10 Awesome Recent Movies That Didn't Deserve To Bomb
9. Ambulance
Budget: $40 million
Box Office: $46.7 million (to date)
Michael Bay may have a reputation as one of the most prolific and commercially successful filmmakers working today, but he actually hasn't had a box office hit since 2014 - his last film 6 Underground went direct to Netflix, Transformers: The Last Knight massively underperformed, and 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi was a straight-up bomb.
Bay's new project, Ambulance, seemed like a sure thing on paper: a high-concept genre film filled with explosions, high-octane chase sequences, and awesome drone shots, led by the beloved Jake Gyllenhaal.
Hell, even with Bay's reputation for commanding massive budgets, Ambulance was made for an impressive $40 million, and in a marketplace dominated by CGI-heavy tentpoles, the presence of a more modest, mid-budget action flick seemed refreshing as hell.
The irony is that despite being Bay's best-reviewed film in over 25 years - since 1996's The Rock - Ambulance sank like a stone at the box office.
It's difficult to nail down a single reason for Ambulance's failure, though there are a few possibles: Bay's declining standing with mainstream audiences, the film's bad title, and perhaps most notably the decline of mid-budget films on the big screen.
In a theatrical landscape dominated by $200 million blockbusters, audiences may have taken one look at Ambulance and decided to wait for streaming. Don't be shocked if it's a big performer on VOD, though.