4. Real Steel
Speaking of giant robots beating the crap out of each other here is another similar film that under performed domestically. Real Steel is arguably straight up plagiarism of Rock Em Sock Em Robots. Its only separation is handmade giant robots cock-fighting acting as a vessel for Hugh Jackman to bond over with his son. International audiences ate it up accounting for over 70% of its gross with over $200 million return. The production budget is unknown but you have to believe investors were expecting more than $80 million in lifetime grosses. I would go out on a limb saying that domestically it probably did not make back its budget. Aside from being a terrible movie critically, domestic audiences apparently just want to see robots punch each other, not father and son bonding. That's certainly what turned me off resulting in Real Steel being the only film on this list I have not seen.The sad exception to all of this is of course Transformers film that are centered on human dilemmas.