The Biggest Box Office Bombs of 2023
The Biggest Box Office Bombs of 2023
Disney's The Marvels, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, Haunted Mansion and Wish, and DC's The Flash were big movies that lost out on profits.
- The Marvels (Disney/Marvel)
- Budget: $219.8 million
- Box office: $206.1 million
- Net loss: -$237 million
- The Flash (Warner Bros./DC)
- Budget: $220 million
- Box office: $271.3 million
- Net loss: -$155 million
- Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (Disney/Lucasfilm)
- Budget: $387 million
- Box office: $384 million
- Net loss: -$143 million
- Wish (Disney)
- Budget: $200 million
- Box office: $254.9 million
- Net loss: -$131 million
- Haunted Mansion (Disney)
- Budget: $150 million
- Box office: $147.5 million
- Net loss: -$117 million
How is the net loss calculated? The difference between box office and budget doesn't seem to cover it
Edit: Oh, budget doesn't mean studio expenses. The difference is shown in the article. What does "budget" cover then?
Edit2: And box office doesn't mean revenue. What a wonderful way of reporting on financial situation
So the listed numbers are completely useless?
Just about. The article has the actual numbers for expenses and revenue, much more helpful.
Hollywood accounting is a world intrigue and mysteries...
Yeah it's completely unreliable as they have a vested interest in making it appear as though they made a loss much of the time.
They also don't count major income sources like merchandising deals, which can generate several times more than the box office revenue. Franchises like star wars and the MCU generate billions from toys, games, etc.
I read a while back that studios fudge numbers to make it look like they lost money on movies, or make it look like they made less overall. This way they can get tax cuts and not pay royalties until the movie has made money.
Disney: "We dominate the board, wooo!"
Marvels wasn't bad. I enjoyed it. I feel like it was a combination of poor advertising and comic book movie/series fatigue.
Also Disney+ existing. Why go see something in a theater when it's coming to a streaming service I already have in a few months?
I've been complaining about this for a while, but Disney has not been giving fans a chance to catch up with its theatrical release schedule. Since Shang-Chi, Marvel has released 9 films back-to-back, each one ending its theatrical run before the previous film was available on Disney+. I know this because I missed seeing Shang-Chi in the theaters, and didn't want to see anything that might have spoilers. This gets especially complicated when the TV shows tie into the movies, so you end up putting off entire seasons for months, avoiding discussion forums and Marvel memes for fear of spoilers.
Add to that the mixed quality of their movies, and it really killed any momentum they had even among die-hard fans like myself.
I'm finally caught up now, and think Deadpool and Wolverine could save the entire MCU, but I really hope they stick with the reduced frequency. That, or bring the movies to streaming faster.
If they want people to get excited about a shared cinematic universe, they should reward fans with tie-ins rather than punishing them for failing to keep up.
The leads are good, with Brie Larson finally relaxing a little, they actually let the pace breathe once or twice, and the switching gimmick made for some visually interesting fights. It suffered from MCU-villain syndrome and had a kind of light vibe that didn't quite jibe with the budget, but I think long term it'll be a minor gem, at least among people who don't reflexively hate superheroes who depart from looking and acting like stoically traumatized WW2 veterans.
The Marvels was the best movie on this list by a wide margin.
How in the hell did "Wish" cost 200 million to produce. It looks like a videogame.
The Haunted Mansion was decent, it made me want to see LaKeith Stanfield star in more fun adventure movies (something like Brendan Frasier's The Mummy).
Wish was a mess, it felt like they wanted to make a Disney multiverse movie but chickened out and just made a bland Disney movie that constantly references better Disney movies (mostly Snow White to the point where you wonder if Wish is intended to be its prequel). A couple songs were decent but the bulk them felt unpolished and forgettable, like they needed a few more edits and re-writes to come together. The anti-establishment themes were weak and made me wish I were re-watching Nimona instead.
The Marvels was good as a Ms. Marvel TV special but not as a Captain Marvel blockbuster.
Yeah, Wish is an odd movie to watch. It's not too clear why this movie even exists except to promote the 100 years for Disney which doesn't really happen till the credits roll. Maybe they thought if we didn't understand a reference made in the film we would be motivated to watch other Disney content ?
Counting the number of Hollywood releases which performed decently-majeestically would be far easier
Man, what's a lot of Disney.
I'm surprised about Indiana Jones. It was my favorite of all the movies. Back to OG story with Greek history, Nazis, and a little supernatural stuff. I watched it twice.
Your favorite of all of them? Really? I'm honestly curious because I found it pretty terrible, in the vein of crystal skull more than the OGs. In my view it was all over the place, didn't tell a cohesive story, and dragged on for at least 45 minutes longer than it should've. I'm having trouble even recalling what the movie was even about and it's only been a couple months.
It was better than Crystal Skull because it didn't quite so explicitly sci-fi the magic, the set pieces were a little better, and Helena was less annoying than Mutt, but both movies are sort of equally useless, and openly depressed Indy was VERY depressing. The character always had some undiagnosed mental health issues pushing him towards unhealthy risk-taking, but Mangold's Indy just made me sad.
- woke
- Just bad
- forgettable
- haven't seen it
- shovelware
I hope they get their memo, they are doing bad movies.
When you use the word 'Woke', It makes it sound like you're trying to insult something but don't actually have something to critique. Which then implies your whole statement is based on nothing.
I always ask the difference between a "woke" movie and a regular bad movie, and there's always some conspiracy about the "agenda".
No, it's the same soulless Hollywood pandering it's always been, you're just no longer the target audience.
Pardon me if I'm using a derogatory term in an incorrect way, english is not my 1st language. With Woke, I wanted to convey the message of Disney shoehorning girl power in a forceful or artificial way. In contrast to for example all Alien movies where it works perfectly. I don't mean that women should not be protagonists at all. Sorry if that's how my post reads like. Maybe I should have worded it better.
Lmao woke
It bombed because it was awful, not because it was "woke." And it was awful for a ton of reasons, not one of which being "woke"