20 Recent Box Office Flops Everyone Saw Coming

19. Mickey 17

Even accepting that director Bong Joon Ho was fresh off the Oscar-winning success of his global mega-hit Parasite - which grossed an astonishing $258.1 million against a mere $11.4 million budget - few were expecting his follow-up Mickey 17 to repeat the same level of success.

For one, it's based on a rather niche and strange sci-fi novel, which, in conjunction with a $118 million budget, left the break-even point at almost $300 million.

Sci-fi has always been a box office wildcard, considering the larger budgets they typically command. Hence, why the most successful ones tend to have a broad, easily understood marketing hook, like Gravity or Interstellar. But Mickey 17 was more of an esoteric black-comedy whose marketing didn't do a particularly stellar job of selling its premise or tone, which, coupled with good-but-not-great reviews, caused it to settle at a hugely disappointing $133.3 million globally.

In many respects, this is exactly the sort of wild swing a filmmaker gets to make after winning Best Picture and Best Director Oscars, but it's fair to say that Bong probably won't get to play around with this size of budget again for a good while, if ever.