12 Movies That Were Doomed Before They Even Hit Theaters

The box office is a mysterious entity. Sometimes, even when the odds seem to be in its favor, a movie just fails, and there's no telling why it didn't find greater success at the box office or staying power among audiences. "It is what it is," studio executives tell themselves before moving on to the next.

But then there are movies where it should have been clear from the jump that they were going to cause studio execs and their accountants more than a little bit of heartache. Whether these films were poorly marketed, plagued by production delays, or just plain unlucky when it came to their release schedule, there was never a chance that they were going to make it out of theaters unscathed. If you like secondhand embarrassment or maybe even indulging in some good, old-fashioned schadenfreude, read on — the stories behind these ill-fated films are guaranteed to give you a wince or two.

"Chaos Walking" was a film years in the making. But unlike some movies, where that amount of time helps bring the best possible iteration to the big screen, the lengthy process behind "Chaos Walking" was for all the wrong reasons. To begin with, the film is an adaptation of a book that lacks cinematic potential — a teenage boy (Tom Holland) comes of age on a planet surrounded only by men, who are all cursed with the ability to hear inside everyone's head, only to meet a girl (Daisy Ridley), whose thoughts are gloriously silent to him. 

Although it began production in 2017, it was removed from the release schedule in 2019 after a long round of reshoots — never a great sign. When it finally hit theaters in 2021 — four full years after shooting — the response was immediate and overwhelmingly negative from both critics. It became one of Tom Holland's biggest flops, making an abysmal $13 million domestically on an estimated $100 million budget. Honestly, the fact that it actually made it all the way through its grueling production is a miracle in and of itself, as there were so many points along the way where it almost ended up getting scrapped. 

For many, "The Twilight Zone" television series was their definitive entry into the world of science fiction, blending fantastic concepts with landmark societal commentary that remains relevant today. So when it was announced that a "Twilight Zone" anthology film with four different stories directed by some of Hollywood's biggest names was in the works, fans were on board. But then the shoot happened — or, more specifically, John Landis's segment of the shoot — and brought with a real-life tragedy. Landis was helming a story where a racist man (played by Vic Morrow) is sent back to numerous historical periods where he is persecuted for his perceived ethnicity, concluding with a segment taking place during the Vietnam War. 

For this scene, Landis had a helicopter fly perilously close to Morrow and two extras (who were, by the way, undocumented young children being paid under the table), a reckless decision that resulted in the gruesome deaths of all three. Needless to say, the release of "Twilight Zone: The Movie" was marred by these horrific events, and while it managed to eke out some box office success, it remains one of the most infamous on-set crimes in cinema history.

When 2023's "Magazine Dreams" premiered at Sundance Film Festival, it was met with overwhelmingly positive reviews, especially for its star Jonathan Majors. He brought an extreme intensity to the role of Killian, an aspiring professional bodybuilder who pushes himself to the extreme in pursuit of his goal. It seemed the kind of role that would catapult Majors to the big time, and indeed, the actor found himself attached to several high profile productions in its wake. But then the other shoe dropped.

In March 2023, Majors was arrested on criminal charges of physical assault on his girlfriend at the time, and was convicted of two misdemeanors later that same year. His behavior caused him to be dropped from several projects that were in the works, but also had implications for "Magazine Dreams," which had been acquired by Searchlight Pictures and was slated for release in December 2023 — the same month that Majors was in court for assault and harassment. Needless to say, audiences weren't in the mood to watch him play a physically aggressive bodybuilder. "Magazine Dreams" was dropped by Searchlight and bought by Briarcliff Entertainment, who eventually released it in March 2025 to little fanfare.

People love space movies. People love coming-of-age stories where youth must prove themselves through harrowing adventures. So it made sense to combine the two in "SpaceCamp," where a crew of young kids at Space Camp are inadvertently launched in a shuttle, and have to use their wiles to survive long enough to make it back to Earth. It starred Tate Donovan, Lea Thompson, and even a young Joaquin Phoenix in his screen debut. So far, so promising.

But fate handed "SpaceCamp" a blow it couldn't overcome. Although filming concluded in the summer of 1985, it wouldn't see a release until June 6, 1986, about five months after the infamous Challenger disaster, where a shuttle carrying a team of astronauts, including an elementary school teacher, exploded on camera shortly after lift-off. It was a devastating moment for the American space program (arguably one from which NASA has never fully recovered), made all the more tragic given how the mission had captured the imagination of everyday Americans. So needless to say, a movie revolving around a group of imperiled children in space was not something audiences were interested in when "SpaceCamp" was released.

Although Shakespeare's famous line, "What's in a name?" suggests that name we give something isn't fundamentally important, it was a different story for "John Carter," a film whose title was definitive of a much more exhaustive marketing failure. This space adventure starring Taylor Kitsch was based on the early science fiction novel "A Princess of Mars" by Edgar Rice Burroughs. But when it was adapted for the big screen, studio executives weren't sold on the name, assuming that sci-fi fans (a demographic that presumably skews male) wouldn't flock to a film with the word "princess" in the title. 

Instead, they named it "John Carter." But there are two huge problems with this. First, losing "A Princess of Mars" meant that fans of the original novel — of which there are many — weren't immediately aware that it was even an adaptation of Burroughs' work. Beyond that, stamping it with the most basic name possible gave casual viewers the impression that this was just another generic action film. The results spoke for themselves — "John Carter" became one of the biggest bombs in cinematic history, despite the fact that it's nowhere near as bad as its box office receipts would suggest.

If someone made a documentary about how tortured your film's on-set experience was, that movie probably belongs on this list. And that's certainly the case with 1996's "The Island of Dr. Moreau," whose production shenanigans became the subject of the 2014 documentary "Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley's Island of Dr. Moreau." The fact that the film came out as functional as it did is something of a miracle — but not enough of one to make it successful.

"The Island of Dr. Moreau," based on the novel by H.G. Wells, stars David Thewlis as an English diplomat who is shipwrecked on a mysterious island ruled by the maniacal Dr. Moreau (Marlon Brando) and populated almost entirely by his creations — an army of human-animal hybrid experiments. The problems began almost immediately — original director Richard Stanley was replaced less than a week into production with John Frankenheimer, while Marlon Brando's daughter had tragically died shortly before shooting commenced, leaving the crew uncertain of whether or not he would actually show up. 

Between Brando's eccentric demands and Val Kilmer's self-acknowledged bullying behavior on set, "The Island of Dr. Moreau" was an undeniably nightmarish shoot, and every inch of that shows up in the finished product. Along with bombing financially, the film received several Razzie nominations and even won one for Brando's supporting performance.

Look, "Cats" is a beloved musical, no one can argue with that. But from the very moment a big-screen, high-profile film adaptation was announced, the general consensus was that it should have stayed on stage. An odd little Andrew Lloyd Webber musical featuring an ensemble cast of humanoid cats may work well on Broadway, but trying to adapt it for film is a fool's errand.  

Universal Pictures promised audiences the moon with their cutting edge "digital fur technology," which did little to convince anyone to see this monstrosity. The initial trailer was released was met with horror and bewilderment. Things didn't get much better when it actually hit theaters. Viewers didn't know what to make of the nightmarish human-cat hybrids, with the visual effects work firmly placing its feline cast in uncanny valley territory. With largely negative reviews and a poor reception from audiences, "Cats" failed to earn back what the film spent on its CGI cat abominations, let alone turn a profit.

On the surface, there's nothing all that wrong with "Treasure Planet." In it, Disney's animation team adapted Robert Louis Stevenson's "Treasure Island" for the modern age, setting it in space and casting Joseph Gordon-Levitt in the lead role. It perhaps doesn't have the same magic of the company's renaissance era output from the early 1990s, but it's a more than worthy addition to the Disney canon. But "Treasure Planet" was a massive letdown at the box office, earning just under $110 million on a $140 million budget. 

So what went wrong? Well, as with comedy, it's all about timing. Some genius at Disney made the brilliant decision to release "Treasure Island" on November 27, 2002 — just 11 days after "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" hit theaters. Putting out two films aimed squarely at the same demographic is a risky move under the best of circumstances, and in this case, "Chamber of Secrets" was an unstoppable juggernaut that movies bigger than "Treasure Island" would have struggled to compete with.

A trending meme is never a great foundation for a successful horror movie, and that's especially the case especially for "Slender Man," a misjudged 2018 release starring Joey King, Julia Goldani Telles, Jaz Sinclair, and Annalise Basso as four teenager girls who bite off more than they can chew in summoning the internet urban legend Slender Man. Before it was even released, there was pushback against the idea, as many considered it insensitive in the wake of the 2014 Slender Man stabbing, in which a preteen girl was murdered by two of her classmates to serve as a sacrifice to Slender Man. Her father spoke out against the production, calling it "extremely distasteful."

If the "Slender Man" film was actually good, it may have overcome this controversy, but that wasn't the case. It's a testament to the inherent profitability of horror movies made on a low budget that "Slender Man" made money at all, but its hopes of becoming a staple of the genre went out the window before it even hit theaters.

Even back when "Solo: A Star Wars Story," was first announced, fan reaction was muted, hinting that this was not going to turn out how Disney wanted. Then there came the news that the original directorial team, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, was being replaced due to "creative differences," the catch-all term studios use that always comes with a vague sense of foreboding.

And when "Solo" came out, it was fine. Sometimes we get too much lore for our own good, like learning that Han's last name comes from the fact that he just happened to be alone when approaching an Imperial officer for his journey off-planet, or the revelation that the Millennium Falcon serves as a prison for the soul of a dying droid. But Alden Ehrenreich is excellent in his efforts at the nearly impossible task of recreating Harrison Ford's iconic performance, and Donald Glover similarly fun as a young Lando Calrissian. 

But while not a total box office disaster, "Solo" sadly became the first "Star Wars" movie to flop financially, and its reception was not encouraging to studio executives. The lackluster results, likely stemming from its underwhelming concept and then-recent controversy of 2017's "The Last Jedi," led Disney to limit the number of standalone "Star Wars" films, killing off several interesting projects in the process.

"The Watch" stars Ben Stiller as a Costco employee who decides to start a neighborhood watch in his Ohio community after the death of one of his coworkers. Together with his friends — played by Vince Vaughan, Jonah Hill, and Richard Ayoade — he patrols the neighborhood and inadvertently uncovers an alien plot. OK, so "The Watch" might not be Shakespeare, but it sounds fairly inoffensive as far as studio comedies go. Or at least, it would have been, were it not for real-life events that cast a shadow over the film's release.

"The Watch" finished production in January 2012, and a month later, 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was murdered by an overzealous and blatantly racist neighborhood watch coordinator, George Zimmerman, in Florida. Given the national mood in the wake of his death, "The Watch" desperately shifted gears in its marketing, distancing itself from the neighborhood watch aspect of the film and focusing instead on its science-fiction elements. Another infamous shooting, this time taking place in Colorado at a screening of "The Dark Knight Rises," occurred a week before "The Watch's" release, with upwards of 25% of Americans stating they weren't comfortable visiting the theater anytime soon. Despite their best efforts, they weren't able to make "The Watch" a hit.

It was not unusual for movies to make slight adjustments in the wake of 9/11 — even the superhero genre wasn't exempt, with a "Spider-Man" trailer recut to remove a shot of the Queens-based Peter Parker swinging between the World Trade Centers. But no amount of rejiggering could have saved "Big Trouble," a film revolving around sneaking a nuclear bomb onto a plane, that was slated for released just 10 days after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. That's just bad timing on an apocalyptic scale. 

Directed by Barry Sonnenfeld, "Big Trouble" is an ensemble comedy with a group of people in increasingly absurd situations, one of which involves inadvertently bringing a suitcase containing a nuclear weapon through TSA and on board a flight. Needless to say, "Big Trouble" was pushed off its September 21, 2001 release date, premiering instead in April 2002. Studio executives may have thought that audiences would be more in the mood for the film's antics half a year later, or simply realized that "Big Trouble" was going to be dead on arrival no matter when it came out. Either way, it ended up a box office disaster.