2018 Box Office Busts

[Jokerz79]

This is the last movie busts of 2018. Time to run it down....




Total Film Budget : $100 million

Total Box Office : $69 million (worldwide).

Mortal Engines was based off the books and was released by Universal. The film came out on the bloodbath of films that hit all within a week (Mary Poppins Returns , Bumblebee and Aquaman). One film had to fail and it was Mortal Engines. The film as of right now has only done $15 million domestically and its combined box office is $69 million.





Total Film Budget : $42 million

Total Box Office : $36 million (Worldwide)

What is amazing is this film somehow earned $29+ million domestically. But as it stands right now this release by Sony was a film marred by terrible test screenings and Sony got scared. Originally planned for an August release ; Sony pushed it back to November and then December finally. This is after they tried selling it to Netflix. The film was so bad it had a 0% on Rotten Tomatoes for awhile before finally climbing up some.

Holmes & Watson was part of the Christmas bloodbath of films that arrived within a week of each other . Like Mortal Engines it bombed.

Holmes and Watson was filmed in late 2016 & Early 2017 even with a long post production it should had been done by late 2017 meaning this film sat for over a year before release.

[Jim Kelly]

Holmes and Watson was filmed in late 2016 & Early 2017 even with a long post production it should had been done by late 2017 meaning this film sat for over a year before release.

At the last screening of AQUAMAN that I was at there was a teaser for STAN & OLLIE and in that John C. Reilly said he was filming scenes for it on days off from HOLMES & WATSON--and that movie is coming out even later. Hopefully S&O will do better than H&W, or Reilly will need to avoid movies with ampersands in the future.

[Zero Hunter]

Making it's production budget back isn't enough to make it not a flop. It didn't make back it's marketing budget therefore it's a loss.

I believe the general rule of thumb is a film has to make back twice it production budget to be considered to have made a profit. That usually is enough to recover all the advertising and promotional costs. It is true some studios realize early on the movie is going to bomb and don't bother with a big promotional push, but generally the 2X formula is the best way to judge how well a movie really did.

[Scott Taylor]

Thing is, lots of these bombs could be wonderfully written and acted movies that just didn't hit the right notes in marketing or whatever to get people out to see them. I'll see Mortal Engines at some point. Anyone see it at all?

By the way, for Vice:

Budget $60,000,000
Worldwide Box Office $34,626,399

Its Oscar-bait, released just before the deadline, so probably no one cares how much money it made. I expect it to be nominated and perhaps even win. Just seems like the kind of film that will get the Oscar attention and might become a kind of sleeper cult movie.

[Cyke]

Thing is, lots of these bombs could be wonderfully written and acted movies that just didn't hit the right notes in marketing or whatever to get people out to see them. I'll see Mortal Engines at some point. Anyone see it at all?

By the way, for Vice:

Budget $60,000,000
Worldwide Box Office $34,626,399

Its Oscar-bait, released just before the deadline, so probably no one cares how much money it made. I expect it to be nominated and perhaps even win. Just seems like the kind of film that will get the Oscar attention and might become a kind of sleeper cult movie.

That's so true. There's movies like Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, the Princess Bride, Drive, Dredd, the Iron Giant, etc. Great movies killed by their studios' failure to market properly.

[SUPERECWFAN1]

Super, are going to create a new thread for 2019?

Yeah it will happen around late January or Feb. That way we can wait and see what releases and bombs for 2019 to start. Thus far January seems like a slow month as Aquaman and others are just holding in place while newer films aren't being released yet.

[Zero Hunter]

I have a feeling that Replicas is going to be the first bomb of the new year. It comes out this week and I have seen almost no advertising for it so that tells you how much faith the studio has in it. Plus January is the dumping ground for movies the studios have no faith in.

[SUPERECWFAN1]

I have a feeling that Replicas is going to be the first bomb of the new year. It comes out this week and I have seen almost no advertising for it so that tells you how much faith the studio has in it. Plus January is the dumping ground for movies the studios have no faith in.

There are a few films that have hit in January in recent years studios have used well. The 2nd "Ride Along" film arrived in January of 2016 as did a few horror films that did well. January has had its bombs as well too. But some studios plan that month well and will drop films there that do pretty well.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

I have a feeling that Replicas is going to be the first bomb of the new year. It comes out this week and I have seen almost no advertising for it so that tells you how much faith the studio has in it. Plus January is the dumping ground for movies the studios have no faith in.

I’ve seen a TV spot here and there, but yeah, Replicas figures to get bombed. Another film coming out around the same time is the Kevin Hart/Bryan Cranston comedy The Upside, will Hart’s kefluffle with the Oscars hosting gig he lost thanks to anti-gay slurs years earlier hurt the box office?