This year has been a weird one. Obviously not every movie has been a box office failure, but there were a lot more bombs than anyone could have anticipated. Despite how record-shatteringly successful “Avengers: Endgame” was and how “Captain Marvel” captured the zeitgeist, box office receipts have been low for the most part.
We all looked at Disney’s output for this year and just assumed they’d have like eight movies to crack a billion. But, that does not seem to be the case. And the summer is almost halfway over and there’s just been a cavalcade of failures. So let’s take a look at some of the high profile box office failures.
10. Dumbo
Of all the movies announced by Disney, this was the one we all could have assumed would be the lowest grossing but still insanely bankable film. Tim Burton’s luster has been lost a bit and “Dumbo” has some strong iconography attached to it, but as a movie, it has not been one of the most popular. But still, it’s Disney making a movie about a cute animal. And yet, not so.
It did well compared to small movies. But when its budget is estimated at around $170 million, grossing a tad over $350 million worldwide is very unimpressive. At that budget, it would have to make half a billion to justify its existence. But it didn’t. One of the earliest signs that this was going to be an odd box office year.
9. The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part
“The Lego Movie” from 2014 was a smash. A true phenomenon. And “The Lego Batman Movie” was also a smash hit. But after the lackluster, barely-existent release of “The Lego Ninjago Movie,” the luster has started to come off the Lego franchise. And “The Lego Movie 2” continues that downward trend.
In tandem with lackluster reviews and really bad marketing, it was a shocking box office failure. The first movie made $469 million worldwide. This one? $191 million worldwide. That is a catastrophic drop-off. There is a better than slim chance that this marks the end of the Lego franchise, and maybe for good reason.
8. Godzilla: King of the Monsters
For a year, audiences were treated to unreal trailers for this new Godzilla movie. Each new trailer was as gorgeous and awe-inspiring as the next. Even if the movie wasn’t good, you could expect a big opening weekend just from the trailers getting people excited. And yet, this movie’s opening weekend was only $47 million. For the price tag of this monster, that is no bueno.
It’s doing better worldwide, but not good enough to make this an earner. A truly shocking turn of events. Warner Bros may have greatly miscalculated the world’s desire for a Kaiju cinematic universe, as they already have “Godzilla vs. Kong” in the can.
7. Men in Black: International
Throwing Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson into the forefront of a new MIB movie seemed like a sure bet. They were great together in “Thor: Ragnarok.” F. Gary Gray had just come off the one-two punch of “Straight Outta Compton” and “The Fate of the Furious.”
The franchise is one that is ripe for numerous entries, regardless of the talent in front of the screen. But the movie has been putting out nothing but severely uninspiring trailers for a while, and when the release came with such middling reviews, the writing was on the wall. The opening weekend tally of $30 million was not great. Kind of a killer. It’s not lighting things up overseas either, so this may very well mark the end of the franchise. For now at least.
6. Hellboy
When it was announced that Guillermo del Toro wouldn’t be allowed to finish his Hellboy trilogy so that Mike Mignola could reboot the franchise more to his liking, film fans were disappointed. So was Guillermo.
But at least he took the split as well as possible and went on to win scores of Oscars for “The Shape of Water.” Mignola, on the other hand, helped craft what is surely one of the worst comic book movies ever. And audiences could smell the stink off of the hilariously bad try-hard trailers desperate to look like a “Guardians of the Galaxy” knockoff.
It cost around $50 million to make, which is shocking since it looks cheaper than a Blumhouse movie. And it’s only taken in $46 million worldwide. This is a disaster. And it should come as a bit of a karmic piece of justice as Guillermo should have been allowed to make his movie. This franchise went from part two being one of the best comic book movies ever, to such a monstrous low.