The Biggest Box Office Flops Of 2022

It's been a slow climb out of the hole that 2020 dug for the box office, as the pandemic straight-up upended the movie business as we knew it. The good news is that 2022 brought us a great many hits, such as "Top Gun: Maverick," "The Batman," and "Smile," accounting for an increase of more than 80% in ticket sales compared to this same time last year. It's mostly good news. However, the word "mostly" is doing quite a bit of heavy lifting there, if we're being totally honest.

Indeed, even in a year where every movie in the top 10 earned at least $400 million worldwide, Hollywood also suffered a number of high-profile flops that are indicative of the state of the industry right now. Everything from Oscar bait to star-heavy dramas to blockbusters that once seemed like a sure thing didn't live up to box office expectations. Even R-rated comedies with reasonable budgets failed. Nothing seemed safe outside of superheroes (save for you, Morbius) and horror flicks. So, while it brings me no joy to highlight failures, here are the biggest box office bombs of 2022, with a little bit of insight regarding what we can learn from them along.

Sometimes, all of the right pieces can seem to be in place and yet, everything can still go wrong. Universal bet on Billy Eichner to deliver the first R-rated, gay studio rom-com ever, and he delivered in the form of the critically-acclaimed "Bros." Unfortunately, even with Nicholas Stoller ("Neighbors") directing and Judd Apatow producing, audiences just couldn't be bothered to go see this one in theaters. Against a reasonable $22 million budget, the film earned less than $12 million domestically and almost nothing internationally, pulling in a grand total of $14.7 million. The real shame here is that this could discourage studios from taking similar bets in the future, or they could be relegated entirely to the streaming world.

It's hard not to feel a little bit bad for Disney on this one. The studio inherited a bundle of big flops after the merger with Fox, including "Dark Phoenix" and "The New Mutants." But given that "Murder on the Orient Express" was such a big hit ($352 million against a $55 million budget), the follow-up "Death on the Nile" seemed destined for similar success, right? Not so much. Unfortunately, the Armie Hammer of it all, coupled with the uncertainty of the post-pandemic marketplace, doomed Kenneth Branagh's sequel from the jump. With a much larger $90 million budget, several delays, and controversy working against it, Hercule Poirot's latest adventure floundered with $137.3 million worldwide, including a very poor $45.6 million domestic haul. Yet, amazingly enough, Disney seems to be happy with what it did on streaming: a sequel, "A Haunting in Venice," is on the way. Still, the raw theatrical numbers make this a flop, no two ways about it.

On the one hand, in terms of raw dollars, "Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore" is far and away the highest-grossing movie on this entire list, as it earned $405.1 million worldwide. The problem? The third installment in the "Harry Potter" spin-off series headed up by the ever-controversial J.K. Rowling cost a whopping $200 million to produce (before marketing). Coupled with poor reviews, that was enough to kill the franchise dead in its tracks, with the fourth entry halted by Warner Bros. Granted, the Ezra Miller of it all didn't help anything either. In any event, this is also the only movie on this list that killed what was once a very promising, financially viable, mega-budget franchise. So yeah, a pretty big flop for sure, despite the decent raw ticket sales.

Not to be dramatic, but it's quite possible the director Roland Emmerich's "Moonfall" will go down as one of the biggest blockbuster financial disasters in history. The man who once brought us "Independence Day" has had his fair share of big misfires over the years, but this one takes the cake. Unfortunately, Lionsgate got caught in the crosshairs. With a huge budget said to be in the $140 million range, the film topped out at a disastrous $67.2 million – worldwide. Yep! It only made $19 million domestically, which is panic button stuff for a movie this expensive. This is the kind of flop that ruins careers and gets people fired. It's about as bad as things get, rivaled perhaps only by legendary disasters such as "The Adventures of Pluto Nash."

Honestly, while the long-in-development "Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank" ended up being a financial disappointment for Paramount, the studio was probably just happy to finally have this seemingly cursed project off of its books. The movie had been in development for years, suffering setback after setback. Against all odds, it was finally finished somewhat quietly and was released in July, right in the heart of the summer movie season, where it mostly kept to itself and tanked with as much dignity as a movie can. It topped out at a mere $41.6 million worldwide, failing to even match its $45 million budget. Fortunately, Paramount seemed to know this was a lost cause and didn't market it all that hard, saving some money that way. In time, this one could get into the green through VOD and streaming, but, at the very best, it's going to be drops of juice that simply weren't worth the squeeze.

Disney is, to say the very least of it, a long way from its dizzying box office highs experienced in 2019 when the likes of "Avengers: Endgame," "Frozen II," and "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker" all made well over $1 billion each. In the case of "Endgame," it actually got closer to $3 billion and was, for a moment, the highest-grossing movie ever. But that was an eternity ago, it feels like, and "Strange World" is perhaps the biggest evidence of that fact. The animated original debuted in theaters over the Thanksgiving holiday with next to no awareness from moviegoers, setting it up for a legendarily bad run. As of this writing, it has earned just over $53 million globally against a steep budget said to be as high as $180 million. Giving "Moonfall" a run for its money here and, when all's said and done, this will probably go down as the biggest flop in Disney's history, rivaled perhaps only by "John Carter." Brutal doesn't even begin to cover it.

When Fox (prior to the Disney merger) gave the green light to "The Bob's Burgers Movie," they were undoubtedly thinking about the time "The Simpsons Movie" made an astounding $536 million. But that was 15 years ago, and 2022 is simply not the same. To that point, the big screen adaptation of the long-running animated series petered out in a big, bad way, topping out at just $34.1 million worldwide. The vast majority of that, nearly $32 million, came domestically. Unfortunately, that didn't come close to justifying the $38 million budget. In the future, expect these movies to be made specifically for streaming, or not at all. Who knows? Maybe that's for the best, and maybe this is one of the few areas where it simply makes more sense to go the streaming route right from the jump.

Last, but certainly not least, we have an entry that truly stings for many reasons. George Miller gave us one of the greatest blockbusters of all time with "Mad Max: Fury Road" and yes, he's busy revisiting the series with the upcoming prequel "Furiosa." But, before that, he decided to make a passion project in the form of "Three Thousand Years of Longing," with Tilda Swinton and Idris Elba leading the way. Tragically, for Miller and United Artists, this was one of the biggest whiffs of 2022. The film opened to less than $3 million and was DOA, topping out at a pathetic $8.2 million domestic, with just $10.9 million internationally. Yes, it made less than $20 million globally. Ouch. The worst part? It carried a $60 million budget before marketing. Again, a downright tragedy for those who wish to see original movies in theaters above the micro-budget level. Miller deserved better.