
A massive gross of $410 million wasn't enough to overcome a production budget of $195 million (Box Office Mojo), and the movie lost upwards of $95 million (Deadline). By contrast, 2014's Dracula Untold turned a modest profit but still couldn't get the franchise going. The Mummy had a lot riding on it, but even Cruise's huge starpower wasn't enough.
Transformers: The Last Knight (2017)
A Transfomer kneels with a huge axe in Transformers the Last Knight
Indicative of just how inflated budgets have become in major Hollywood movies, Transformers: The Last Knight bombed despite grossing over half a billion dollars. With a mind-numbing 16% on Rotten Tomatoes, the fifth live-action movie featured seemingly endless hours of CGI commotion and pages of technobabble. All in all, it was par for the course.
The Last Knight scored $605 million against its $200 million budget (Box Office Mojo), but still lost Paramount $100 million (MovieWeb). Such a monumental loss did little to stagger the huge Transformers franchise, and it bounced right back in successive sequels. In an age of gigantic box office numbers, big wins can subsidize the losses.
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