20 Horror Movie Box Office Bombs EVERYONE Saw Coming

20. Jennifer's Body

A film can often have its make-or-break moment long before it ever actually releases. It is the trailer where the marketing machine has the biggest opportunity to sell tickets and get bums on seats, but if it misses the mark, it could be a setback that simply cannot be recovered from.

It's not uncommon for marketing to undersell a movie, but how Jennifer's Body was sold to prospective audiences was downright criminal. In 2009, hot on the heels of Transformers two years earlier, the trailers utilised Megan Fox to target teenage boys rather than the actual intended audience.

It's a strategy that didn't work and was never going to work, as it sent the wrong message about the entire thing. The story was complex in its exploration of feminist themes, whereas the marketing showed it as nothing more than another generic sexy horror flick doomed to obscurity.

Without the expectations set by a poor marketing performance, Jennifer's Body has gone on to become a cult classic, but with just $31 million at the box office, it unequivocally flopped, unsurprisingly so, thanks to its marketing. If it was sold as the movie it actually was, instead of as little more than a way of seeing Megan Fox on screen, it may have had a chance.