Famous Movie Stars' Biggest Box Office Bombs

What makes a movie star? As Katharine Hepburn once said: "It's either some kind of electricity or some kind of energy. I don't know what it is, but whatever it is, I've got it." Studio executives would be less poetic: "A movie star makes money." If a studio invests $10-$20 million on a star's salary, they expect a return. If the actor consistently delivers, they're a movie star. If not? They'll have to pay the bills in supporting parts. But there's a difference between being consistently bankable, and batting a perfect .500 at the box office. Much like a star quarterback can have a bad game, even the most reliable movie stars have major bombs. 

Many times these bombs are admirable creative risks that just didn't pan out. Others seem like surefire hits on paper, but underperformed due to overblown budgets or just being bad. Still others reek of "What were they thinking?" and probably resulted in the actor's agent or manager getting fired. We won't include any bombs from before the actor was famous (because they weren't stars yet, duh), nor will we include low-budget indie films that only lost a few million. Nope, these are bombs with a capital "B." We'll also use the rule-of-thumb that a movie must make twice its budget to make money (which these movies most certainly did not). What are they? Here are famous movie stars' biggest box office bombs!

Keanu Reeves has been the "Internet's Boyfriend" since before the Internet. He first rose to fame in 1989's "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure," became a movie star with 1994's "Speed," starred in the iconic "The Matrix" in 1999, then kinda fell off the radar until 2014's "John Wick." Now in the midst of a Reeves-naissance, Keanu proves that even in Hollywood, nice guys can finish first ... provided they do so by shooting a lot of people. In between "The Matrix Revolutions" in 2003 and "John Wick" 11 years later, Reeves was on a bit of a dry spell as an above-the-title draw, including starring in the biggest bomb of his career, "47 Ronin." 

An expensive ($175 million) fantasy epic featuring an international cast, "47 Ronin" probably sounded like a good idea on paper. And indeed the plot does sound interesting: Reeves plays a mixed-blood ronin in feudal Japan who is recruited by an old foe to help take on a wicked nobleman. Alas, the movie was dull and one-dimensional (as evidenced by its 16% Tomatometer score) and never found an audience either domestically ($32 million) or worldwide ($151 million), losing an estimated $199 million. Thankfully, Reeves followed this up with "John Wick" about one year later. Reeves' 64 films have earned $2.5 billion domestically and $5.8 billion worldwide, but very little of that came from "47 Ronin."

Robert Downey Jr.'s jump to movie stardom may be the most dramatic on this list. It has certainly taken the longest. How did Downey Jr. go from "box office poison" to career earnings of $6.2 billion domestically and $15.7 billion worldwide? Two words: Iron Man. That's not a knock on Downey, as we can confidently say no other actor would have done as well in the titanium alloy armor, not even the mega-star originally interested in playing Tony Stark, Tom Cruise. However, Downey Jr. hasn't made billions exclusively as Iron Man, as "Tropic Thunder," "Due Date," and the "Sherlock Holmes" films prove he is a star in his own right. 

That said, his biggest career misfire came right after he finally hung up the suit, which is saying something, considering he never headlined a hit until 2008's "Iron Man." That film? "Dolittle." In fairness, the film's failure was largely a matter of scale, as $77 million domestically and $251 million worldwide isn't that bad for a live-action family movie (especially one that was really bad). The problem was the $175 million budget, basically the cost of a Marvel movie, meaning "Dolittle" lost about $99 million. What was Universal thinking? Probably that Downey Jr. could do no wrong. But expecting "Dolittle" to earn more than $350 million was a bad idea, and even an animal could tell you that.

Scarlett Johansson rose to fame as a 19-year old ingenue in 2003's "Lost In Translation," but later established herself as a bankable action movie star, especially as Natasha Romanoff, a.k.a. Black Widow. With $5.5 billion domestically and $14.9 billion worldwide over 49 films, we'd say casting ScarJo is usually a sure thing ... provided you're not casting her as a Japanese cyborg in a $110 million cyberpunk sci-fi film based on a well-regarded, but let's be honest, pretty obscure anime, "Ghost In The Shell." 

The original 1995 film is considered a masterpiece of its genre, with the 96% Tomatometer score to prove it. That genre is anime; it is not multi-million dollar blockbuster. Surprising pretty much nobody except Paramount Pictures, "Ghost In The Shell" got lost in translation (see what we did there?), resulting in a 43% Tomatometer score, a far cry from the original. Moviegoers ghosted "Ghost In The Shell," which earned $40 million domestically and $167 million worldwide. Based on its budget, we estimate "Ghost In The Shell" lost about $53 million. Not the end of the world, but definitely not a performance Johansson wants to repeat.

Tom Cruise has been a movie star longer than most millennials have even been alive. Ever since he slid pantless down the hallway in 1983's "Risky Business," Cruise has been a perennial part of popular culture. While he currently prefers his current comfort zone of playing Ethan Hunt in the "Mission: Impossible" franchise, Cruise has proven to be incredibly bankable across multiple different genres and decades. Even movies you could have sworn were bombs (like 2013's "Oblivion" or 2017's "American Made") still, technically, made money. Credit Cruise's consistent popularity overseas, and his insane work ethic to promote his movies. 

However, not even Cruise's megawatt grin could save "The Mummy." The whole concept was misbegotten from the start, as "The Mummy" was supposed to be Universal's answer to the Marvel Cinematic Universe and launch an interconnected "Dark Universe," combining their legacy horror characters like Dracula and The Invisible Man. "The Mummy" put those hopes to bed. In fairness, "The Mummy" actually made a little money, $80 million domestically and $409 million worldwide (remember what we said about Cruise's overseas bankability?), a profit of about $19 million on a $195 million budget. However, the response was so bad it tanked a would-be franchise and forced Universal to rethink their legacy characters. Alas, making a franchise out of "The Mummy" proved to be the real mission impossible.

Say you're a super-handsome movie star looking to buck expectations. What's the 1995 Sexiest Man Alive to do? Play Death, of course. In 1998, Brad Pitt played the titular Joe Black, a.k.a. Death, who comes to guide a businessman played by Anthony Hopkins to the great beyond. However, Joe Black agrees to grant the businessman a few more days in exchange for getting to stay on Earth. Things get complicated, however, when Black falls in love with the businessman's daughter. It's just the sort of unexpected role Pitt has built a respectable movie career playing, and which works for him most of the time (proven by his $3.2 billion domestic and $8.3 billion worldwide career earnings). 

"Meet Joe Black" was the exception to the rule. The movie's biggest problem was that its three-hour runtime was just ... too ... long. Critics snoozed through it, giving it a 45% Tomatometer score, though surprisingly moviegoers seemed to like it, with an 81% score. What they didn't do was buy tickets to go see it. With a bafflingly high $85 million budget, "Meet Joe Black" only managed $44 million domestically (international numbers aren't available), losing about $126 million. Pitt didn't have another release for almost a year, until "Fight Club" in 1999. You're not supposed to talk about "Fight Club," but we bet Pitt would rather nobody ever mentioned "Meet Joe Black" again.

In 2019, Leonardo DiCaprio was called "the last movie star" by no less than the august Tinseltown institution The Hollywood Reporter. It's hard to disagree. Across 33 films, DiCaprio has earned $2.7 billion domestically and $7.19 billion worldwide, for an average of $93 million domestic and $248 million worldwide. Most impressively? He has done it with zero sequels, spin-offs, or reboots, which has pretty much been Hollywood's bread-and-butter for two decades. But as big a star as he is now, not even he's as big a star as he was in late 1997 following the release of "Titanic." 

Ironic then that he followed up his biggest hit by far (or pretty much anyone's) with two of his biggest duds, 1998's "The Man In The Iron Mask" and 2000's "The Beach." Which movie wins, er, loses? Well, "The Man In The Iron Mask" made $56 million on a $35 million budget, losing about $14 million. Meanwhile, "The Beach" was almost the opposite, making $39 million on a $50 million budget, losing about $61 million. So yeah, "The Beach" loses. And then Leonardo DiCaprio was never seen or heard from again. Yeah, right: he actually starred in Martin Scorsese's "Gangs of New York" in 2002, launching one of the most critically acclaimed and commercially successful collaborations in cinema history.