10 Movies You Were Totally Wrong About

Pokémon is one of the biggest media empires the world has ever seen, touting a gross revenue higher than Mickey Mouse, Star Wars, Disney princesses, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and the Wizarding World.

So the moment a Detective Pikachu film was announced, it seemed like the easiest bet in the world that it'd turn a colossal profit, with many believing it'd easily crack $1 billion globally and perhaps even go far beyond that.

After all, everyone knows Pokémon, and with the inspired casting of Ryan Reynolds voicing Pikachu, fresh off his Deadpool success no less, it seemed like a perfect recipe to rake in the dough.

And though it wasn't a shock that the film received mixed-to-positive reviews from critics, many were left underwhelmed by its final worldwide gross of $433.2 million.

While this made it the second-highest-grossing video game adaptation of all time behind Warcraft, it was widely expected that a Pokémon movie would be capable of more than a fairly modest return on a $150 million budget.

Given Pokémon's global visibility and that the film's first trailer exceeded 100 million views in its first 24 hours, it was incredibly easy to believe this thing would crack the 10 highest-grossing films of 2019. But as it turned out, it settled for #18, behind Maleficent: Mistress of Evil and It Chapter Two.

The commercial under-performance likely explains why Legendary Pictures didn't fast-track a sequel into production, even though they claim it's still in active development some four years later.