20 Horror Movie Box Office Bombs EVERYONE Saw Coming
19. The Mummy
It wasn't just the landscape of superhero movies that was changed with the emergence of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, as the MCU kicked off a trend that would see shared universes attempted, typically unsuccessfully, in all areas of the industry.
Arguably, the next most successful outing behind Marvel Studios' is that of Legendary's MonsterVerse, and while even taking into consideration what a hot mess the DCEU was, the worst by a mile was Universal's Dark Universe. The plan to bring the classic Universal monsters together was doomed from the start.
This wasn't a case of trying to catch up with the shared universe trend by running before they could walk; this was trying to set a world record in the 100m sprint before they could crawl. Publicity shots with Tom Cruise, Sofia Boutella, Russell Crowe, Johnny Depp, and Javier Bardem were released before a single project was; something that couldn't help the fact that nobody wanted another version of The Mummy.
Ultimately, the film made $409 million, but taking into account the reported production budget of $195 million, as well as distribution and marketing, this was a disastrous result. Yes, the potential upside was high, but anyone could see that very few shared universes had actually worked, and that the studio was maybe getting more than a little ahead of themselves.