Sometimes making a good movie, having familiar faces or big studios bankrolling you, doesn’t guarantee you’ll be successful and get big box office numbers. For this reason, in this note we bring you five deliveries that put much more money than they received.
As the years go by, movie budgets increase, but that doesn’t always mean that their box office will be as high as Spider-Man: No Way Home or several of the superhero movies. There are times when a delivery with good reviews, familiar faces and a great studio behind it does not have the expected results and becomes a failure, since it loses a lot of money at the box office.
A movie’s box office can depend (in large part) on publicity, and when it’s bad or there’s little, people don’t end up risking it to see it on the big screen. Another reason that can play tricks on the studios is the simultaneous release on some platform of streaming. Although the intention is the opposite, many people prefer to stay home and watch the movie, instead of going to the cinema.
This is why the film industry can be treacherous. Studios put in millions of dollars to produce new movies and hope, one way or another, to get their money back, and if it can be doubled. However, sometimes bad reviews or lack of interest in the audience become your worst enemy.
Here below we leave you five films (of different genres) that did not have the expected response and turned out to be failures
Do you know Joe Black? (1998)
Distributed and produced by Universal Picturesthe film directed by Martin Brest didn’t get enough Brad Pitt Y Anthony Hopkins as protagonists. With a budget of 131 million dollars, Do you know Joe Black? it only grossed $69 million.
The Iron Giant (1999)
To put an animated movie in this top 5, The Iron Giant had a budget of 50 million dollars, but despite being the first feature film directed by Brad Pitt, did not give the results Warner I expected. It grossed $31.3 million and was perhaps the reason the studio at the time moved away from animated film for a while.
The Last Fortress (2001)
This film directed by Rod Lurie and starring Robert Redford, James Gandolfini Y Mark Ruffalo It had a budget of approximately 72 million dollars. However, despite its cast and the study of dreamworks, at the box office it only reached 28 million dollars. In the US it seems that there was bad marketing, since the cover of the film had a flag upside down, which the audience did not like because they thought it was anti-American.
The Last Duel (2021)
With a budget of 100 million dollars, The Last Duel it fell by the wayside and only made $30.6 million at the box office. Despite being well received by critics and having in its cast Matt Damon, Adam Driver, Ben Affleck Y jodie comer, the production of Ridley Scott He didn’t even get his money back.
The Suicide Squad (2021)
Unlike the 2016 film, the production directed by James Gunn did not recover what was spent. With a budget of 185 million dollars, the suicide squad It made $167.4 million at the box office. It is strange to think this because clearly this film had the support of the critics, but its simultaneous release in hbo max in the United States it played a trick on him, although it was one of the most viewed titles on the platform.
There are many more examples. Better known films, others not so much, with more actors, more budget and much less profit, but we’ll stick with these for now. In case you want more examples, here are two more:
–Chaos: The Beginning (2021) that, despite having an exclusive theatrical release and having Tom Holland Y daisy ridleydid not convince either the public or the critics and, with a budget of 125 million dollars, only got 26.4 million dollars.
–King Richard: A Winning Family (2021). A $50 million budget movie that only made $26.2 million at the box office. This is an example where, despite its cast led by Will Smith and advertising, the streaming didn’t help at all.