These Are The Biggest Box Office Flops Of All Time
When studios invest in a movie, they’re betting that their box office intake will be higher than their production and marketing budgets. Sometimes, that gamble doesn’t pay out. And other times, it’s a total disaster. That’s what is commonly called a box office bomb. For this list, we ranked the 50 biggest box office bombs of all time.
To start, we used the box office site The Numbers to look at all the films with a production budget of at least $75 million. Then we weighed that against its worldwide gross and ranked the movies that lost the most amount of money.
Keep in mind these movies also spent millions in marketing and distribution, and inflation is not accounted for, so the losses may be even greater than they appear! Keep reading to discover the 50 movies that bombed the hardest at the box office.
50. Gods of Egypt (2016)
This complicated ancient-Egypt epic is about a mortal (Brenton Thwaites) who teams up with a god (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) to defeat another god (Gerard Butler) who has usurped the Egyptian throne. Gods of Egypt was overstuffed with pointless action, and despite its massive budget, the computer-generated image effects were outdated. The film received a paltry 25 score on Metacritic.
Budget: $140 million
Worldwide gross: $138.8 million
Shortfall: $1.2 million
49. The Flowers of War (2012)
The Flowers of War is a 2011 historical drama starring Christian Bale as an American who gets stuck in China during the 1937 invasion by Japan. It’s directed by Yimou Zhang, who had previously been nominated for three Academy Awards for best foreign-language film (Ju Dou, Raise the Red Lantern and Hero). This film didn’t capture that same magic and failed to recoup its production budget.
Budget: $100 million
Worldwide gross: $98.2 million
Shortfall: $1.8 million
48. Green Zone (2010)
Green Zone reunited Matt Damon with Paul Greengrass, who directed him in the mega-hits The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum. Despite positive reviews, the war drama, about Army inspectors searching for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, failed to find an audience. Critics that dismissed the film pointed to its Hollywood revision of real events.
Budget: $100 million
Worldwide gross: $97.5 million
Shortfall: $2.5 million
47. Bicentennial Man (1999)
Not even Robin Williams could get audiences interested in this sci-fi family drama about a menial task robot that dreams of becoming a person. In his review for TV Guide, Ken Fox writes, “The play for the heartstrings is so cold and calculated that the movie's sentimentality feels as synthetic as its hero, and the philosophy is simpleminded and lazy.”
Budget: $90 million
Worldwide gross: $87.4 million
Shortfall: $2.6 million
46. Ben-Hur (2016)
Hollywood’s third iteration of Ben-Hur was not the charm. The project was helmed by Timur Bekmambetov, whose other directing credits include Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. It starred Jack Huston, who did not quite inhabit the titular role previously played by Charlton Heston. Critics complained about its uninspired interpretation and the overly CGI-ed chariot sequences.
Budget: $95 million
Worldwide gross: $91.7 million
Shortfall: $3.3 million
45. The Stepford Wives (2004)
This remake starred Nicole Kidman and tried to turn the cult classic horror film into a comedy. Audiences and critics were not laughing. Maitland McDonagh rebuked the decision in her review for TV Guide, stating, “The movie takes a desperately wrong turn about 45 minutes in, and you can almost hear the great sucking sound as the whole thing churns down the drain in a swirl of narrative contradictions.”
Budget: $100 million
Worldwide gross: $96.2 million
Shortfall: $3.8 million
44. Peter Pan (2003)
The most recent Peter Pan adaptation, 2015’s Pan, narrowly escaped this list by grossing $151 million against a $150 budget. Despite better reviews, Peter Pan did not clear that mark. Jason Isaacs, hot off his turn as Lucious Malfoy in the first couple of Harry Potter films, could not reach the heights of prior performances of the iconic Captain Hook. Ultimately, the hope that this movie would surpass its production budget was a fairytale.
Budget: $100 million
Worldwide gross: $95.3 million
Shortfall: $4.7 million
43: The Wolfman (2010)
The incredible talent of Anthony Hopkins and Benicio Del Toro were not enough to draw crowds for The Wolfman. Critics disliked the film for its excessive editing and bombastic music flourishes that did not match the flaccid action and tame scares on screen. Ryan Gosling has been tapped to resurrect the series for Universal sometime in the near future.
Budget: $150 million
Worldwide gross: $142.6 million
Shortfall: $7.4 million
42. Treasure Planet (2002)
It’s rare that a Disney animated film flops, but that was the case with their sci-fi take on the Robert Louis Stevenson adventure novel Treasure Island. It got middling reviews from critics, specifically for its choice to put nautical sailing ships in space -- 18th-century garb and all. Even the vocal talents of Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Emma Thompson and Martin Short could not strike gold for this forgettable family movie.
Budget: $100 million
Worldwide gross: $91.8 million
Shortfall: $8.2 million
41. In the Heart of the Sea (2015)
In the Heart of the Sea is a nautical adventure based on the maritime disaster that inspired Herman Miller’s Moby-Dick. This tale focused not only on the hunt for the massive whale, but also on the survival at sea afterward. Despite direction from Ron Howard and the appeal of Chris Hemsworth, this one sank.
Budget: $100 million
Worldwide gross: $89.7 million
Shortfall: $10.3 million
40. The Chronicles of Riddick (2004)
Pitch Black was a surprise hit, and made Vin Diesel an action star. But when Universal quadrupled the budget, it failed to pack the same punch. Critics hated the pitiful dialogue, convoluted story and Playstation-adjacent CGI effects. Diesel and the director, David Twohy, reunited for a third movie, Riddick, which went on to outperform its much more modest $38 million budget.
Budget: $120 million
Worldwide gross: $107.2 million
Shortfall: $12.8 million
39. Robin Hood (2018)
Robin Hood got a high-octane, wartorn makeover, and audiences felt robbed. Although laughably bad at times, this film never reached that “so bad it's good” level, because it was too one-note to be interesting. It received a 32 score on Metacritic and was nominated for three Razzie Awards, including worst supporting actor for Jamie Foxx.
Budget: $99 million
Worldwide gross: $85.2 million
Shortfall: $13.8 million
38. Mortal Engines (2018)
Peter Jackson adapting novels is usually a recipe for box office success. That was not the case for Mortal Engines, the high-concept steampunk fantasy where cities are converted into roving predators that devour the remains of a destroyed earth. Besides the concept, it did little to distinguish itself from other post-apocalyptic movies. It got middling reviews and failed to capture the attention of audiences.
Budget: $100 million
Worldwide gross: $85.3 million
Shortfall: $14.7 million
37. Catwoman (2004)
Catwoman is one of the DC Universe’s most beloved anti-heroes. Audiences and credits alike did not share that same love for this absurd adaptation of her story. In her review for TV Guide, Maitland McDonagh wrote, “The film drags at 91 minutes, filled with dead air that should be crackling with pulp energy.” Three years after becoming the first African American woman to win best actress at the Academy Awards, a good-humored Halle Berry personally accepted the Razzie for worst actress.
Budget: $100 million
Worldwide gross: $82.1 million
Shortfall: $17.9 million
36. Ali (2001)
Starting in 2002 with Men in Black II, Will Smith became the first actor to have eight consecutive movies that grossed more than $100 million. But only a year earlier, his turn as legendary boxer Muhammed Ali couldn’t recoup its budget. The film did earn positive reviews and an Academy Award nomination for Smith, but the biopic failed to deliver any box-office punch.
Budget: $109 million
Worldwide gross: $87.7 million
Shortfall: $21.3 million
35. 47 Ronin (2013)
Keanu Reeves has had a resurgence to the top of the box office. That did not start with 47 Ronin. The fantasy action film, about 47 leaderless samurai seeking to restore their honor, fell short of a huge $175 million budget. It was panned by critics for dully plodding from one pointless CGI action scene to the next. Thankfully for him, Reeves would return to the screen the next year for John Wick.
Budget: $175 million
Worldwide gross: $151.7 million
Shortfall: $23.3 million
34. Sahara (2005)
Making movies is a risky game. Sometimes the biggest risk a studio can take is launching a movie franchise by pouring an immense budget into the first film. This was the case for Sahara, a movie starring Mathew McConaughey as Dirk Pitt, the master explorer from Clive Cussler’s novels. Unfortunately, this “action” “adventure” failed to deliver either and flopped.
Budget: $145 million
Worldwide gross: $121.6 million
Shortfall: $23.4 million
33. K-19: The Widowmaker (2002)
Before Kathryn Bigelow won an Oscar for The Hurt Locker, she directed the Cold War submarine movie K-19: The Widowmaker. Add in Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson in the lead roles, and you would expect a direct hit. Instead, this film stayed underwater.
“The truly heartbreaking sacrifice of a few extraordinarily heroic men is lost under the ponderous score and a series of even heavier speeches,” wrote Ken Fox in his review for TV Guide.
Budget: $90 million
Worldwide gross: $65.7 million
Shortfall: $24.3 million
32. Cats (2019)
Cats adapted the mega-successful Broadway musical from Andrew Lloyd Webber with James Corden, Judi Dench, Idris Elba and Taylor Swift. It seemed like it would be a smash hit, and then the trailer dropped. Anytime the Twitter memes are better than the film itself, you probably aren’t going to land on your feet at the box office.
Budget: $100 million
Worldwide gross: $75.6 million
Shortfall: $24.4 million
31. Speed Racer (2008)
Speed Racer is an action sports film from the visionary directors of The Matrix. Audiences did not race to theaters for this one, however. Maitland McDonagh of TV Guide was irritated by action scenes that looked like a “Hot Wheels video game” and its weak attempts at family drama. The film has become a bit of a cult classic in recent years. But in terms of box-office numbers, those fans are too little too late.
Budget: $120 million
Worldwide gross: $93.4 million
Shortfall: $26.6 million
30. The Road to El Dorado (2000)
The Road to El Dorado is the third DreamWorks animated movie after Antz and The Prince of Egypt. The adventure comedy is a mish-mash of ideas and includes narration from an animated Elton John. Unfortunately, he did not put kids in seats. In his review for TV Guide, Steve Simels called it, “an often spectacular but ultimately rather tedious musical/adventure/comedy.”
Budget: $95 million
Worldwide gross: $65.7 million
Shortfall: $29.3 million
29. Land of the Lost (2009)
Will Ferrell was on a comedic tear in the 2000s, so it’s no wonder Land of the Lost got greenlit with a $100 million budget. The film was based on the 1970s children series of the same name. If that show still has fans, they didn’t show up for this adventure comedy. Critics called it lazy, uninteresting and not particularly funny.
“Land of the Lost is an utter misfire -- not bad enough to hate, not good enough to remember,” wrote Perry Seibert in his review for TV Guide.
Budget: $100 million
Worldwide gross: $69.5 million
Shortfall: $30.5 million
28. Deepwater Horizon (2016)
Deepwater Horizon is an action drama about the events and aftermath of the world’s largest man-made oil spill, which occurred in the Gulf of Mexico in April 2010. Despite positive reviews and two eventual Academy Award nominations, the Mark Wahlberg film failed to recoup its monstrous $156 million budget.
Budget: $156 million
Worldwide gross: $122.6 million
Shortfall: $33.4 million
27. Home on the Range (2004)
Disney animated films and talking animals are usually a match made in box office heaven, so it’s not surprising Home on the Range received a confident $110 million budget. However, the film that paired Roseanne Barr and Dame Judi Dench as animals trying to save their farm got mediocre reviews and fell short of its financial expectations.
Budget: $110 million
Worldwide gross: $76.5 million
Shortfall: $33.5 million
26. King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (2017)
Similar to Robin Hood, King Arthur: Legend of the Sword is another classic tale that tried to modernize by focusing on gritty action, but ultimately failed to appeal. With Guy Ritchie directing and Charlie Hunnam in the titular role, the film received a massive $175 million budget. Generic characters and weak dialogue left this film uncrowned at the box office.
Budget: $175 million
Worldwide gross: $139.6 million
Shortfall: $35.4 million
25. Windtalkers (2002)
Windtalkers is a 2002 World War II film directed by John Woo and starring Nic Cage. It’s about a Marine who is charged with protecting a Navajo code talker. Critics appreciated the idea, but disliked the execution. Fans of other Woo movies may appreciate the stylistic direction, but there is little here for anyone else.
Budget: $115 million
Worldwide gross: $77.6 million
Shortfall: $37.4 million
24. Around the World in 80 Days (2004)
About a half-century after the first adaptation of this novel took home best picture at the Academy Awards, this action adventure, about a man trying to circumnavigate the globe on a tight schedule, failed to get off the ground. In her review for TV Guide, Maitland McDonagh wrote, “A leaden excuse for family entertainment, loosely inspired by Jules Verne's 1873 novel, coarsened almost beyond recognition and dominated by Jackie Chan's comic martial-arts schtick.”
Budget: $110 million
Worldwide gross: $72 million
Shortfall: $38 million
23. Titan A.E. (2000)
Bill Pullman, Drew Barrymore and Matt Damon lent their voices to this sci-fi adventure. Critics had mixed reviews regarding the unoriginal script, which saw ragtag heroes banding together to save Earth from an alien invasion. What’s most surprising is how an animated film with a $75 million dollar budget ended up having similar production value to most Saturday morning cartoons.
Budget: $75 million
Worldwide gross: $36.8 million
Shortfall: $38.2 million
22. The Invasion (2007)
The Invasion is the fourth, and likely worst, film adaptation of The Body Snatchers. It stars Daniel Craig and Nicole Kidman as humans who must defeat an alien invasion before they fall victim to it. Audiences hit the snooze button. In total, it lost more than the combined production budgets of the previous three films.
Budget: $80 million
Worldwide gross: $40.2 million
Shortfall: $39.8 million
21. Son of the Mask (2005)
Son of the Mask tried to recreate the success of the 1994 comedy that grossed a cool $350 million (on a $20 million budget). Their mistake, seemingly, was subbing in Jamie Kennedy for Jim Carrey. The film got rough reviews, receiving a Metascore of 20. “S-s-s-smokin'? Hardly, this sequel to the 1994 Jim Carrey flick The Mask should have been snuffed out in the drawing room,” wrote Angel Cohn in her review for TV Guide.
Budget: $100 million
Worldwide gross: $59.9 million
Shortfall: $40.1 million
20. The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle (2000)
The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle tried to capitalize on the enduring love for the old TV cartoon. In it, Rocky and Bullwinkle are transported to the land of 3D, where they must track down the Cold War spies Boris and Natasha. Critics cited its overly zany humor as a reason to skip it, and audiences did.
Budget: $76 million
Worldwide gross: $35.1 million
Shortfall: $40.9 million
19. Red Planet (2000)
After Total Recall, Hollywood made several Mars films that performed poorly, including Mission to Mars, The Last Days on Mars and the infamous John Carter. Red Planet proved to be the worst-performing of them all. The film, which stars Carrie-Anne Moss and Val Kilmer, holds only a 34 on Metacritic. More recently, The Martian has set films about our neighboring planet back on course.
Budget: $80 million
Worldwide gross: $33.5 million
Shortfall: $46.5 million
18. Fathers’ Day (1997)
Fathers’ Day paired comedy icons Billy Crystal and Robin Williams for what should have been a classic romp. Instead, the script was weak and audiences were a no-show. In her review for TV Guide, Mailtland McDonagh notes, “How much you enjoy the film will depend entirely on how much you enjoy the spectacle of Williams spewing forth streams of nonsensical gibberish in an attempt to impersonate a German record producer, and Crystal pitching snit fits.”
Budget: $85 million
Worldwide gross: $35.7 million
Shortfall: $49.3 million
17. Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000 (2000)
Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000 is widely regarded as one of the worst films of all time. It holds a Metascore of 9 and an even less impressive user score of 2.1. The film, starring John Travolta and Forest Whitaker, is about humans fighting to reclaim Earth in the year 3000. Instead, it ended up being a story of a horribly miscalculated movie failing to reclaim its production budget. “The story's broad strokes are painfully clichéd and its details make no sense at all,” writes Maitland McDonagh in her review for TV Guide.
Budget: $80 million
Worldwide gross: $29.7 million
Shortfall: $50.3 million
16. R.I.P.D. (2013)
R.I.P.D. is a comic-book movie about a slain police officer who joins an undead police firm in an attempt to track down his murderer. It was the third comic book character Ryan Reynolds played after being Hannibal King in Blade: Trinity and the titular Green Lantern. Like the last two, this one failed to catch on. Fortunately, Reynolds bounced back in a big way with Deadpool.
Budget: $130 million
Worldwide gross: $79.1 million
Shortfall: $50.9 million
15. Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001)
Fans of the storytelling in the Final Fantasy had long desired a film adaptation of the Japanese role-playing video games by the time this computer-animated movie hit theaters. “Long” is the operative word, as the sheer effort put into creating and rendering the animation reportedly amounted to 120 person-years of work. The drawn-out production expanded the initial budget. Although critics praised the lifelike CGI, the film failed to find an audience. The next Final Fantasy film went straight to DVD.
Budget: $137 million
Worldwide gross: $85.1 million
Shortfall: $51.9 million
14. The Postman (1997)
Kevin Costner wrote and directed this post-apocalyptic movie (set in 2013) about a drifter who becomes an unlikely leader in the fight to restore America. The slow and bloated neo-Western never really felt like one. “Costner's ponderous post-apocalyptic morality tale feels every minute of its nearly three hours,” wrote Maitland McDonagh in her review for TV Guide.
Budget: $80 million
Worldwide gross: $20.8 million
Shortfall: $59.2 million
13. Stealth (2005)
Stealth is an action thriller about elite U.S. Navy pilots flying technologically advanced fighter jets. It stars Jamie Foxx, Jessica Biel and Josh Lucas. Although it had some impressive flight sequences, the film didn’t offer a cohesive story or characters to make you care, and it failed to lift off at the box office. In her review for TV Guide, Maitland McDonagh wrote, “Even by the degraded standards of dim-witted summer blockbusters, this is sorry stuff.”
Budget: $138 million
Worldwide gross: $76.4 million
Shortfall: $61.6 million
12. The 13th Warrior (1999)
The 13th Warrior is a fantasy action film starring Antonio Banderas, from the director of Predator and Die Hard. It follows a man who joins a band of Norse warriors to fight mysterious creatures. Critics disliked it for its confusing action sequences and shallow story. Whether it was the poor reviews or the generic title, audiences shied away from this Viking epic.
Budget: $125 million
Worldwide gross: $61.7 million
Shortfall: $63.3 million
11. Monster Trucks (2016)
Monster Trucks is not a film about monster trucks; it's a film about a monster living in a truck. Confused? Audiences were. The gray CGI “Creech” failed to capture the imagination of kids, while the rambunctious plot was too much for adults to take seriously. In the end, this film was left in the junkyard.
Budget: $125 million
Worldwide gross: $61.6 million
Shortfall: $63.4 million
10. The Alamo (2004)
The Alamo is another instance of Hollywood attempting to remake a classic film with disastrous results. This version stars Dennis Quaid and Billy Bob Thornton as Sam Houston and David Crockett, respectively. The film sought to show both perspectives of the battle, to varying degrees of critical success. Ironically enough, this is a film that is easily forgotten.
Budget: $92 million
Worldwide gross: $23.9 million
Shortfall: $68.1 million
9. The Nutcracker in 3D (2010)
Somehow, the idea to make The Nutcracker a post-apocalyptic thriller without any ballet made it past the writing, shooting and editing phase of the Hollywood studio system. The result? A Metascore of 18. Normally, these kinds of holiday movies still manage a decent box office in the face of poor reviews. Not the case for this dreadful miscalculation of a film.
Budget: $90 million
Worldwide gross: $20.5 million
Shortfall: $69.5 million
8. How Do You Know (2010)
It’s rare, especially these days, that a romantic comedy will receive a $120 million budget. But when Reese Witherspoon, Paul Rudd, Owen Wilson and Jack Nicholson are attached, it has to be a hit right? Well, that’s the thing, you just never know. This film, about a softball player who must decide between two guys, received middling reviews and failed to attract an audience.
Budget: $120 million
Worldwide gross: $49.6 million
Shortfall: $70.4 million
7. Cutthroat Island (1995)
Carolco Pictures was a film company responsible for the first three Rambo movies, Terminator 2: Judgement Day and Total Recall. However, they also made Cutthroat Island, which was such a box-office bomb, the company folded. The action adventure, about pirates racing to find treasure, was left buried under its production budget.
Budget: $92 million
Worldwide gross: $18.5 million
Shortfall: $73.5 million
6. A Sound of Thunder (2005)
A Sound of Thunder is a high-concept sci-fi about a time travel agency that offers prehistoric hunting packages, but when someone messes with the past, evolution is thrown off course. The execution didn’t live up to its premise, and despite the large budget, the film suffered from bad special effects. This was noted by Maitland McDonagh in her review for TV Guide: “The profoundly unconvincing CGI work only makes the sorry screenplay and lackluster performances look worse.”
Budget: $80 million
Worldwide gross: $6.3 million
Shortfall: $73.7 million
5. Missing Link (2019)
Laika had carved a pretty defined niche in the stop-motion animation world by making creepy-ish magical realism films with a modest budget like Coraline and ParaNorman. It decided to zag with the bigger-budget Missing Link, a colorful and silly film about a friendly sasquatch who travels to the Himalayas to reunite with his family. Suddenly, their core audience was missing, along with everyone else.
Budget: $100 million
Worldwide gross: $25.3 million
Shortfall: $74.7 million
4. The Promise (2016)
The Promise is a historical drama starring Oscar Isaac, Charlotte Le Bon and Christian Bale set during the events of the Armenian Genocide at the hands of the Ottoman empire in 1915. Jonathan Helfgot, the president of marketing for the film’s distributor, Open Road Films, has indicated that, though his company wished for a better box office, it was more important that the message of the film get out. Turkey still denies its involvement in the massacre.
Budget: $90 million
Worldwide gross: $10.6 million
Shortfall: $79.4 million
3. The Adventures of Pluto Nash (2002)
Eddie Murphy has logged a few duds in his career, but none as financially disastrous as The Adventures of Pluto Nash. The moon-based comedy, set in 2087, received a Metascore of 12. Talk about failure to launch. In his review for TV Guide, Ken Fox wrote, “There are worse movies, but that's no excuse. Rarely has so much money delivered so little entertainment.”
Budget: $100 million
Worldwide gross: $7.1 million
Shortfall: $92.9 million
2. Town & Country (2001)
This romantic comedy, about a New York City architect having a midlife crisis, had an ensemble cast that included Warren Beatty, Diane Keaton, Garry Shandling and Goldie Hawn. Somehow, they produced little entertainment value, and audiences weren’t willing to pay the price of admission. “So bewildering it's almost entertaining, this comedy of fifty-somethings and their extramarital affairs is one of those films you can actually see flailing for life,” wrote Frank Lovece in his review for TV Guide.
Budget: $105 million
Worldwide gross: $10.4 million
Shortfall: $94.6 million
1. Mars Needs Moms (2011)
Remember the streak of underperforming Mars movies? This animated family film, about a son rescuing his mom from Martians, stands out among the rest. Critics said there was little story in the film, not even enough for its 88-minute runtime. Whether it was the oddly realistic motion capture animation, or the idea that kids don’t want to watch a movie with the word “mom” in the title, this Disney film ended up light-years away from turning a profit.
Budget: $150 million
Worldwide gross: $39.5 million
Shortfall: $110.5 million