Box office bombs are when a movie performs poorly at the box office, causing the studio to lose hundreds of millions of dollars.
Sometimes, it’s due to the absurdly high cost of making a certain movie. Budgets and marketing expenses for modern films are skyrocketing every year, making it hard for major movies ever to turn a profit. Other times, a movie fails to resonate with an audience, whether it’s due to poor marketing or the film just being flat-out bad.
Here are 14 of the biggest box office bombs of all time.
John Carter
The 2012 sci-fi epic from Walt Disney Pictures was supposed to start a major franchise. John Carter was the first of a planned trilogy based on the Barsoom series of novels written by Edgar Rice Burroughs.
Disney pumped over $250 million into the film’s budget, which doesn’t even include additional costs before its release.
John Carter is actually a pretty decent movie. Still, it had no chance of ever making its money back, reporting an estimated loss of between $149 and $265 million, adjusted for inflation.
The Lone Ranger
Following the success of Pirates of the Caribbean, Johnny Depp enjoyed a career resurgence in the 2000s and into the 2010s. However, even his star power couldn’t save the 2013 Lone Ranger film.
Depp starred as Tonto, alongside disgraced actor Armie Hammer as the Lone Ranger.
The Lone Ranger is another Walt Disney Pictures film with hundreds of millions of dollars pumped into its budget, only to suffer massive losses (over $200 million adjusted for inflation).
The Marvels
Another Walt Disney Pictures movie, though this is part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Man, Disney can’t catch a break, right? (Don’t worry, they’re doing just fine).
The Marvels is the poster child for the issues plaguing the blockbuster movie industry: a production budget of over $300 million, plus other expenses, means the film has to take in half a billion dollars at the box office even to have a chance of breaking even. While its predecessor, 2019’s Captain Marvel, exceeded $1 billion at the box office, fans were starting to tire of Marvel movies when The Marvels hit theaters in 2023.
Plus, moviegoers weren’t thrilled that they’d need to catch up on several Disney+ shows to understand what was happening.
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The 13th Warrior
“From the author of Jurassic Park and the director of Die Hard.” That’s the tagline on the movie poster for The 13th Warrior. Surely, it can’t fail, right? Wrong.
Unlike the other movies we’ve discussed, which all generated over $200 million in revenue, The 13th Warrior received poor critical reception, leading to a disappointing box office performance. The 1999 film, which had a budget of over $100 million, only grossed $61 million.
Worst of all, adjusting for inflation, things appear much worse, with an estimated loss of up to $236 million.
Mortal Engines
Despite Peter Jackson working on the screenplay, Mortal Engines, the 2018 adaptation of the 2001 novel of the same name by Philip Reeve, couldn’t gross over $100 million at the box office.
While its $100-150 million budget isn’t as high as some modern movies, that’s still a hefty price tag for what many viewed as a movie lacking mainstream appeal.
Cutthroat Island
Nearly every movie on this list has suffered from a ballooning budget, resulting in a film’s failure to turn a profit despite a successful box office. Cutthroat Island is not one of those movies.
The 1995 pirate adventure grossed $16 million on a budget of around $100 million. It never had a chance; adjusted for inflation, its estimated loss was over $200 million.
Cutthroat Island ruined the public’s perception of pirate movies until Pirates of the Caribbean emerged a decade later.
Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas
Despite its impressive cast featuring Bradd Pitt, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Michelle Pfeiffer, Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas failed to resonate with audiences.
Not only was the character Sinbad not familiar with the film’s target audience, but the movie also had to compete with Finding Nemo and Pirates of the Caribbean at the box office. It never had a chance.
Strange World
Disney went hard into the paint advertising this movie. It was everywhere, but moviegoers had no interest in turning out.
Strange World failed to make over $75 million at the box office on a budget as high as $180 million. One reason for its failure is that it arrived on Disney+ a month after its theatrical release. As moviegoers were still navigating a post-COVID world, they were content to wait for most movies to hit streaming services rather than spend money at the theater.
Joker: Folie à Deux
2019’s Joker is the highest grossing rated R movie of all time.
For the 2024 sequel, director Todd Phillips took a big swing: bring in Lady Gaga and make the film a jukebox musical. On paper, it seemed like a great idea. However, they were unable to capture lightning in a bottle twice.
Despite taking home over $200 million at the box office, its high budget and costs resulted in Joker: Folie à Deux being yet another box office bomb.
Battleship
What the heck were they thinking making a movie based on the board game Battleship. Better yet, what were they thinking about giving this movie a budget of over $200 million?
The film was received as well as you’d expect, but remarkably, it made over $300 million at the box office. That exceeded its production budget, but the film still failed to make back its money.
Mars Needs Moms
Some love the Robert Zemeckis Christmas adaptation of The Polar Express. Others, however, are turned off by its uncanny animation. So when the 2011 movie Mars Needs Moms adapted that same visual style without having a classic Christmas story in its back pocket, it felt destined for failure.
I have to be honest with you: I have zero recollection of this movie. I had just graduated from school for video production in 2011, so I was in the know about movies! Yet I cannot, for the life of me, recall seeing a single ad or trailer for this movie.
Clearly, I wasn’t alone; the film only grossed $39 million at the box office on a $150 million budget.
Pan
2015’s Pan proves that not every beloved tale needs to be brought to live action (someone needs to tell this to Disney, not that it’d stop them, anyway).
Pan serves as a prequel for the familiar story we all know and love, showing us how Peter became the Peter Pan we’re familiar with.
It turns out that audiences don’t always want to see origin stories, resulting in a loss of $111 to 193 million adjusted for inflation.
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