History Main / BoxOfficeBomb

* ''Film/TropicThunder'': The [[ShowWithinAShow Movie Within a Movie]] ''Simple Jack'' is described as a "box office disaster" which critics consider one of the worst films of all time. And this is just one of the ''many'' films that Tugg Speedman has starred in that has bombed miserably, and the catalyst on why he joins the titular biopic. Kirk Lazarus attributes the aformentioned film's failure to the fact that the title character was portrayed as ''too'' mentally disabled (or, in his parlance, Tugg "went full retard" in his performance) and lacking the "inspirational" part of the InspirationallyDisadvantaged trope, citing ''Film/IAmSam'' as an example. As a result, Tugg's performance [[UnfortunateImplications was just plain insulting and uncomfortable to watch]].

[[caption-width-right:347:Sputtered, ran out of gas, and died]]

A Box Office Bomb (or flop, failure, or disaster) is a movie for which production and marketing cost greatly exceeds its gross revenue, ergo [[MoneyDearBoy fails to turn a profit]] for the studio behind the film. While in the press the different terms have some crossover, a flop may be applied to all disappointing results, but a bomb is an outright failure costing studios millions. With today's budgets, you can even see losses in the hundred-million range.

** [[BoxOfficeBomb/DCExtendedUniverse DC Extended Universe]]

** ''[[BoxOfficeBomb/DCExtendedUniverse DC Extended Universe]]''

A Box Office Bomb (or less severely, a ''flop'') is a movie for which production and marketing cost greatly exceeds its gross revenue, ergo [[MoneyDearBoy fails to turn a profit]] for the studio behind the film. While in the press the two terms have some crossover, a flop may be applied to all disappointing results, but a bomb is outright failure costing studios millions. With today's budgets, you can even see losses in the hundred-million range.

While the two terms have some crossover in the press, a ''flop'' and a ''bomb'' mean two different things for our purposes. A ''flop'' may be applied to all disappointing results; if the film grosses close to twice its production budget, it ''probably'' was able to pay back its investors, but also definitely didn't ''make'' them much money. The ''bombs'' we list here are outright, inarguable failures, judged by the following criteria: ''They make well short of 2x their original production budget.''

Please remember to take inflation into account when looking at films made decades in the past. Furthermore, an independent film or studio is less able to absorb huge losses than a major studio, so the threshold for a bomb is lower for them. The lower figures (both budget and box-office) for older films and indie films can be deceptive.

Has nothing to do with UsefulNotes/HollywoodAccounting, where the movie is not ''actually'' a flop but the real revenue is hidden in various ways to let studios weasel out of agreements to pay certain people a percent of the profits. Unless maybe someone is trying for a SpringtimeForHitler sorta scheme and other sorts of fraud.

Because there are so many instances of this happening, the pages have been separated into multiple sections:

Determining whether a movie is profitable is an inexact science, due to how the only numbers that can be reliably depended on are ticket sales sold in the "theatrical window" that kicks off a film's release. These have been reported for decades in the United States, allowing for a pretty accurate idea of most films' initial commercial performance going back to around the 1980s (though streaming has complicated this; see below). On average, a studio receives around 53% of a film's domestic box office gross and 41% of its overseas gross, sharing the rest with theaters. Accounting for less transparent ancillary revenue streams like home video sales, merchandising, and TV/streaming deals, the standard expectation is that a film needs to make twice its production budget at the box office to break even. [[https://stephenfollows.com/how-movies-make-money-hollywood-blockbusters/ This is only true about 80% of the time]], as some films have fewer ancillary opportunities (particularly with the advent of streaming and decline of physical media sales) or underreport how much they actually cost to make or market.

Flops tend to become {{Franchise Killer}}s, {{Genre Killer}}s, or {{Creator Killer}}s (or some combination of the three), or 'spawn' a StillbornFranchise. CriticalDissonance is often at full force here if critics liked it. VindicatedByVideo often helps (especially with BetterOnDVD thrown in), as does VindicatedByCable. For when the critics ''and'' the (too small) audience love the movie, yet it still fails commercially, see AcclaimedFlop. For when the movie is ''thought'' of as a bomb but doesn't hit the "2x production budget" threshold, see PresumedFlop.

Determining whether a movie is profitable is an inexact science, due to how the only numbers that can be reliably depended on are ticket sales sold in the "theatrical window" that kicks off a film's release. These have been reported for decades in the United States, allowing for a pretty accurate idea of most films' initial commercial performance going back to around the 1980s (though streaming has complicated this; see below). On average, a studio receives around 53% of a film's domestic box office gross and 41% of its overseas gross, sharing the rest with theaters. Accounting for less transparent ancillary revenue streams like home video sales, merchandising, and TV/streaming deals (which are spread out over months and years after release), the standard expectation is that a film neads to make twice its production budget at the box office to break even. [[https://stephenfollows.com/how-movies-make-money-hollywood-blockbusters/ This is only true about 80% of the time]], as some films have fewer ancillary opportunities (particularly with the advent of streaming and decline of physical media sales) or underreport how much they actually cost to make or market.

The advent of streaming in the 2010s has complicated and obscured financial reporting for some films made and distributed by services like Creator/{{Netflix}} and Creator/{{Amazon}}. Subscription models like those pioneered by Creator/{{HBO}} on cable have always obscured how profitable their original shows and movies with blockbuster-level budgets actually are, but we at least had TV ratings to get a vague idea of which content made or lost money. Said ratings agencies are only ''just'' beginning to give similar data for streamers. We don't list home releases here--these are ''box office'' bombs--but the line gets blurred when streamers do choose to go the theatrical route.

There is no ''requirement'' for any studio to report their box office. An example of what makes this complicated: 2022's ''Film/GlassOnion'' had one of Netflix's biggest theatrical windows but had no official numbers released for the week it was out. Unofficial estimates pegged it at making around $15 million in that window, which would count as a bomb for most $40 million films, but the movie is generally considered to have been a hit since the theatrical run was ''meant'' to be limited and it had great streaming numbers. The disruption of the UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic on the theatrical marketplace from 2020-2022 only futher muddied the waters on what constitutes a hit or bomb, as new streaming platforms owned by traditional studios like Creator/HBOMax (Creator/WarnerBros) and Creator/{{Peacock}} (Creator/{{Universal}}) often made their theatrical films available to subscribers during the theatrical window (in some cases for no extra charge and/or ''on opening day''). This cut greatly into a box office already deflated by the pandemic. However, since these platforms have mostly abandoned that model in favor of one that has made Hollywood rich for decades, it's safe to say that this ''was'' a money-losing decision

Flops tend to become {{Franchise Killer}}s, {{Genre Killer}}s, or {{Creator Killer}}s (or some combination of the three), or 'spawn' a StillbornFranchise. CriticalDissonance is often at full force here if critics liked it. VindicatedByVideo often helps (especially with BetterOnDVD thrown in), as does VindicatedByCable. For when the critics ''and'' the (too small) audience love the movie, yet it still fails commercially, see AcclaimedFlop. For when the movie is thought of as a bomb but actually made money, see PresumedFlop.

Determining whether a movie is profitable is an inexact science, due to how the only numbers that can be reliably depended on are ticket sales at theaters in the first months after a film's release. These have been reported for decades in the United States, allowing for a pretty accurate idea of most films' initial commercial performance going back to around the 1980s (though streaming has complicated this; see below). On average, a studio receives around 53% of a film's domestic box office gross and 41% of its overseas gross, sharing the rest with theaters. Accounting for less transparent ancillary revenue streams like home video sales, merchandising, and TV/streaming deals (which are spread out over months and years after release), the standard expectation is that a film neads to make twice its production budget at the box office to break even. [[https://stephenfollows.com/how-movies-make-money-hollywood-blockbusters/ This is only true about 80% of the time]], as some films have fewer ancillary opportunities (particularly with the advent of streaming and decline of physical media sales) or underreport how much they actually cost to make or market.

While the two terms have some crossover in the press, a ''flop'' and a ''bomb'' mean two different things for our purposes. A ''flop'' may be applied to all disappointing results; if the film grosses close to twice its production budget, it ''probably'' was able to pay back its investors, but also definitely didn't ''make'' them much money. The ''bombs'' we list here are outright, inarguable failures, major investments that make well short of that 2x mark or don't even make back their production budgets and cost studios tens of millions. With the size of today's budgets and the impact of inflation, you can even see losses in the hundred-million range.

The advent of streaming in the 2010s has complicated and obscured financial reporting for some films made and distributed by services like Creator/{{Netflix}} and Creator/{{Amazon}}. Subscription models like those pioneered by Creator/{{HBO}} on cable have always obscured how profitable their original shows and movies with blockbuster-level budgets actually are, but we at least had TV ratings to get a vague idea of which content made or lost money. Said ratings are only ''just'' beginning to give similar data for streamers. We don't list home releases here--these are ''box office'' bombs--but the line gets blurred when streamers do choose to go the theatrical route.

Determining whether a movie is profitable is an inexact science, due to how basically the only numbers that can be reliably depended on are ticket sales at theaters, which have been reported for decades (though there is no ''requirement'' for studios to report those numbers, and in recent years streamers like Creator/{{Netflix}} and Creator/{{Amazon}} have kept the third-party services that do the counting from reporting on their grosses). On average, a studio receives around 53% of a film's domestic box office gross and 41% of its overseas gross. Still, due to how expenses for marketing are often overreported and accounting for ancillary revenue streams like home video sales, merchandising, and TV/streaming deals, the standard expectation is that a film neads to make twice its production budget at the box office to break even. [[https://stephenfollows.com/how-movies-make-money-hollywood-blockbusters/ This is only true about 80% of the time]], as some films have fewer ancillary opportunities or underreport how much they actually cost.

While in the press the two terms have some crossover, a ''flop'' and a ''bomb'' mean two different things for our purposes. A ''flop'' may be applied to all disappointing results; if the film grosses close to twice its production budget, it ''probably'' was able to pay back its investors. A ''bomb'' is outright failure for a major investment, something that makes well short of that 2x mark or doesn't even make back its production budget, costing studios tens of millions. With the size of today's budgets and the impact of inflation, you can even see losses in the hundred-million range.

Determining whether a movie is profitable is an inexact science, due to how basically the only numbers that can be reliably depended on are ticket sales at theaters, which have been reported for decades (though there is no ''requirement'' for studios to report those numbers, and in recent years streamers like Creator/{{Netflix}} and Creator/{{Amazon}} have denied the third-party services that do the counting to report on their grosses). On average, a studio receives around 53% of a film's domestic box office gross and 41% of its overseas gross. Still, due to how expenses for marketing are often overreported and accounting for ancillary revenue streams like home video sales, merchandising, and TV/streaming deals, the standard expectation is that a film neads to make twice its production budget at the box office to break even. [[https://stephenfollows.com/how-movies-make-money-hollywood-blockbusters/ This is only true about 80% of the time]], as some films have fewer ancillary opportunities or underreport how much they actually cost.

A Box Office Bomb (or less severely, a ''flop'') is a movie for which production and marketing cost greatly exceeds its gross revenue, ergo [[MoneyDearBoy fails to turn a profit]] for the studio behind the film.[[note]]On average, a studio [[https://stephenfollows.com/how-movies-make-money-hollywood-blockbusters/ receives around]] 53% of a film's domestic box office gross and 41% of its overseas gross, so a film generally needs to gross double its production and marketing budget to break even from its theatrical run.[[/note]] While in the press the two terms have some crossover, a flop may be applied to all disappointing results, but a bomb is outright failure costing studios millions. With today's budgets, you can even see losses in the hundred-million range.

Sometimes a film that flops was critically acclaimed, and becomes an AcclaimedFlop. Other times home video sale or streaming rescues a film. Either or both make the flop VindicatedByHistory. If it gains a relatively small, but loyal fanbase, it may become a CultClassic.

Flops tend to become {{Franchise Killer}}s, {{Genre Killer}}s or {{Creator Killer}}s (or some combination of the three), or 'spawn' a StillbornFranchise. CriticalDissonance is often at full force here if critics liked it. VindicatedByVideo often helps (especially with BetterOnDVD thrown in), as does VindicatedByCable. For when the critics ''and'' the (too small) audience love the movie, yet it still fails commercially, see AcclaimedFlop. For when the movie is thought of as a bomb but actually made money, see PresumedFlop.

A Box Office Bomb (or less severely, a ''flop'') is a movie for which production and marketing cost greatly exceeds its gross revenue, ergo [[MoneyDearBoy fails to turn a profit]] for the studio behind the film.[[note]]On average, a studio [[https://stephenfollows.com/how-movies-make-money-hollywood-blockbusters/ receives around]] 53% of a film's domestic box office gross and 41% of its overseas gross, so a film generally to gross double its production and marketing budget to break even from its theatrical run.[[/note]] While in the press the two terms have some crossover, a flop may be applied to all disappointing results, but a bomb is outright failure costing studios millions. With today's budgets, you can even see losses in the hundred-million range.

A Box Office Bomb (or less severely, a ''flop'') is a movie for which production and marketing cost greatly exceeds its gross revenue, ergo [[MoneyDearBoy fails to turn a profit]] for the studio behind the film. While in the press the two terms have some crossover, a flop may be applied to all disappointing results, but a bomb is outright failure costing studios millions. With today's budgets, you can even see losses in the hundred-million range.

* ''Film/TropicThunder'': The [[ShowWithinAShow Movie Within a Movie]] ''Simple Jack'' is described as a "box office disaster" which critics consider one of the worst films of all time. And this is just one of the ''many'' films that Tugg Speedman has starred in that has bombed miserably, and the catalyst on why he joins the titular biopic. Kirk Lazarus attributes the aformentioned film's failure to the fact that the title character was portrayed as ''too'' mentally disabled (or, in his parlance, Tugg "went full retard" in his performance) and lacking the "inspirational" part of the InspirationallyDisadvantaged trope, citing ''Film/IAmSam'' as an example. As a result, Tugg's performance [[UnfortunateImplications was just plain insulting and uncomfortable to watch]].