10 'Next Big Thing' Movies That Completely Flopped

5. King Arthur: Legend Of The Sword

Hollywood, for whatever reason, has this misguided belief that if it makes a film about a character you've heard of, you'll automatically show up to see it. The big wigs literally think all they need to do to make a bankable hit is to get audiences to say "I understood that reference" when they see the name of a film.

That's how we ended up with a bunch of Robin Hood movies nobody wanted, and the focal point of this list, Guy Ritchie's King Arthur: Legend of the Sword. Warners had been trying to get this movie off the ground since at least 2004, and by the 2010s had switched plans from not just one King Arthur movie, but an 'Arthurian cinematic universe' comprised of at least six films.

Shockingly, it turned out that audiences didn't have the appetite for even one movie based on this property let alone six, and the strange blend of Guy Ritchie's cockney gangster style and Lord of the Rings-level scale made the first instalment in this enterprise a total head-scratcher, as well as a box office disaster that halted Warner Bros.' plans.