20 Biggest Summer Box Office Bombs Of All Time
6. Speed Racer
Budget: $120 million (marketing: $80 million)
Box office: $93.9 million
Loss: $106.1 million
Just what possessed Warner Bros. to entrust the undoubtedly talented but frustratingly hit-and-miss Wachowskis with $200-odd million to bring Jupiter Ascending to the big screen remains an opaque mystery.
The diminishing returns of the Matrix sequels, disappointing box office of Cloud Atlas and, above all, financial disaster of Speed Racer in 2008 makes you wonder just what dirt the siblings must have on one of Hollywood’s most financially savvy studios.
Although Speed Racer’s final overall cost is the subject of dispute, Time magazine puts the total expenditure at around $200 million. Regardless of numerous licensed products and marketing tie-ins, it’s pretty much beyond question that the movie lost somewhere in the region of $100 million, its failure brought into sharp focus by Iron Man opening around the same time and becoming a rampant success.