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Dec 9, 2019 · The latest major box-office bomb of the year is STX's "Playmobil: The Movie." Here are the biggest 2019 flops.
- Why
The latest "Hellboy" movie bombed at the box office over the...
- Matthew McConaughey
Two of Matthew McConaughey's worst box-office debuts for a...
- Why
Apr 28, 2020 · The Biggest Box Office Bombs Of 2019: Deadline’s Most Valuable Blockbuster Tournament. By Anthony D'Alessandro. April 27, 2020 5:06pm. Story Arc. Deadline’s annual film revenue tournaments...
- Anthony D'alessandro
- Terminator: Dark Fate, Hellboy, and Dark Phoenix also among the biggest bombs of the year.
- Cats
- Replicas
- The Sun Is Also a Star
- The Goldfinch
- Arctic Dogs
- Captive State
- Where'd You Go, Bernadette?
- Serenity
- Dark Phoenix
By Brian Gallagher
Updated: Dec 29, 2019 11:17 pm
Posted: Dec 29, 2019 11:00 pm
With 2019 coming to a close, it’s time to look back on those movies that you probably didn’t see. Yes, we’re delving into the biggest box office bombs of 2019, which the recently released Cats is now among.
As we did last year, we are limiting this to movies that opened wide (at least 1,000 theaters or more), and in most cases, these are films that failed to at least recoup their production budget from its worldwide tally, though, there are a few exceptions.
When you factor in the production budget, plus publicity and advertising costs, plus other expenditures like first-dollar gross points paid out to stars and/or filmmakers, it’s generally believed that a film should earn back at least twice its production budget to truly break even. So, we can’t consider a disappointing entry like Men In Black: International a true “bomb” since it took in $253.9 million worldwide ($80 million domestic, $173.9 million international) from a $110 million budget, despite being the lowest-grossing entry in that franchise’s history, and the same goes for Dora and the Lost City of Gold ($119.2 million worldwide, $49 million budget) as well.
•$17.8 million domestic (as of Dec. 29), $38 million worldwide, $95 million budget
Already the butt of scathing reviews, industry jokes and social media memes, Universal's adaptation of the Broadway musical was dead on arrival with an anemic $6.6 million domestic debut-- one of the 20 worst opening weekends of all time. Cats is now projected to lose up to $100 million for the studio, which also spent over $100 million marketing it. Cats' failure has reportedly also prompted Universal to drop the film's Oscars campaign.
•$4 million domestic, $9.2 million worldwide, $30 million budget
We may very well be in the midst of a Keanu Reeves renaissance these past few years, but even his star power couldn’t save the sci-fi thriller Replicas. The film, which follows Reeves as a scientist trying to bring his family back after they died in a tragic accident, was dead on arrival, opening with just $2.4 million in 2,329 theaters in early January. It dropped a massive 81.6% in its second weekend and barely stayed afloat in theaters for its six-week run, which all saw its per-screen average below $600 each week except for the debut ($1,019). Reeves ended up having a solid year overall with John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum, his beloved cameo in Always Be My Maybe, and filming Bill and Ted Face the Music, but Replicas didn’t get his year started on a great note.
•$5 million domestic, $6.7 million worldwide, $9 million budget
While Yara Shahidi is certainly a rising star with a bright future ahead of her as an actress and an activist, The Sun Is Also a Star did not shine bright at the box office. Its mid-May debut of $2.5 million came from 2,073 theaters, for an atrocious $1,211 per-screen average. It dropped a whopping 67.9% in its second weekend over the Memorial Day holiday and was yanked from theaters altogether after its third weekend. This adaptation of Nicola Yoon book centering on an unlikely romance between Shahidi’s Natasha Kingsley and Charles Melton’s Daniel Jae Ho Bae, just couldn’t find an audience in a crowded mid-May release schedule.
•$5.3 million domestic, $9.9 million worldwide, $45 million budget
A case could be made for The Goldfinch being the biggest bomb of 2019, though it may not be terribly surprising given the polarizing reception Donna Tartt’s book received. While the book was heavily praised by some, and winning the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, it was also trashed and bashed by many other notable critics and publications. Even a star-studded cast including Nicole Kidman, Ansel Elgort, Jeffrey Wright and Finn Wolfhard couldn’t lure audiences to theaters, opening with just $2.7 million from 2,542 theaters for an awful $1,053 per-screen average. It dropped a staggering 71.7% in its second weekend and disappeared from theaters after six weeks, three of which saw it suffer drops of more than 70%.
•$5.7 million domestic, $6.7 million worldwide, $61 million budget
While animated movies and their four-quadrant appeal often lead to box office success for many big studio features, lower-tier animated projects like Arctic Dogs are often lost in the shuffle. Distributed by Entertainment Studios and released on the same weekend as Terminator: Dark Fate and Harriet, Arctic Dogs debuted with just $2.9 million from 2,844 theaters for a per-screen average of $1,020. It dropped 524 theaters and 63.1% in its second weekend, before being mercifully yanked from theaters after five weeks. Despite a talented voice cast featuring Jeremy Renner, Heidi Klum, and Alec Baldwin, to name a few, it wasn’t highly promoted, and it always makes it harder to see a movie if you don’t even know said movie exists in the first place.
•$6 million domestic, $8.8 million worldwide, $25 million budget
The Focus Features sci-fi thriller Captive State may have had one of the most truncated releases of the year, spanning just three short weeks. It opened in mid-March, debuting with just $3.1 million from 2,548 theaters for a per-screen average of $1,229. While it gained one theater in its second frame, it still dropped 69.4% that weekend, before it dumped over 2,100 theaters in its third and final weekend where it dropped 88.5%. The film was director Rupert Wyatt’s (Rise of the Planet of the Apes) first film in five years, and despite a talented cast featuring John Goodman, Vera Farmiga, and Ashton Sanders, Captive State could not captivate audiences enough to escape this list.
•$9.2 million domestic, $10.1 million worldwide, $20 million budget
Cate Blanchett just earned a Golden Globe nomination for her performance in the dramedy Where’d You Go, Bernadette?, and it’s possible she could be racking up even more nominations as awards season heats up. While Blanchett earned raves, critical consensus on the movie as a whole was mixed (48% on Rotten Tomatoes) as it seems fans of the best-selling novel by Maria Semple the movie was based on didn’t come out in droves for the adaptation. Where’d You Go, Bernadette? opened with just $3.5 million from 2,404 theaters for a $1,440 per-screen average. It didn’t fare much better throughout its eight-week theatrical run and while Blachett may earn more kudos for her performance, it didn’t help the film at the box office.
•$8.6 million domestic, $14.4 million worldwide, $25 million budget
Box office hits in the month of January are always hard to come by, but there was a significant amount of buzz swirling around Serenity due to rumors of a crazy plot twist in the film. Still, that buzz didn’t equate to success, opening to $4.4 million in 2,561 theaters for a dismal $1,724 per-screen average. It dropped 61.5% the following weekend and a staggering 92.9% in the third weekend (after dropping 2,278 theaters), disappearing entirely after just six weeks. Despite the star power of Matthew McConaughey and Anne Hathaway, Serenity sunk fast at the box office.
•$65.8 million domestic, $252.4 million worldwide, $200 million budget
Dark Phoenix is one of the movies I included that “technically” made money, though it really didn’t, because it shows just how far the once-mighty X-Men franchise has fallen in its two-decade run. The original X-Men in 2000 ($157.3 million domestic, $296.3 million worldwide, $75 million budget) helped ignite the passion for superhero movies in theaters, and while they were always serviceable performers at the box office, there was never a truly massive hit (2014’s X-Men: Days of Future Past is the highest-grossing with $746 million worldwide from a $200 million budget). Dark Phoenix’s domestic and worldwide takes are the lowest in the 19-year history of the franchise, with its $32.8 million opening falling way short of the $55 million projections. It dropped 71.6% in its second weekend and hung on to stay in theaters for 10 weeks, with the international take the only thing saving it from being a bona fide disaster. Now that Disney controls the mutants, the future is uncertain, but their last movie at 20th Century Fox went out on the lowest of possible notes.
Dec 22, 2019 · The movie wound up opening below its $10M-$15M projections to $6.5M, and while you can’t expect much business-wise from adult-skewing movies outside of Star Wars before Christmas Day, the ...
- Anthony D'alessandro
Dec 23, 2019 · The Biggest Box Office Hits and Flops of 2019. By. Rebecca Rubin, Brent Lang. Disney, Warner Bros., Universal, STX. Barring a Hollywood ending, 2019 will not go down as a year for the record...
Dec 23, 2019 · Box Office Bomb: How Creepy CGI and Bad Buzz Killed ‘Cats’. By Rebecca Rubin. Universal Pictures. When Universal first debuted the trailer for “ Cats ,” social media, to put it mildly, lost...
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Apr 28, 2020 · The five biggest box-office bombs of last year have been revealed, with the much-derided X-Men: Dark Phoenix taking the top spot. The team at Deadline worked out the films with the worst...
