History Main / BoxOfficeBomb

* [[BoxOfficeBomb/EThroughF E-F]]
* [[BoxOfficeBomb/GThroughH G-H]]
* [[BoxOfficeBomb/IThroughJ I-J]]
* [[BoxOfficeBomb/KThroughM K-M]]

* [[BoxOfficeBomb/UThroughZ U-Z]]

* ''Film/TheNakedGun 33 1/3'' mentions a bomb titled ''Sawdust And Mildew''. Also falls under AcclaimedFlop, since it's nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars. When Frank finds an actual explosive in the envelope containing the winner and exclaims "It's the bomb!", everyone assumes that he's on about ''Sawdust And Mildew'' instead of being literal.
* On ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'', the episode ''Recap/TheSimpsonsS7E18TheDayTheViolenceDied'' reveals that Roger Meyers Sr. plagiarized the character of Itchy and ''JustForFun/TheItchyAndScratchyShow'''s formula of sadistic violence. The most famous cartoon Meyers made before he stole Itchy was Scratchy's only solo outing, ''That Happy Cat''. The cartoon did really poorly, partly because all it did was show Scratchy whistling cheerfully as he crossed the street.

-->-- Website/{{Wikipedia}}'s [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Unusual_articles unusual articles]] description for ''Film/ZyzzyxRoad''

* ''Film/NakedGun 33 1/3'' mentions a bomb titled ''Sawdust And Mildew''. Also falls under AcclaimedFlop, since it's nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars. When Frank finds an actual explosive in the envelope containing the winner and exclaims "It's the bomb!", everyone assumes that he's on about ''Sawdust And Mildew'' instead of being literal.

[[https://bombreport.com/ "Bomb Report"]] contains many examples of box office bombs released since 1997 in further detail. [[https://www.filmsite.org/greatestflops15.html Film Site]] also contains many detailed examples of box office bombs dated as far back as the SilentMovie era.

[[https://bombreport.com/ "Bomb Report"]] contains many examples of box office bombs released since 1997 in further detail. [[https://www.filmsite.org/greatestflops15.html Film Site]] also contains many detailed examples of box office bombs released as far back as the SilentMovie era.

[[https://bombreport.com/ "Bomb Report"]] contains many examples of box office bombs released since 1997 in further detail.

So, how can you tell when a movie has bombed? This depends on several factors. First is how much the studio paid for production, paying all those people and companies you see in the credits at the end, which is generally public information. How much the studio paid for marketing is also important. That budget is generally not public information but is generally a significant percentage of the film's overall cost. A $150-million production may well have had $75 million spent to advertise it. Furthermore, since movie theaters don't just show movies for free, a portion of every ticket sold goes to supporting the theater itself. And of course, if the film is based on something, like a video game or a comic, somebody's got to shell out for the rights to use the names and setting, and that can really rack up the bills. Put these together, and you can see that a movie mustn't merely cover its budget but probably needs to make at least twice that before it can begin paying for its marketing costs, much less become profitable.

A common objection at this point is to bring up the [[GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff international revenue]]. After all, the film made several hundred million more than its budget around the world; clearly these studios just want us to think only America matters and the Hollywood press keeps buying it! Right? Well, actually… not really. Or at least, not always. While the rest of the world is a much bigger market and can rack up film returns in the billions, behind these numbers, overseas distribution is actually a lot less profitable for the studios themselves. Like with domestic theaters, foreign theaters need to make money off of ticket sales, and they're more inclined to support movies made locally as opposed to internationally produced films. As such, films shown overseas will often see even less of a return than the domestic gross and may have additional costs like needing a local dub track. How much the international box office helps can also vary depending on the country in question. So studios still count on covering their costs domestically and judge a movie accordingly. While it's possible in practice, [[AvertedTrope aversions]] tend to be from marginal cases. Around the world, taste in American movies tends to favor the same films, and the biggest hits at home are also the biggest hits around the world.

[[http://io9.com/5747305/how-much-money-does-a-movie-need-to-make-to-be-profitable Good further reading on how much movies need to make can be found here.]]

Commonly cited possible reasons for box office failures:
* '''Misreading the market:''' Probably the biggest reason behind a fail is that it's just plain hard to know what people will like. Worse, what the public likes changes all the time. Something that was innovative two years ago when you tried to FollowTheLeader and hit greenlit is now a [[ClicheStorm tired old cliché]] nobody will see. Maybe you [[ViewersAreMorons underestimated the audience...]] or [[ViewersAreGeniuses overestimated]] them, or maybe you [[UncertainAudience don't even know]] which audience you want to attract. The point is: sometimes even your best efforts fail.
* '''Bad word of mouth:''' Sometimes a movie does poorly because everybody's just expecting it to be a bad movie - maybe it's a sequel to a bad film, or it's in a genre that the director isn't known for, or it might involve a director/actor/producer who turns off viewers for one reason or another, or it's assumed to be a rip-off of an older movie, or a remake, or another ContinuityReboot, or the [[TaintedByThePreview trailers were terrible...]] and often people just don't want to go to see a movie that they aren't sure they'll enjoy. This doesn't mean the movie ''is'' bad, just that enough people think it is to cause the movie to fail.
* '''[[DuelingMovies Competition]]:''' This is particularly often in effect with {{summer blockbuster}}s. People have a limited amount of brainless action they would watch, and if there's a lot of that available, some titles may be neglected. They also tend to be high-budget, and as such if the movie flops, it costs a ''lot''. There is, however, often a principle similar to AwardSnub in nature: several good movies (with similar target audiences) are released simultaneously, thus one of them performs truly spectacularly, another one flops, but both are considered [[VindicatedByHistory great in hindsight]] (the hit ''Film/ETTheExtraTerrestrial'' and the flop ''Film/BladeRunner'', for example).
* '''Poor marketing:''' Many a bomb became so despite (or due to) being an excellent movie in general. [[NeverTrustATrailer Incorrect]] or [[MisaimedMarketing misleading]] information about them (or just plain ''[[InvisibleAdvertising lack]]'' [[InvisibleAdvertising of marketing]]) makes audiences rely exclusively on word-of-mouth, which is generally not enough for a movie to successfully perform. The internet has made this situation a bit better, but not that much. These movies almost always achieve [[CultClassic cult status]] and can later become profitable on DVD.
* '''Poor budgeting:''' With the amount of money spent on big releases, this is an increasingly large risk. Even good movies can effectively fall down at the box-office if they cost too much to make. Tens of millions are spent on special effects that last a few minutes or sets that will inevitably be blown up, an actor's paycheck is extortionate, and if it all costs too much, you're going to reach a point where no matter how good a movie is, it just can't make back what was spent on it. The creators can only hope for good DVD sales and reviews and take home a little lesson for next time.
* '''Limited releases:''' Many independent films are released in less than a few hundred theatres in the USA, which makes it very unlikely for expensive indies to recoup their budget. Also if the movie was released direct-to-video in one territory.
* '''The movie sucks:''' Let's face it. For all the other reasons a movie can bomb, sometimes a movie fails because it's just bad. The story, editing, acting, it all sucks. Somebody put a lot of money into this thing, and man, was that a terrible idea! Maybe the director was phoning it in, or he made poor creative choices because he was blinded by his ego. Maybe the producers were [[WhatDoYouMeanItWasntMadeOnDrugs so bombed out of their skulls on coke]] that they never stopped to think if making the movie was a good idea in the first place. It failed, sucks to be you, better luck next time...[[CreatorKiller if there is a next time]].
* '''Other circumstances:''' Sometimes movies flop due to something that's not directly related to the movie itself or the movie industry as a whole. For example, the first film to lose over a million, ''Film/{{Intolerance}}'', came out at a time when its anti-war sentiments (which were widely held just months earlier) were going against the popular pro-war wave of late 1916 in the middle of World War I. Maybe the director or headlining actor made a derogatory comment that leads to a boycott of the film. {{Disaster movie}}s' sales tend to be hit very hard when bad timing happens thanks to those films appearing to be HarsherInHindsight; the September 11th attacks and the Indian Ocean tsunami, for example, killed a lot of those even though they were obviously filmed prior to the catastrophes. The same effect involves comedies lampooning airports, airlines and the security process, which all brought down the film adaptation of ''Literature/BigTrouble'', which was bumped to the DumpMonths from its original position ten days after the 11th. Another example of unfortunate timing is if a [[GenreKiller genre is killed]] prior to release.
** More recently, the UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic forced many theaters to shut down all over the world (China shuttered in January 2020, and most other countries followed suit through March and April 2020); films such as ''Film/{{Bloodshot|2020}}'' and Pixar's ''WesternAnimation/{{Onward}}'' suffered from it so badly that major studios temporarily halted reporting box office numbers. Several tentpole films even had [[ReleaseDateChange their release dates changed]] when the pandemic hit since almost nobody would be going to the theaters any time soon, and films that couldn't do so ended up getting early digital releases. ''Film/{{Tenet}}'' was the first high profile theatrical release to occur during the pandemic as theaters started reopening in limited capacity, and ended up a valiant failure. Another situation regarding box office during the pandemic is the enforcement of health passports requiring either vaccination or negative PCR tests to be allowed access to theaters in some countries -- even some highly advertised films like ''Film/TheSuicideSquad'' outright tanked the very week that passport was enforced in July 2021 in France for instance, and box office in general has been slashed by about half in the country since health passports are required. As of 2021-2022, while some commentators have said that "box office has recovered" looking at the success of some big tentpoles (''Film/NoTimeToDie'', ''Film/SpiderManNoWayHome'') the truth is that audiences have been bottlenecked towards "big IP" things like them, leaving little to lower/medium budget productions and more mature audience-skewing pictures (a phenomenon that was already at play before but got dramatically increased by the pandemic) and causing such entertainment to increasingly gravitate directly towards streaming platforms and PVOD.

Please remember to take inflation into account when looking at films made decades in the past. ''Film/{{Cleopatra}}'''s $44 million budget in 1963, while nothing impressive today, would be equivalent to $392.5 million in 2021. 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.

According to Wiki/TheOtherWiki, the biggest bomb of all time, according to the ''Guinness Book of World Records'' (before the category was retired), was the 1995 swashbuckling action-comedy ''Film/CutthroatIsland'' with an inflation adjusted loss of $178 million. This catastrophic failure, coupled with the infamous ''Film/{{Showgirls}}'', instantly crushed Creator/CarolcoPictures as a result. The current largest ''confirmed'' loss is ''Film/MortalEngines'' (2018), with a $180 million loss that has pushed ''Island'' into joint second place with ''Film/{{The Lone Ranger|2013}}'' (2013) which at least equals the second biggest loss after losing at least $178 million at the box office but may have lost up to $209 million making it a contender for the biggest bomb of all time. Just outside the top three are ''WesternAnimation/SinbadLegendOfTheSevenSeas'' (2003) at $174 million and ''Film/{{Battleship}}'' (2012) with $169 million.

There is some ambiguity however in that there are two other films that may have lost even more: ''Film/The13thWarrior'' (1999) with a loss ranging from the fairly depressing $107 million to an eye watering $200 million, and ''Film/JohnCarter'' (2012) with a range from a pretty dire $129 million to an insane ''$225 million'' lost. Both of these, as well as ''The Lone Ranger'', were from Creator/{{Disney}} (though the former most has the Touchstone Pictures label attached to it, due to its more adult content), a multibillion-dollar company that '''easily''' weathered those losses unlike Carolco.

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.

** More recently, the UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic forced many theaters to shut down all over the world (China shuttered in January 2020, and most other countries followed suit through March and April 2020); films such as ''Film/{{Bloodshot|2020}}'' and Pixar's ''WesternAnimation/{{Onward}}'' suffered from it so badly that major studios temporarily halted reporting box office numbers. Several tentpole films even had [[ReleaseDateChange their release dates changed]] when the pandemic hit since almost nobody would be going to the theaters any time soon, and films that couldn't do so ended up getting early digital releases. ''Film/{{Tenet}}'' was the first high profile theatrical release to occur during the pandemic as theaters started reopening in limited capacity, and ended up a valiant failure. Another situation regarding box office during the pandemic is the enforcement of health passports requiring either vaccination or negative PCR tests to be allowed access to theaters in some countries -- even some highly advertised films like ''Film/TheSuicideSquad'' outright tanked the very week that passport was enforced in July 2021 in France for instance, and box office in general has been slashed by about half in the country since health passports are required. As of 2021-2022, while some commentators have said that "box office has recovered" looking at the success of some big tentpoles (''Film/NoTimeToDie'', ''Film/SpiderManNoWayHome'') the truth is that audiences have been bottlenecked towards big IP hings like them, leaving little to more mature audience-skewing pictures (a phenomenon that was already at play before but got dramatically increased by the pandemic) and causing such entertainment to gravitate towards streaming more and more.

** More recently, the UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic forced many theaters to shut down all over the world (China shuttered in January 2020, and most other countries followed suit through March and April 2020); films such as ''Film/{{Bloodshot|2020}}'' and Pixar's ''WesternAnimation/{{Onward}}'' suffered from it so badly that major studios temporarily halted reporting box office numbers. Several tentpole films even had [[ReleaseDateChange their release dates changed]] when the pandemic hit since almost nobody would be going to the theaters any time soon, and films that couldn't do so ended up getting early digital releases. ''Film/{{Tenet}}'' was the first high profile theatrical release to occur during the pandemic as theaters started reopening in limited capacity, and ended up a valiant failure. Another situation regarding box office during the pandemic is the enforcement of health passports requiring either vaccination or negative PCR tests to be allowed access to theaters in some countries -- even some highly advertised films like ''Film/TheSuicideSquad'' outright tanked the very week that passport was enforced in July 2021 in France for instance, and box office in general has been slashed by about half in the country since health passports are required.

* '''Other circumstances:''' Sometimes movies flop due to something that's not directly related to the movie itself or the movie industry as a whole. For example, the first film to lose over a million, ''Film/{{Intolerance}}'', came out at a time when its anti-war sentiments (which were widely held just months earlier) were going against the popular pro-war wave of late 1916. Maybe the director or headlining actor made a derogatory comment that leads to a boycott of the film. {{Disaster movie}}s' sales tend to be hit very hard when bad timing happens thanks to those films appearing to be HarsherInHindsight; the September 11th attacks and the Indian Ocean tsunami, for example, killed a lot of those even though they were obviously filmed prior to the catastrophes. The same effect involves comedies lampooning airports, airlines and the security process, which all brought down the film adaptation of ''Literature/BigTrouble'', which was bumped to the DumpMonths from its original position ten days after the 11th. Another example of unfortunate timing is if a [[GenreKiller genre is killed]] prior to release.

* '''Other circumstances:''' Sometimes movies flop due to something that's not directly related to the movie itself or the movie industry as a whole. For example, the first film to lose over a million, ''Film/{{Intolerance}}'', came out at a time when its anti-war sentiments (which were widely held just months earlier) were going against the popular pro-war wave of late 1916. Maybe the director or headlining actor made a derogatory comment that leads to a boycott of the film. {{Disaster movie}}s' sales tend to be it very hard when bad timing happens thanks to them feeling HarsherInHindsight; the September 11th attacks and the Indian Ocean tsunami, for example, killed a lot of those even though they were obviously filmed prior to the catastrophes. The same effect involves comedies lampooning airports, airlines and the security process, which all brought down the film adaptation of ''Literature/BigTrouble'', which was bumped to the DumpMonths from its original position ten days after the 11th. Another example of unfortunate timing is if a [[GenreKiller genre is killed]] prior to release.

* '''Other circumstances:''' Sometimes movies flop due to something that's not directly related to the movie itself or the movie industry as a whole. For example, the first film to lose over a million, ''Film/{{Intolerance}}'', came out at a time when its anti-war sentiments (which were widely held just months earlier) were going against the popular pro-war wave of late 1916. Maybe the director or headlining actor made a derogatory comment that leads to a boycott of the film. {{Funny Aneurysm Moment}}s tend to hit {{disaster movie}}s' sales very hard when bad timing happens; the September 11th attacks and the Indian Ocean tsunami, for example, killed a lot of those even though they were obviously filmed prior to the catastrophes. The same effect involves comedies lampooning airports, airlines and the security process, which all brought down the film adaptation of ''Literature/BigTrouble'', which was bumped to the DumpMonths from its original position ten days after the 11th. Another example of unfortunate timing is if a [[GenreKiller genre is killed]] prior to release.

According to Wiki/TheOtherWiki, the biggest bomb of all time, according to the ''Guinness Book of World Records'' (before the category was retired), was the 1995 swashbuckling comedy ''Film/CutthroatIsland'' with an inflation adjusted loss of $178 million. This catastrophic failure, coupled with the infamous ''Film/{{Showgirls}}'', instantly crushed Creator/CarolcoPictures as a result. The current largest ''confirmed'' loss is ''Film/MortalEngines'' (2018), with a $180 million loss that has pushed ''Island'' into joint second place with ''Film/{{The Lone Ranger|2013}}'' (2013) which at least equals the second biggest loss after losing at least $178 million at the box office but may have lost up to $209 million making it a contender for the biggest bomb of all time. Just outside the top three are ''WesternAnimation/SinbadLegendOfTheSevenSeas'' (2003) at $174 million and ''Film/{{Battleship}}'' (2012) with $169 million.

According to Wiki/TheOtherWiki, the biggest bomb of all time, according to the ''Guinness Book of World Records'' (before the category was retired), was the 1995 swashbuckling comedy ''Film/CutthroatIsland'' with an inflation adjusted loss of $178 million. This catastrophic failure, coupled with the infamous ''Film/{{Showgirls}}'', instantly crushed Creator/CarolcoPictures as a result. The current largest ''confirmed'' loss is ''Film/MortalEngines'' (2018), with a $180 million loss that has pushed ''Island'' into joint second place with ''Film/{{The Lone Ranger|2013}}'' (2013) which at least equals the second biggest loss after losing at least $178 million at the box office but may have lost up to $209 million making it a contender for the biggest bomb of all time. Just outside the top three are ''WesternAnimation/SinbadLegendOfTheSevenSeas'' (20]3) at $174 million and ''Film/{{Battleship}}'' (2012) with $169 million.

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-dollar range.

So, how can you tell when a movie has bombed? This depends on several factors. First is how much the studio paid to make the movie, paying all those people and companies you see in the credits at the end, which is generally public information. How much the studio paid to promote the movie is also an important factor. The marketing budget is generally not public information but is generally a significant percentage of the film's overall cost. A $150-million production may well have had $75 million spent to advertise it. Furthermore, since movie theaters don't just show movies for free, a portion of every ticket sold goes to supporting the theater itself. And of course, if the film is based on something, like a video game or a comic, somebody's got to shell out for the rights to use the names and setting, and that can really rack up the bills. Put these together, and you can see that a movie mustn't merely cover its budget but probably needs to make at least twice that before it can begin paying for its marketing costs, much less become profitable.

A common objection at this point is to bring up the [[GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff international box office]]. After all, the film made several hundred million more than its budget around the world; clearly these studios just want us to think only America matters and the Hollywood press keeps buying it! Right? Well, actually… not really. Or at least, not always. While the rest of the world is a much bigger market and can rack up film returns in the billions, behind these numbers, overseas distribution is actually a lot less profitable for the studios themselves. Like with domestic theaters, foreign theaters need to make money off of ticket sales, and they're more inclined to support movies made locally as opposed to internationally-made movies. As such, films shown overseas will often see even less of a return than the domestic gross and may have additional costs like needing a local dub track. How much the international box office helps can also vary depending on the country in question. So studios still count on covering their costs domestically and judge a movie accordingly. While it's possible in practice, [[AvertedTrope aversions]] tend to be from marginal cases. Around the world, taste in American movies tends to favor the same films, and the biggest hits at home are also the biggest hits around the world.

* '''Misreading the market:''' Probably the biggest reason that a movie fails is that it's just plain hard to know what people will like. Worse, what the public likes changes all the time. Something that was innovative two years ago when you tried to FollowTheLeader and greenlit the movie is now a [[ClicheStorm tired old cliché]] nobody will see. Maybe you [[ViewersAreMorons underestimated the audience...]] or [[ViewersAreGeniuses overestimated]] them, or maybe you [[UncertainAudience don't even know]] which audience you want to attract. The point is: sometimes even your best efforts fail.

* '''The movie sucks:''' Let's face it. For all the other reasons a movie can bomb, sometimes a movie fails because it's just a bad movie. The story, the editing, the acting, it all sucks. Somebody put a lot of money into this thing, and man, was that a terrible idea! Maybe the director was phoning it in, or he made poor creative choices because he was blinded by his ego. Maybe the producers were [[WhatDoYouMeanItWasntMadeOnDrugs so bombed out of their skulls on coke]] that they never stopped to think if making the movie was a good idea in the first place. It failed, sucks to be you, better luck next time...[[CreatorKiller if there is a next time]].
* '''Other circumstances:''' Sometimes movies flop due to something that's not directly related to the movie itself or the movie industry as a whole. For example, the first film to lose over a million dollars, ''Film/{{Intolerance}}'', came out at a time when its anti-war sentiments (which were widely held just months earlier) were going against the popular pro-war wave of late 1916. Maybe the director or headlining actor made a derogatory comment that leads to a boycott of the film. {{Funny Aneurysm Moment}}s tend to hit {{disaster movie}}s' sales very hard when bad timing happens; the September 11th attacks and the Indian Ocean tsunami, for example, killed a lot of those even though they were obviously filmed prior to the catastrophes. The same effect involves comedies lampooning airports, airlines, and the security process, which all brought down the film adaptation of ''Literature/BigTrouble'', which was bumped to the DumpMonths from its original position ten days after the 11th. Another example of unfortunate timing is if a movie's [[GenreKiller genre is killed]] prior to release.
** More recently, the UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic forced many theaters to shut down all over the world (China closed their theaters in January 2020, and most other countries followed suit through March and April 2020); films such as ''Film/{{Bloodshot|2020}}'' and Pixar's ''WesternAnimation/{{Onward}}'' suffered from it so badly that major studios temporarily halted reporting box office numbers. Several tentpole films even had [[ReleaseDateChange their release dates changed]] when the pandemic hit since almost nobody would be going to the theaters any time soon, and films that couldn't do so ended up getting early digital releases. ''Film/{{Tenet}}'' was the first high profile theatrical release to occur during the pandemic as theaters started reopening in limited capacity, and ended up a valiant failure. Another situation regarding box office during the pandemic is the enforcement of health passports requiring either vaccination or negative PCR tests to be allowed access to theaters in some countries -- even some highly advertised films like ''Film/TheSuicideSquad'' outright tanked the very week that passport was enforced in July 2021 in France for instance, and box office in general has been slashed by about half in the country since health passports are required.

Please remember to take inflation into account when looking at films made decades in the past. ''Film/{{Cleopatra}}'''s $44 million budget in 1963, while nothing impressive today, would be equivalent to $392.5 million in 2021 dollars. 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.

According to Wiki/TheOtherWiki, the biggest bomb of all time, according to the ''Guinness Book of World Records'' (before the category was retired), was ''Film/CutthroatIsland'' with an inflation adjusted loss of $178 million. This catastrophic failure along with ''Film/{{Showgirls}}'' instantly crushed Creator/CarolcoPictures as a result. The current largest ''confirmed'' loss is ''Film/MortalEngines'', with a $180 million loss that has pushed ''Island'' into joint second place with ''Film/TheLoneRanger2013'' which is at least equally the second biggest loss after losing at least $178 million at the box office but may have lost up to $209 million making it a contender for the biggest bomb of all time. Just outside the top three are ''WesternAnimation/SinbadLegendOfTheSevenSeas'' which lost $174 million and ''Film/{{Battleship}}'' which lost $169 million.

There is some ambiguity however in that there are two other films that may have lost even more: ''Film/The13thWarrior'' with a loss ranging from the fairly depressing $107 million to an eye watering $200 million, and ''Film/JohnCarter'' with a range from a pretty dire $129 million to an insane ''$225 million'' lost. Both of these, as well as ''Film/TheLoneRanger2013'', were from Creator/{{Disney}} (though the former most has the Touchstone Pictures label attached to it, due to its more adult content), a multibillion-dollar company that '''easily''' weathered those losses unlike Carolco.

'''[[Administrivia/NoRecentExamplesPlease Please do not add any examples which have not finished their initial theatrical run,]] as it can be possible for films, still running theatrically which seem like box office bombs, to be able to recoup their budget, albeit slower than other films.'''

* '''Misreading the market:''' Probably the biggest reason that a movie fails is that it's just plain hard to know what people will like. Worse, what the public likes changes all the time. Something that was innovative two years ago when you tried to FollowTheLeader and greenlit the movie is now a [[ClicheStorm tired old cliché]] nobody will see. Maybe you [[ViewersAreMorons underestimated the audience…]] or [[ViewersAreGeniuses overestimated]] them, or maybe you [[UncertainAudience don't even know]] which audience you want to attract. The point is: sometimes even your best efforts fail.

[[https://bombreport.com/ "Bomb Report"]] contains many examples box office bombs released since 1997 in further detail.

* ''Film/TropicThunder'': The MovieWithinAMovie ''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]].

!!Examples:

!! InUniverse examples:
* ''Film/TropicThunder'': In-universe, ''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]].

* [[BoxOfficeBomb/CThroughD C–D]]

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

* [[BoxOfficeBomb/IThroughM I–M]]