Top 10 Biggest Box Office Bombs
Some films make a lot of money. Your ‘Avatar’s, your ‘Avengers,’ heck even your ‘Titanic.’ And some films lose a lot of money. Like a lot a lot. Wow I’m off to a good start here. This list will differ from most of my lists, because since it is facts based I will be counting them down from 10-1. Also, take note of how many Disney movies appear on this list. It’s a lot. Finally, note that the ‘budget’ of the film and the ‘box office’ may not reflect the numbers I say in the titles. That’s because those numbers also factor in marketing, promotion, and other expenses or losses that aren’t calculated in those base numbers.
10. Mars Needs Moms (-$195m) This Disney movie is like a fever dream. I remember seeing it, I would’ve been around 10 when it came out. And I remember then that it was weird. It took on the motion-capture animation approach of films like ‘The Polar Express’ & ‘The Adventures of Tintin.’ This film is the story of how Martians come to Earth to steal moms, because they don’t have any. It had a $150m budget and only made $39.2m in theaters.
9. Battleship (-$199m) Ah yes everyone’s favorite trope, taking a board game that has no storyline and making it into a movie. Looking at the box office numbers and budget ($303m & $220m, respectively) it appears this movie came out net positive, but like I said those numbers don’t reflect everything and it lost Hasbro & Universal nearly $200m). Here’s hoping the Mouse Trap & Operation movies perform better. This film is also noteworthy for being the film debut of Rihanna and starring ‘Friday Night Lights’s Taylor Kitsch, who appears again on this list.
8. Strange World (-$205m) Disney again! I’ll admit I still haven’t seen this one. Many folks feel as though Disney itself is the reason for the bomb of this film as it was heavily under-marketed, and most people didn’t even know it existed. Some probably still have no idea!
7. Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas (-$207m) This film was released by DreamWorks in the same vain & animation style as ‘The Road to El Dorado’ & ‘The Prince of Egypt.’ Though I’m sure you’ve heard of those films, I wouldn’t be confident you’ve heard of this one. Starring Brad Pitt as Sinbad & Catherine Zeta-Jones as his love interest, this film was the last of it’s style released by DreamWorks.
6. Cutthroat Island (-$210m) What the heck even is ‘Cutthroat Island’ you just said to yourself. Well I’ll say, ‘don’t talk to yourself! That’s weird.’ This is super meta because I’m having a conversation with myself in my head on what you may say. Weird. Anywho, ‘Cutthroat Island.’ This is an ‘adventure swashbuckler’ film starring Geena Davis, Matthew Modine, & Frank Langella. This movie not only bombed so hard that the studio (Carolco Pictures) had to shut down, but it also singlehandedly killed the subgenre of pirate films until ‘Pirates of the Caribbean.’
5. Mortal Engines (-$212m) Based on the popular young adult dystopian novel, this film was part of the post-Hunger Games wave, and like many others of its kind, it flopped. Hard. Starring Hera Hilmar, Robert Sheehan, & Hugo Weaving, this film featured many behind the scenes figure from the LOTR trilogy, including Peter Jackson as a screenwriter.
4. The 13th Warrior (-$236m) A historical fiction action film, starring Antonio Banderas as Ahmad ibn Fadlan is a loose adaptation of Beowulf, but is more directly based on Michael Crichton’s novel ‘Eaters of the Dead.’ Crichton’s other work includes creating the tv show ‘ER,’ and writing other novels that were adapted into films: ‘The Terminal Man,’ ‘Congo,’ ‘The Great Train Robbery,’ and of course, ‘Jurassic Park.’ So let’s just say the source material wasn’t the issue here.
3. The Marvels (-$237m) The first MCU movie to not break even in theaters, and also the lowest grossing of the franchise. The follow-up to ‘Captain Marvel,’ this movie isn’t quite as bad as the Internet will tell you it is. It’s not great, but it’s not bad either. Also note, at the end of the day, this is another Disney film.
2. The Lone Ranger (-$249m) Poor Disney. I really hope they can survive all these bombs. Starring two extremely non-controversial actors in Armie Hammer & Johnny Depp (I kid, they weren’t at the time). It had the makings of a successful film, director Gore Verbinski who teamed up with Depp on ‘Rango’ & the first ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ trilogy. It was composed by Hans Zimmer and was co-written by Ted Elliott who also worked on Pirates, as well as ‘Aladdin’ & ‘Shrek.’ But this movie just wasn’t very good. It did receive two Oscar nominations (Best Visual Effect & Best Makeup and Hairstyling), but unfortunately Oscar nominations don’t equate to money.
1 . John Carter (-$265m) I teased earlier that Taylor Kitsch would make another appearance. And here he is as John Carter of Mars himself. I actually saw this when it came out, but don’t really remember a thing about it. I always confuse it and Disney’s ‘Prince of Persia,’ maybe because they’re both underwhelming. This was intended to be the first of a trilogy, but considering it was the biggest box office bomb, well, ever, it ended up being a stand alone.
