10 Critical Darling Movies That Were Shot Dead At The Box Office

While Blade Runner 2049 was not an outright loss, it nonetheless made 'only' $259 million worldwide, which was considered a flop next to its $150-185 million price tag.

As we know, studios these days consider big budget pictures a failure if they do not make double their budget - and often in the opening weekend alone. To make matters worse, the film needed around $400 million to break even, after steep distribution costs and an all-out marketing campaign.

Given the film was such a star-driven picture (the Ford/Gosling double threat), and a follow up to one of the most beloved and critically acclaimed sci-fi flicks of all time, it was expected to hit Marvel-level ticket sales. Unfortunately, studio executives seemed not to have considered the cognitive difference between a typical MCU popcorn muncher and the deeper, existential fare of 2049.

Ridley Scott (the original's director) claimed the film's underperformance was due to its length and pace, but this is a bit much coming from the man who put out a 194-minute director's cut of the already languorous Kingdom of Heaven.