10 Awesome Recent Movies That Didn't Deserve To Bomb
7. Licorice Pizza
Budget: $40 million
Box Office: $32.1 million
Paul Thomas Anderson's Licorice Pizza is, true to form for the director, an impeccably crafted piece of work - a deliriously entertaining coming-of-age dramedy which received three Oscar nominations, for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay.
Despite rave reviews, the film didn't get anywhere close to turning a profit theatrically, ultimately failing to even recoup its $40 million budget.
This speaks once again to adult and "arthouse" films largely struggling to find a larger audience at the box office.
Yet this admittedly isn't something new for Anderson, who in fact has only had two of his nine movies to date turn a profit in cinemas - Boogie Nights and There Will Be Blood.
In the case of Licorice Pizza the budget was undoubtedly bloated out by its period setting, which always adds millions onto any film's price tag, ensuring its chances of immediate profitability in the pandemic landscape were always going to be extremely slim.
Despite Anderson's poor commercial track record, studios evidently continue to work with him because the prestige and potential for Oscar nominations is worth it.