The Biggest Box Office Bombs Of 2023

"Renfield" opened to a measly $10 million on a $65 million budget, facing stiff competition from other April releases like "The Pope's Exorcist" and "The Super Mario Bros. Movie." Given that the character of Dracula has had a haunting legacy in horror for the past century, viewers who came to watch "Renfield" expecting a scary movie were disappointed to find that the comedy aspects were dominant.

This is particularly important, considering that horror films are known to be profitable at the box office, given their generally low production costs and high demand from horror-loving fans. "Renfield" faced direct competition from "The Pope's Exorcist," which was made on a much lower budget of $18 million and was solely focused on delivering a horror experience — it ended up raking in a worldwide gross of $66 million. Additionally, Universal's decision to release "Renfield" just a week after their own commercial juggernaut, "The Super Mario Bros. Movie," could be deemed questionable, highlighting the lack of faith the distribution company had in its scrappy horror comedy.

"The Pope's Exorcist" producer, Jeff Katz, took to Twitter to express his glee, "Looks like [The Pope's Exorcist] is coming in ahead of RENFIELD to debut in second place this weekend ... Beating our direct competition — who had double our marketing spend and more than 3x our production budget — is a nice little win." Katz continued in another tweet, "The moral of the story is that genre pictures should generally only be made for a smart price. Whole point is to be able to hit singles and doubles and still potentially come back for more. POPE's will be profitable for Sony entirely because of this approach."

"65" is an original science-fiction film that's not part of a larger franchise — a rare creature, these days. The film follows a space pilot (Adam Driver) and a young girl (Ariana Greenblatt) as their ship crashes on a dinosaur-infested Earth, following their efforts to make their way through the perilous habitat of the prehistoric planet.

The film's marketing banked on Driver's fan following, so much so that the film is colloquially referred to as "Adam Driver's 65" to make up for an ambiguous and rather bland title. The problem? Driver's star power hasn't necessarily proved to be a box office draw outside of the "Star Wars" sequel trilogy — especially considering that the budget for "65" was reported to be around $91 million.

This expensive film was also released in March 2023, a month when audiences had several other films to choose from for their cinema-going experience. "65" competed with franchise flicks that many fans eagerly looked forward to, such as "Scream VI," "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania," and "Creed III," along with movies released earlier that were still running in theaters, like "Puss in Boots: The Last Wish" and "Avatar: The Way of Water." The poor word of mouth and critical reception (it currently sits at a 35% Tomatometer rating) didn't help the case of a film that became an inevitable flop.

Guy Ritchie's films have always been hit or miss. His 2019 Disney live-action remake of "Aladdin" grossed a little over $1 billion worldwide, while his 2017 historical epic, "King Arthur: Legend of the Sword" turned out to be a major box office disappointment. Ritchie's latest spy flick, "Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre," proved its poor fortune with a meager $3.1 million domestic opening and a worldwide gross of $37 million against an estimated $50 million budget.

The film's poor box office showing wasn't surprising, however, as many trade experts foretold its inevitable financial doom, given its troubled marketing and release debacle. "Operation Fortune" was marred with multiple delays in its release — initially being slated for a January 2022 release, it was then delayed to March due to a spike in COVID-19 cases through the United States, only to be pulled from release indefinitely simply due to bad timing. As it turns out, the majority of the film's villains are Ukrainian, a coincidence that producers felt was in poor taste considering the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Moreover, financial problems plagued production studio STX, with its merger and restructuring further putting the release of "Operation Fortune" in doubt. As a result, the film suffered from poor marketing, given that its final release date was announced just a few weeks before its March 2023 release. This gave the film very little time to build any hype for audiences amid its competition against "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania," "Creed III," "John Wick: Chapter 4," and "Scream VI."

Of all the filmmakers you could imagine appearing more than once on a list like this, Guy Ritchie is perhaps the least likely pick. His second release in 2023, "Guy Ritchie's The Covenant," is his best-reviewed movie to date, with an 82% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. However, the film's critical achievement was overshadowed by its significant financial failure, making a worldwide gross of just $15.4 million on a bloated $55 million budget.

"Guy Ritchie's The Covenant" is nothing like any of Ritchie's other films: It's much more tonally grounded and pensive without the wit or style that the director's filmography boasts. Even after attaching the filmmaker's name to the title, it failed to draw in fans of Guy Ritchie. The bomb could be blamed on the film's minimal marketing, as well as its distribution model of releasing in just over 2600 theaters domestically, with no theatrical release internationally. 

The film was distributed by MGM (owned by Amazon) in the U.S., while the international distribution and post-theatrical streaming rights were relegated to Amazon Prime Video, essentially making it a streamer in other countries. As with Ritchie's "Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre," which was released just a month before "The Covenant," both films were produced by STXfilms, whose financial problems in the past few years also likely impacted the film's marketing and release.

"Big George Foreman: The Miraculous Story of the Once and Future Heavyweight Champion of the World" chronicles the rise, fall, and rise again of the boxing legend and entrepreneur George Foreman. Produced at a $32 million budget, the most expensive project of production studio Affirm Films (the Christian media subsidiary of Sony Pictures), "Big George Foreman" was projected to earn $5 million in its opening weekend, only to scrape in a disappointing $3 million from 3,054 theaters.

While the high budget isn't entirely unreasonable, given that George Foreman is a household name in the U.S., the film's failure could be attributed to inadequate marketing and a lack of clear focus on its target audiences. "Big George Foreman" was split on its marketing, attempting to appeal to both Christian audiences and sports genre fans. The film didn't win over either group, with the former considering the film too "mainstream" and the latter finding it too heavy-handedly faith-oriented.

Faith-based films are generally produced on modest budgets, which is a significant component of their profitability. In comparison to other faith-based films released in 2023, Lionsgate's "Jesus Revolution" grossed $52 million on a budget of $15 million, while the indie biblical "His Only Son," produced with a $250,000 budget, raked in an impressive $12 million. With a total global gross of just $5.2 million so far, the film shows no signs of recovering its $35 million budget, proving "Big George Foreman" to be a big loss-making venture.

With the track record that Marvel Studios had established at the box office in the past decade, the flop of "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantummania," the first entry in MCU's Phase 5, may have come as a surprise to many fans. However, others had anticipated the franchise's slump given the decreasing quality of Marvel's line-up of movies and TV shows in Phase 4 after 2019's "Avengers: Endgame".

While "Quantummania" held the highest opening weekend in the "Ant-Man" franchise with a $104 million global collection, the film ultimately ended its theatrical run with a worldwide gross of just $476 million. That's lower than the $519 million and $622 million global collections of 2015's "Ant-Man" and 2018's "Ant-Man and the Wasp," respectively. The film took a sharp fall in its second weekend, with ticket sales dropping 69% from the week before, which could be attributed to lackluster critical reviews and poor word-of-mouth, as "Quantummania's" 45% Tomatometer score on Rotten Tomatoes makes it the MCU's second-lowest rating next to 2021's "Eternals." 

It should be noted that the Ant-Man character was never as big of a box office draw as other Marvel A-list heroes like Thor, Spider-Man, or Doctor Strange. The $476 million figure also falls short of the film's estimated break-even point of $600 million, given "Quantummania's" $200 million budget plus marketing costs, making it a rare MCU flop. It seemed like a signal for Marvel's downfall, until "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3" rescued the cinematic universe months later with critical and commercial success -– proving that Marvel's focus on quality, not quantity, would provide great yields in box office numbers and audience interest.

Even though 2023's "Transformers: Rise of the Beasts" is one of the few films in the franchise (alongside 2018's "Bumblebee") that received a decent response from critics and audiences, the film ended up being the lowest-grossing in the entire live-action "Transformers" franchise. "Rise of the Beasts" collected a worldwide gross of $436 million, and while that seems like a decent earning for a film budgeted at $195 million, it fell short of the estimated $600 million it needed to break even. The film had topped the box office in its opening weekend, with a $171 million global gross, but faced a steep 67% drop in its second weekend due to competition from the holdover of "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse," and the newly released "The Flash" and "Elemental."

The franchise has been facing a box office decline after 2014's "Transformers: Age of Extinction," with subsequent entries struggling to match up its $1.1 billion global collection. 2017's "Transformers: The Last Knight" grossed a worldwide total of $602 million on a $217 million budget, which was revealed to be a $100 million loss for Paramount, and 2018's "Bumblebee" made $465 million worldwide, which, despite being lower than its predecessor's collection, was profitable thanks to its modest budget of $102 million.

With the slew of more "Transformers" movies announced, including a trilogy of which "Rise of the Beasts" is the first, a possible crossover with "G.I. Joe" that was teased in "Rise of the Beasts'" ending, and a feature-length animated film titled "Transformers: One" slated for 2024, it remains to be seen whether they come to fruition or will languish within development hell after the flop of "Rise of the Beasts."

With a string of hits from star-producer Tom Cruise, whose recent films –- 2018's "Mission: Impossible – Fallout" and 2022's "Top Gun: Maverick" –- stand to be the actor's highest-grossing films in his career, it wasn't out of place to assume that the "Fallout" sequel, "Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One," would match the box office returns of the aforementioned films.

However, the franchise's seventh entry was pitted for a dead reckoning with two other much-awaited summer releases — Christopher Nolan's "Oppenheimer" and Greta Gerwig's "Barbie." While "Dead Reckoning Part One" had all the signs of a summer blockbuster hit, including the near-perfect 99% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes with its early reviews, the film faced stiff competition from the "Barbenheimer" double feature in its second weekend. This was compounded by the face that "Oppenheimer" usurped all IMAX screens from "Dead Reckoning." 

Cruise was reportedly upset over "Dead Reckoning" losing its IMAX screens, which generally generate extra revenue for movies with their higher ticket prices. It was even reported that the star had taken dramatic steps to boost the film's box office numbers, like personally calling exhibitors to pitch why his film is a better fit for their screens, as opposed to the films of his rivals. Having grossed $522 million globally at the time of writing, Variety reported that the film's ongoing trajectory makes it unlikely for it to be profitable given its hefty $291 million budget.

Here's a rare case about how a film can underperform theatrically, and yet be not a problem for its makers. "Air," the movie about how Nike courted basketball legend Michael Jordan into being the face of the brand, grossed a total of $89 million during its one-month theatrical run on a $90 million budget. This excludes marketing costs, which are estimated to be between $40-50 million. Those numbers would traditionally signal a box office bomb if "Air" was a solely theatrical movie. But the film being primarily an Amazon Prime streaming exclusive that happened to receive a theatrical release makes it a unique case, considering that the streaming giant wasn't counting on box office earnings to secure the film's profitability.

Additionally, considering how original movies that aren't based on existing IPs are doing in a post-pandemic box office landscape, the film actually performed quite well in pulling people into theaters to watch it. This is despite the fact that everyone knew the film was going to stream on Prime Video just a few weeks later. It's the same reason why most of Disney's animated movies haven't been doing well commercially, since audiences can expect to watch the same film on Disney+ in the comfort of their homes and save on ticket costs.

Plus, giving "Air" a theatrical release likely helped Amazon Studios recoup the production cost of the film. And it's likely that the studio recouped the film's marketing costs after streaming it on Prime Video, given that the film has received good viewership ratings on the streaming platform.

If you're struggling to remember if there was a movie titled "Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken" that was released this year, you're not alone. It's an animated movie produced by DreamWorks, which might make you wonder how a film by DreamWorks animation — which had delivered hits like the "Shrek," "Kung-Fu Panda," and "How to Train Your Dragon" franchises — flew under everyone's radar.

"Ruby Gillman" took in just $5.2 million in its opening weekend, and grossed a total of $41 million on a $70 million budget, making it DreamWorks Animation's lowest-grossing film ever. The film likely suffered due to its little-to-no marketing, which is ironic considering that it was distributed by Universal Pictures, which managed to market "The Super Mario Bros. Movie" into a record-shattering hit earlier this year. Granted, "Super Mario" had a long-running and beloved IP backing its marketing as compared to "Ruby Gillman," which is based on an original idea.

In a year where thoroughly-marketed entries from well-known IPs — including "The Flash" and "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny" — have struggled to even come close to being remotely profitable, the latter stood no chance either. This was especially compounded by the fact that "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse" was still playing in theaters at the time of "Ruby Gillman's" release.

After "Shazam: Fury of the Gods" and "The Flash" both disappointed at the box office, there was barely any hope left for DC's third theatrical release of 2023, "Blue Beetle." Despite garnering better critical response than its predecessors, the film ended its theatrical run with $129 million on its $104 million budget — that excludes marketing costs and distributors' shares – making it the lowest-grossing DCEU film.

The failure of "Blue Beetle" can be pinned onto the lack of big-name actors to make up for the fact that the titular superhero is an unknown property for general audiences and that the film lacked any substantial connections to other DC characters. Even the lack of star power could've been alleviated by the cast bringing their charm and chemistry into the film's promotion. However, the film was released during the SAG-AFTRA strikes, meaning the cast had to refrain from promoting the film. 

Not to mention, the usual factors behind DCEU's string of bombs: superhero fatigue, and the growing redundancy of the cinematic universe. But interestingly enough, Warner Bros. didn't blame either of these for the film's box office failures (since that would imply some incompetency on how they've been handling the franchise). Instead, Warner Bros. blamed Hurricane Hilary, a tropical storm that hit the West Coast at the time of the film's release.

With 2023 being a historic year of movie and TV show bombs for Disney, things look scary at the House of Mouse, and not in a good way either. "Haunted Mansion" is another in the string of failed film adaptations of Disney's theme park attractions, after "Tomorrowland" and "Jungle Cruise" failed to replicate the success of the "Pirates of the Caribbean" franchise. "Haunted Mansion" ended its run in cinemas with a worldwide gross of $117 million, barely earning back its $150 million production cost.

It wouldn't be unreasonable to say that "Haunted Mansion" was left high and dry in the unforgiving box office climate of summer 2023, a time when most movies — including anticipated entries from the "Indiana Jones" and "Mission: Impossible" franchises — suffered blows from the unstoppable "Barbenheimer" showdown. "Haunted Mansion" arguably could have performed better had it been released in October, which presented no major competitors (particularly as a family-friendly spooky film) and a perfect opportunity to align the film's marketing with Halloween.

Additionally, its spiritless marketing was exacerbated by the ongoing strikes, and its $150 million price tag set the break-even point unreasonably high for a horror comedy with no franchise backing it. Poor critical reception and lack of positive word-of-mouth cut any legs the film could have had in the weeks after its release.

"Love Again" follows Mira (Priyanka Chopra Jonas) and her journey to find love again after the death of her fiancè. As you can tell from the film's title and premise, "Love Again" is a rom-com you've probably watched several times before in the form of other Hallmark rom-com movies. This was a thought that likely sprung up in moviegoers' minds as they opted to not watch the film in theaters. In the face of awaited franchise releases like "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3" and "Evil Dead Rise," "Love Again" didn't stand much of a chance, earning only $2.4 million on a $5 million projection in its opening weekend.

But akin to Chopra's character in the film who found a second chance at love, the film found a second chance through streaming, as "Love Again" was released on Netflix and found itself ranked within the platform's Top 10 chart for a good two weeks. Then again, rom-coms of recent years have always had a better track record on streaming, which is why the theatrical landscape hasn't seen a film of the genre do well at the box office in a while. This begs the question if a theatrical release was a wise choice for "Love Again," and whether the film would've had a better chance as a streaming exclusive.

The trailer for "Strays” (virtually its only identifiable piece of marketing) advertises that the R-rated comedy, about a troupe of potty-mouthed dogs, is made by the studio that also made 2012's "Ted," another comedy about an equally raunchy talking teddy bear. The hope was that "Strays" would match the $500+ million global success of "Ted."

But in greenlighting the $46 million "Strays," the makers seemed to have forgotten that in the 11 years since "Ted" released, theatrical R-rated comedies (and comedy films in general) have seen a major decline owing to the rise of streaming and audiences' preference of watching such films at home. As a result, "Strays" faltered with a $8.2 million opening.

This shortsightedness also comes from a lack of clarity in whom the rather juvenile concept of "Strays" is best targeted towards: adults, who are spoilt for choice over other theatrical offerings of the summer, or teenagers, who are essentially barred due to the film's R-rating. The poor word-of-mouth and critical reception didn't help, and "Strays" ended its theatrical run at a total gross of just $36 million.

While filmmaker Martin Scorsese carries a lot of prestige to his name, it's arguable whether he or his films are box-office draws. After the director's last hit — 2013's "The Wolf of Wall Street – 2016's "Silence" collected only $23 million on a $40 million budget, and his 2019 Netflix exclusive "The Irishman" — which cost $225 million to produce – barely reached $1 million in its limited theatrical release. Similarly, "Killers of the Flower Moon" grossed only $156 million worldwide on a budget of $200 million.

"Killers of the Flower Moon" follows a recent trend of the director delivering expensive, three-plus-hour period dramas that, despite their critical plaudits, aren't appealing enough for general audiences. The film's $200 million budget left it no fighting chance considering its lack of commercial appeal. Additionally, "Killers of the Flower Moon" marks the first time Scorsese worked with two of his frequent collaborators Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro together, and while that star power should generally lend itself to more ticket sales, the timing of the SAG-AFTRA strikes didn't go in the film's favor. 

However, much like Amazon Studios' "Air" on this list, it's very likely that Apple Studios wasn't completely counting on the box office receipts of "Killers of the Flower Moon" for it to be a success. On top of its streaming exclusivity on Apple TV+, the film's critical acclaim would certainly add to the prestige of the platform, especially during award season.

"Miraculous: Ladybug & Cat Noir, The Movie" is an adaptation of the popular French animated series "Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir," which has spawned a multi-media franchise consisting of comic books, video games, and even a stage musical. With the level of demand the show has generated, a film adaptation was a no-brainer.

However, the animated film ended up becoming one of the most expensive French films ever produced, with a budget of $80 million. Despite going all out on its marketing efforts — including promotional tie-ins with Volkswagen, The Swatch Group, and Playmates Toys – the film only earned $39.2 million globally. Though "Miraculous" finished first in its opening weekend in France, it fell to a less-than-miraculous fourth place in its second weekend owing to poor word-of-mouth and competition from "Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One," "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny," and "Elemental." The film barely made a dent elsewhere given the general unfamiliarity about the franchise outside of France.

Yet, the film's title wasn't a complete misnomer, as it found miraculous traction on streaming, spending a good four weeks in Netflix's Global Top 10 chart from July to August, and having peaked at 2nd rank in its opening week on the platform.

After the few highs and mostly lows of the Marvel Cinematic Universe in 2023, "The Marvels" ended the year with a major bang — just not in the way the studio would have hoped. The $270 million film bombed heavily, having grossed just $202 million globally before Disney decided to stop reporting the film's numbers on its fourth weekend to avoid any further embarrassment. "The Marvels" beat "The Flash" in being the biggest superhero bomb of the year, and also surpassed 2008's "The Incredible Hulk" in becoming the lowest-grossing MCU film.

Middling reviews, promotion being affected by the SAG-AFTRA strikes, and toxic social media chatter on the film's predominant female characters, are all the surface-level causes for blame. But, considering that its predecessor "Captain Marvel" collected over $1.1 billion worldwide in 2019, the box office results of "The Marvels" represent how vastly the landscape of superhero films has changed in the years since — not just in the way audiences consume content, but also how major studios chose to hone in on the apparent superhero craze of the 2010s.

After 2019's "Avengers: Endgame," fans have seen a plethora of Marvel content — both movies and TV shows — of dwindling quality, which has resulted in the oft-covered "superhero fatigue" — a concept that Marvel boss Kevin Feige rejected at the beginning of 2023. Hopefully, the failure of "The Marvels" will force Disney and Marvel to finally take stock of their output and save their prized cinematic universe from redundancy.