Ah, the slippery world of movie valuation. There are so many tools we can use to determine a movie’s performance—reviews, awards, longevity, cultural impact, cult status—but nothing holds weight in Hollywood quite like cold, hard cash.
That said, as I will go on to explain, writing this list put me in some unusual positions. The term “flop”, for one, just seems a little harsh—especially when it’s impossible to know what studios are expecting most of the time.
Regardless, whatever the mix of bad luck and who-knows-what that went into these movies being unsuccessful shouldn’t mean that you have to miss out on them. Some of the titles mentioned below are truly great, and others are certainly worth a look, at least. Read on to find out how much they stand to lose, and where to watch them on services like AppleTV, Netflix, Prime Video and elsewhere.
One Battle After Another
This one still kinda stings. Last week, Variety reported that Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another (an instant classic that fans of There Will Be Blood and Magnolia will love) is projected to lose $100 million at the box office. This is awkward news as it’s so rare to see a filmmaker of Anderson’s talents entrusted with such a budget, but whether Warner Bros. was really expecting an Oppenheimer-style hit is harder to know.
Whatever the case, even if it takes 20 years of repertory screenings (expect some after the Oscars), the movie will eventually get into the black—it’s simply too good not to. It will also put the studio front and centre at next year’s Academy Awards, where it has as good a chance as any of winning Best Picture. That would be a cherry on top of an already landmark year in the studio’s modern history. Is this not what A Minecraft Movie is for?
Projected loss: $100 million—but they’ll make it back.
The Phoenecian Scheme
I feel, at least on some level, that AI had something to do with The Phoenecian Scheme, Wes Anderson’s latest movie, underperforming at the box office. In 2023, around the release of Asteroid City, a series of deeply annoying, Wes-inspired trailers (fake versions of things like Lord of the Rings and Star Wars) started doing the rounds, seemingly confirming a public suspicion that the director’s style is easily copied and thus easily mocked.
That has had a knock-on effect of devaluing Anderson’s genius—even though his movies, IMO, continue to be packed with unmistakable human emotion. For my money, The Phoenecian Scheme is the funniest and most satisfying movie he’s made since The Grand Budapest Hotel. So, if you like that one or enjoyed Benicio’s performance in One Battle After Another, you should definitely give it a chance!
Projected loss: This one’s tight, but with marketing and distribution, it’s gotta be in the red.
Mickey 17
Winning the Palme d’Or and four Oscars with Parasite was always going to be something of a poisoned chalice for Bong Joon-ho. The director has had a shaky history with Hollywood, but the offer of a big budget and Robert Pattinson doesn’t come around too often, even for the greatest international auteurs.
In the end, Mickey 17 became yet another messy experience for Bong—with news of reshoots and ballooning costs accompanying its bizarrely yo-yoing release date. In the end, it’s hard to say who’s to blame. The movie itself, like anything the director makes (though Snowpiercer and Okja are probably the closest comparisons), is naturally more than worth your time—especially if you like your sci-fi inventive, bonkers and kinda gross.
Projected loss: It ended its run at $133 million worldwide, which is probably half of what it needed to break even.
M3GAN 2.0
I must say this one caught me off guard. The first M3GAN had been a surprise hit for Blumhouse—a PG-13 horror about a killer doll that spawned a viral dance and solidified its character as an unlikely queer icon while raking it in at the box office. Surely a sequel, unlike the doll herself, would simply be a case of plug-and-play?
Well, apparently not. Was it the studio’s decision to lean more into the comedy, repositioning its titanium star as an action heroine, Terminator 2 style, that failed to draw the crowds? I still can’t say for sure. What I do know is that this was a good time at the movies—especially for anyone who saw Ex-Machina and felt it needed a little extra sass.
Projected loss: This one probably just broke even, but given the franchise potential (various spinoffs were apparently already in the works), it’s hard to see this as anything but a major disappointment.
Thunderbolts*
Coming in the aftermath of Johnathan Major’s disastrous fall from grace and the critical and commercial disappointments of The Marvels and Captain America: Brave New World, the pressure was on for Thunderbolts* to close out the MCU’s fifth phase with a financial bang. As you can guess by its placement on this list, it didn’t quite work out as planned.
Whether due to a lack of familiarity with the characters or a general sense of superhero fatigue, the movie underperformed. It’s actually kind of a shame, as Thunderbolts*, which was directed wonderfully by Jake Schreier, is easily one of the best Marvel movies since Endgame. What can I say? If you liked David Harbour’s Red Guardian in Black Widow or are a fan of unconventional antihero team-ups in general, like James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad, you’re probably gonna like it.
Projected loss: Despite taking $425 million at the box office, a number way over its budget˛, the bizarre economics of tentpole releases suggest that it probably didn’t turn a profit. This means it will go down as one of the worst-performing MCU movies of all time.
The Smashing Machine
There has been plenty of chatter in recent years about how Hollywood doesn’t make movie stars anymore—at least not the kind that can sell a movie on name recognition alone. Two people who are usually suggested to counter that argument are Leonardo DiCaprio and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, both of whom are currently struggling to keep up their side of the bargain with One Battle After Another (see above) and The Smashing Machine, respectively.
Johnson’s case is even more interesting, as it’s by far the riskiest project (both artistically and financially) that he’s taken on in years—a clear attempt to redirect his career toward quality work that I think is quite commendable. The movie itself, I’m afraid to say, is a little low on momentum—especially for any sports or UFC fan looking for a classic underdog story. It is, however, a strangely beautiful movie—and if you liked the weird vibe of Good Time and wanted to see what it would be like if one of that movie’s directors remade The Wrestler, now’s your chance!
Projected loss: Despite an award in Venice and plenty of buzz around Johnson’s performance, the $50 million movie made just $6 million on its opening weekend—the lowest wide release of the actor’s career.
Black Bag
Black Bag’s financial underperformance is tricky to assess, as the Steven Soderbergh movie—a tightly-wound espionage thriller—came to streaming quite fast, and long before opening worldwide. Whatever the case, the director will take little solace from any of that after watching his ecstatically reviewed, $60 million (not including marketing costs) movie take just $40 million at the worldwide box office.
I can imagine this was especially frustrating for Soderbergh, a director who usually shoots and edits his own movies, and a person widely considered to be one of the most savvy filmmakers of the last 30 years. Whatever the case, don’t let those numbers turn you off—especially if you appreciate the director’s work (think Ocean’s Eleven or Out of Sight) or were a fan of Michael Fassbender’s performance in David Fincher’s recent Netflix hit, The Killer.
Projected loss: After everything is taken into account, probably in the range of $30 million.
Elio
Like Marvel, Pixar has recently had to come to terms with the fact that it’s struggling to launch new stories and characters. Some believe this is due to the studio’s decision to start releasing some of its movies (including the excellent Turning Red) direct-to-streaming, thus taking away the sense of urgency that used to come with a theatrical release.
Whatever the reasons, Elio now holds the record for the worst opening weekend of the animation giant’s history, ultimately failing to come anywhere close to recouping its reported $170 million budget. This is unfortunate, as while the movie doesn’t come close to the best Pixar work, it’s still superior to most other animated movies out there and provides the signature blend of warmth and humour (think second rung Pixar movies like Onward and Luca) that the studio is famous for.
Projected loss: Somewhere in the eye-watering region of $130 million.
Accountant 2
Back in the land of moderate underperformance: Ben Affleck and Jon Bernthal’s return in The Accountant 2, Gavin O’Connor’s follow-up to his enjoyable, Chris Nolan-lite, 2016 action thriller, didn’t quite drum up the enthusiasm that anyone involved probably expected.
Was this because the sequel got rid of all that, you know, accounting stuff? Perhaps. But whatever the case, it scored some relatively positive reviews and will probably break even on VOD in the end—and if you liked the first movie or enjoy Bernthal in Punisher mode, you’ll probably have some fun with it.
Projected loss: It probably ended its theatrical run at around $40 million under.
Snow White
We’ll end on a double whammy. I think it’s safe to say that Disney’s live-action Snow White was both a financial disaster and a hornet's nest of toxic energy. Presumably, when the movie was greenlit, nobody at Disney was thinking that its two stars would end up on opposing ends—and quite publicly—of the world’s most complicated conflict, and then they did.
We won’t delve into all that here, but suffice to say that the movie’s star, Rachel Ziegler, had to face a torrent of abuse even before the movie was released—both for her political stances and for simply being a Latinx actor. These were just a few of the bad-faith stories that led to the movie receiving the worst kind of press and commentary imaginable. In the end, for whichever reason, Snow White became a certified box office bomb—but if you like the cut of Ziegler’s jib or appreciated her incandescent performance in Spielberg’s West Side Story, you might want to show some support by giving this cursed movie a watch.
Projected loss: Anywhere upwards of $150 million and a lot of people’s dignity.
