10 Awesome 2022 Movies That Didn't Deserve To Flop
These 2022 movies were far better than their box office hauls would have you believe.
2022 has, as ever, been a busy one for the movie business. With cinemas worldwide finally able to again open up without any sort of restrictions in place, the industry was looking to serve up plentiful pictures on the silver screen, with the aim obviously to entertain, but more importantly to bring home a big box office haul for these offerings.
As it stands, there are two 2022 films - via BoxOfficeMojo.com - which managed to hit the magic $1 billion box office number; those being Top Gun: Maverick ($1.49 billion) and Jurassic World Dominion ($1 billion). Interestingly, the most recent Jurassic World offering was lambasted by critics and fans alike, which is a perfect example of how you don't have to always be a great movie in order to strike it rich at theaters.
On the opposite side of this coin, there are those other films that were actually pretty darn great, yet they utterly flopped when it comes to box office returns. And it's on those such features that the attention is on here.
With that in mind, then, here are ten fantastic 2022 movies which absolutely did not deserve to bomb as hard as they unfortunately did.
10. Cyrano
Adapted from the classic Cyrano de Bergerac play, Cyrano was expected to do big things ahead of its release this past February. Festival screenings towards the end of 2021 led to nothing but praise for this Peter Dinklage and Haley Bennett-headlined picture, yet there were a couple of key factors that ultimately led to the film bombing once it finally made its way out into the world.
Here, Dinklage plays the titular character, who is head over heels for Bennett's Roxanne. Unfortunately, Roxanne has eyes for Cyrano's fellow soldier, Christian. While Christian shares those same feelings for Roxy, he is awful with words and thus has Cyrano write letters to his beloved while they are away at war - with those letters capturing the heart of Roxanne, all as she remains unaware whose words she is really connecting with.
Even though critics praised Cyrano, and the film received nominations at both the Academy Awards and Golden Globes this year, the picture flopped massively during its theatrical run. Managing to recoup just over $6 million of its $30 million budget, the movie was a major disappointment for Universal Pictures and United Artists.
As alluded to, there's two key factors to the lack of success attained by Cyrano. Firstly, it released up against The Batman - which took $770 million worldwide - and secondly, a bizarre release strategy saw Cyrano screened in less than 800 theatres.