10 Biggest Box Office Flops Of All Time
Investing in the next big blockbuster can be a slippery slope.
In an entertainment landscape that embraces sword fighting and grit in programs such as Game of Thrones, as well as period dramas such as The Crown, on paper it's surprising that Guy Ritchie's King Arthur: Legend of the Sword wasn't embraced by the public in its recent opening weekend.
King Arthur came and ultimately under-performed, generating only about $96 million worldwide. Though $96 million isn't usually something to scoff at, the amount barely makes up half of the film's whopping $175 million budget. Only time will tell if the movie picks up steam, but it's already being touted as the third worst box office opening in history.
However, this isn't the first time a promised blockbuster ended up failing so badly; in the movie-making business it's downright expected, given how difficult and expensive the uphill battle of filming tends to be. Production costs continue to rise, and in the world of Hollywood, marketing can be just as important in a movie's success as the final product. But when money is funneled into a dud to begin with, there's only so much hope a movie can have to make up the astronomical investments.
In light of this most recent box office bomb, let's revisit 10 other failures it now joins in infamy.
10. 47 Ronin (2013)
That this Keanu Reeves driven movie was named for a Japanese epic that it had nothing to do with was only its first problem.
The story of 47 Ronin is one of the most celebrated samurai tales in Japan, so when the film had seemingly no ties to the popular work, the movie suffered. That paired with the fact that the promised war epic turned out extremely dull and left its international cast in the wings was enough to spell disaster at the box office.
A $225 million production and marketing budget wasn't enough of an investment to boost this film to box office success either. With a domestic gross of merely $38 million and a worldwide gross of $151 million, it barely made up half the costs of the film to begin with.
Total loss: $74 million