20 Recent Box Office Flops Everyone Saw Coming

Horror is one of the most reliable of all genres where box office is concerned; it's pretty much critic-proof, and that's especially true when we're talking about exorcism films.

So, on paper, The Ritual should've had something going for it, especially as it stars Al Pacino and Dan Stevens as priests who reluctantly team up to save an allegedly possessed woman. But distributor XYZ Films absolutely buried this one, barely marketing it at all before quietly releasing it this past summer without screening it for most critics. The writing was firmly on the wall, then.

Unsurprisingly, it was near-universally panned by the press, and even undemanding audiences craving some basic possession thrills didn't rate it much either. As such, it was easy to predict its $5.7 million final haul, and while The Ritual's full budget hasn't been publicly disclosed, it clearly wasn't made for a pittance, so there's no chance it turned a profit theatrically.