20 Recent Box Office Flops Everyone Saw Coming

In another timeline where Neon released The Life of Chuck last year, it's easy to see it being way more successful, even if it wasn't an outright hit.

After all, Mike Flanagan's acclaimed adaptation of Stephen King's fantasy story won the Audience Award at last year's Toronto International Film Festival, which is an extremely reliable indicator that a film will be nominated for the Best Picture Oscar. But rather than capitalise on this, Neon left The Life of Chuck on the shelf for nine months, only releasing it this past June when the buzz surrounding it had firmly cooled.

There were certainly other factors to consider, though. The title tells you almost nothing about the movie, and the marketing seemed almost afraid of fully detailing the movie's tricky premise, painting it instead as a more straightforward, mawkish melodrama. And finally, even those who wanted to see it couldn't necessarily do so easily, as Neon barely released it in 1,000 domestic cinemas. 

Though we still don't know the movie's budget, there's absolutely no way it turned a profit with a box office haul of just $16.2 million. If Neon had struck while the iron was hot last year, it surely would've performed better. Instead, Flanagan's film was a resolute flop and has little to no chance of scoring any Oscar recognition early next year.