The 10 Biggest Box Office Flops And Disappointments Of 2023 Ranked
It has been a banner year at the box office. The recovery in the aftermath of the pandemic has been slower than many in the industry were hoping for, but the good news is that the box office, overall, is up in 2023 compared to 2022. Audiences are proving that they are more than willing to return to theaters when properly motivated to do so. What we learned this year is that what worked in the past isn't going to work in the future. From sequels that seemingly nobody asked for and even superhero movies, the tastes of the moviegoing public appear to be changing. For the first time in decades, the three biggest movies of the year — "Barbie," "Oppenheimer," and "The Super Mario Bros. Movie" — are not sequels. That says an awful lot.
No year, not even the best year in cinematic history, is devoid of misfires. It's just the cost of doing business. But 2023 was full of surprising flops, many of which were incredibly disappointing for those who love movies. Ambitious originals couldn't find their audience, superhero movies that deserved better arrived at the wrong time, and budgets that spiraled out of control doomed certain movies from the start. It's never fun to talk about but there are lessons to learn from every costly flop, lessons that Hollywood can hopefully learn from to prevent similar misfires in the future. That being the case, we're here to look at the ten biggest flops and disappointments from 2023. This list was assembled by examining the hard numbers and taking into account our past year of box office reporting on /Film. Let's get into it.
10. Renfield
Nicolas Cage has been on quite the upswing following a rough period where he was doing mostly direct-to-video schlock. "Renfield" marked his return to studio filmmaking after years away, and one of the most unpredictable actors working today was set to take on the role of Dracula alongside Nicholas Hoult as the vampire's trusty assistant. It honestly seemed like a very good idea on paper. Unfortunately, this one simply didn't pan out for Universal Pictures.
Against a sizable budget in the $65 million range, director Chris McKay's take on the well-trodden source material tanked in theaters, topping out at just $26.7 million worldwide. The film made less than $10 million overseas and was essentially dead on arrival. Critics were mixed on the film overall, even if Cage's portrayal of Dracula garnered quite a bit of praise. In the end, it simply failed to connect with general audiences and got buried by other box office juggernauts including "The Super Mario Bros. Movie," "John Wick: Chapter 4" and, to a lesser degree, "The Pope's Exorcist." The only saving grace here is that horror movies can have a long shelf life if they go on to gain any sort of cult status, so maybe, just maybe, on a long enough timeline, this one can find its audience on VOD/streaming. But this year, it was a huge bust.
9. The Creator
Gareth Edwards took a good, long break from directing after 2016's "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story" hit theaters. The movie was a gigantic success and, without a doubt, he could have been back in the saddle sooner had he wanted to be. But Edwards deliberately chose his next project, which ended up taking the form of "The Creator." A sweeping, high-concept, big-budget sci-fi epic, it's the kind of film that is difficult to make outside of major franchises. Unfortunately, despite Edwards' best efforts, it ended up proving just why it's so hard to make big original movies these days.
Despite earning largely favorable reviews, "The Creator" topped out at just $104 million worldwide. Edwards was relatively thrifty and somehow made a movie that looks like a $200 million blockbuster for just $80 million. That's the saving grace for New Regency and Disney here. The bad news is that it still isn't going to come anywhere close to breaking even, at least not anytime soon. Perhaps over time with VOD, streaming, and other revenue streams, it could recoup that budget. Unfortunately, it didn't pan out well enough to push other big studios to take big bets on original concepts. It's a real shame too because Edwards really tried to prove that these movies can be made for less than the average blockbuster. It was an admirable swing and a bummer of a miss.
8. Hypnotic
Robert Rodriguez also got in on the original sci-fi game in 2023 with a mind-bending thriller in the form of "Hypnotic." With Ben Affleck leading the way, the film premiered at SXSW and hit theaters in early summer. And, to put it lightly, things didn't pan out. Despite having an A-list director and an A-list actor on board, the movie hardly registered with the moviegoing public and arrived with a thud, opening to just $2.4 million against a sizable $65 million budget. It was a disaster in the making.
Things didn't get any better from there as the film topped out at just $15.7 million worldwide, a mere fraction of the production cost, which doesn't even account for marketing. In fairness to Rodriguez, this film was hampered greatly by the pandemic, with production forced to stop and start multiple times, adding a great deal to the final cost. It didn't help matters any that critics were largely unimpressed with the final product. Nor did it help that "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3," "The Super Mario Bros. Movie," and "Evil Dead Rise," among others, were there to pull the attention of moviegoers at that time. Despite the talent involved, it was a bad movie released at a bad time with a rushed marketing campaign that resulted in a financial trainwreck. Unlike "The Creator," however, it's far more difficult to imagine this movie finding its audience over time.
7. Haunted Mansion
Disney has been chasing the success of "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl" for 20 years now. The studio very successfully managed to turn one of its theme park attractions into not just one very big movie, but a multi-billion-dollar franchise. In the years since that success, the Mouse House may well have lost more money than it's made by chasing that dragon. To that end, Disney once again found itself on the wrong end of a theme park adaptation with this year's "Haunted Mansion."
Directed by Justin Simien and featuring a star-studded cast led by Rosario Dawson, the $150 million movie based on the beloved attraction was released smack-dab in the middle of summer at the tail end of July. This was right in the middle of the Barbenheimer craze, with both "Barbie" and "Oppenheimer" taking the lion's share of attention. The movie opened to a rough $24 million and, from there, it never got any better. It topped out just $117 million worldwide, making less than $50 million overseas. Nobody could have predicted just how big the Barbenheimer thing was going to be, which certainly contributed to the mess here. That aside, it probably would have made more sense to release this movie closer to Halloween where there would have been less direct competition.
Would that have made enough of a difference? Probably not. But when we're looking at a flop this big, getting any closer to out of the red would be worthwhile. It's also, amazingly enough, the second time an adaptation of this ride has failed, as Eddie Murphy's 2003 version was also a flop. It's time to put this one to bed for good, it seems.
6. Wish
Not to pick on Disney here (and sadly the studio will be on this list a couple more times) but it just has not been their year. Animation was — and in many ways still is — the backbone of the storied studio. It looked like "Wish" could have been a way for Walt Disney Animation to get back on its feet after the calamitous performance of "Strange World" last year. It didn't pan out that way, and the original animated musical finds itself in bad shape following a less-than-stellar start to its theatrical run. Granted, the movie still has some gas in the tank but, at this stage, it's clear that this one is not going to pan out.
To date, director Chris Buck and Fawn Veerasunthorn's film has grossed $106 million worldwide since hitting theaters on November 22 following its sub-par $19.6 million opening weekend. The movie carries an inescapably steep $200 million production budget and, as it stands, is going to lose a fortune during its theatrical run. The only hope Disney has is for the film to catch fire when it eventually hits Disney+, much like what happened with "Encanto" in 2021. At this point, a miraculous turnaround like Pixar's "Elemental" pulled off isn't in the cards. The studio is going to have to hope that this one can somehow find love in a very meaningful way beyond the big screen. As for the future? It's getting increasingly tough to see where Walt Disney Animation Studios goes from here as far as originals are concerned. It looks grim right now. We can only hope something comes along to turn the tide.
5. Freelance
Of any title on this list, you would be completely forgiven for not even realizing that "Freelance" was, indeed, a real movie with real movie stars in it released in 2023. The $40 million budgeted comedic thriller starring John Cena and Allison Brie came and went with so little fanfare when it hit theaters in late October that one might have confused it for a low-budget affair that was mostly relying on VOD revenue to cover the spread. But Relativity had a great deal of money invested in this one and, despite its bankable cast, it turned out to be an utter catastrophe.
Directed by Pierre Morel, the film has made just $8.8 million worldwide to date. It is already available on VOD and undoubtedly will make its way to a major streaming platform before long. And maybe eventually the DVD will end up in the bargain bin at Walmart where it will complete its lifecycle as a bonafide financial failure. There's no real mystery here, this one just got away from the studio. Case in point, this movie carries a dismal 7% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, indicating that it's not some modern action classic that audiences just missed out on. The studio seemed to know they had a rotten egg on their hands so they dumped it in theaters with minimal marketing to help mitigate losses. All the same, someone lost an awful lot of money on this one.
4. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
Disney spent years and years developing a fifth "Indiana Jones" film after the studio's purchase of Lucasfilm in 2012. The project went through many different writers, incarnations, and even directors as Steven Spielberg eventually stepped away, with James Mangold ("Logan") taking his place. After all that time, we ended up with "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny." The movie itself is something fans will be discussing and re-evaluating for years to come, but Disney is, in the immediate aftermath, left to pick up the pieces of one of the biggest theatrical flops in recent memory. We're talking on the same level as "John Carter." It's that bad.
Against a colossal $300 million production budget (not accounting for marketing), "Dial of Destiny" topped out at just $384 million worldwide. Given that studios only keep about half of the money from ticket sales, it's easy to see how the math does not work out in Disney's favor here. Sure, the film will bring some value to Disney+ and whatnot but we're talking about tens of millions worth of losses in the short run — if not much more. Granted, "Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" made $790 million even against mixed reviews in its day. But that was 15 years ago. Much has changed.
Harrison Ford certainly deserved one last ride as Indy. But it sure as hell would have been helpful if all involved could have managed to knock $100 million or so off of the budget. Having to film during the pandemic sure as hell didn't help matters but when we're talking about numbers this high, it's difficult to find an excuse. You just can't spend this much money on a movie and set yourself up for success. It's a painful lesson the industry at large learned more than once this year.
3. The Marvels
Yes, it's Disney making yet another, final appearance on this list. And yes, it's a heartily disappointing one, illustrating just how rough of a year the studio had this year at the box office. It was, to put it delicately, not a banner year for the legendary studio led by CEO Bob Iger. To that end, even the Marvel Cinematic Universe, arguably the most reliable franchise in the history of cinema, largely failed them this year, save for the success of "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3." And while "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania" was a big disappointment, it was "The Marvels" that would set a new low bar for the MCU — one that Marvel Studios can ill-afford to repeat ever again.
"The Marvels" isn't quite done at the box office yet but, given that Disney isn't even officially reporting box office figures for the film anymore, the coffin has already been nailed shut. Against a $220 million budget, director Nia DaCosta's "Captain Marvel" sequel has made just $202 million worldwide. It is by far the lowest-grossing MCU movie ever, it will be the first MCU movie to not cross $100 million domestically, and we're talking about a sequel to a movie that made $1.12 billion just four years ago. A Marvel movie making so little would have been downright unthinkable even a couple of years ago. But this is the new reality we're living in, and it's one that Disney is going to have to contend with.
For now, we'll spare the talk of what this might mean for the future of the MCU. In the present, it is a big signifier that the age of presumed superhero dominance is truly over (more on that in a minute). Gone are the days when these movies could coast to $500 million worldwide. It's just a real shame that it happened to a movie that audiences seem to like, and one that was directed by a woman with a female superhero team front and center. There is ample opportunity for Disney and Marvel to take the wrong lessons away from this one. Let's just hope that's not what happens.
2. Expend4bles
Lionsgate had a pretty damn good year, all things considered. They launched very successful entries in three of its biggest franchises, including "John Wick: Chapter 4," "Saw X," and "The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes." But they can't all be winners and the studio suffered a real blow to the bottom line with the long-awaited revival of the action series, "The Expendables." Audiences couldn't have cared less, it seems, as the ridiculously titled "Expend4bles" ranks as one of the largest out-and-out theatrical flops of the year.
Directed by Scott Waugh, the fourth entry in the aging action star series topped out at just $51 million worldwide against a blockbuster-sized $100 million budget. Again, Lionsgate is only going to see about half of the money from ticket sales and that budget doesn't account for marketing. This isn't just a flop; it's a downright ruinous result for a mid-size movie studio. Lionsgate can't weather storms in the same way that the majors like Disney or Warner Bros. can. These flops hurt worse for them. At the same time, the studio should have known better after "Expendables 3" made just $209 million against a similar budget back in 2014. But the allure of blockbuster glory was too much for them to resit.
There is virtually no chance that this movie will be able to recoup that money, even with VOD, cable rights, streaming, etc. Sylvester Stallone leading an Avengers-like group of action heroes was a good idea back in the early 2010s. Now? It's a tired concept that nobody asked for more of. Even adding in fresh faces like Megan Fox and 50 Cent couldn't come close to arousing interest from general moviegoers. One can only hope that Lionsgate finally learns that chasing that blockbuster dragon has resulted in far more misses than it has hits over the years. A sequel for the sake of a sequel — especially an expensive one — is bad business. Plain and simple.
1. The DC Universe
Warner Bros. Discovery seems optimistic about the future of the DC Universe, with DC Studios heads James Gunn and Peter Safran set to reboot the franchise in the coming years beginning with "Superman: Legacy" in 2025. If 2023 taught the studio anything, it's that change is very much needed. While the jury is still out on "Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom," every other DC movie released in theaters this year bombed and bombed badly. No two ways about it, nobody had a worse year than DC with "Shazam! Fury of the Gods," "The Flash," and "Blue Beetle" all disappointing greatly in their theatrical runs. It is difficult to even calculate how much money Warner Bros. might have lost on this trio of movies. If "Aquaman" falls short as well? Oh boy ...
"Blue Beetle" ($129 million worldwide/$100 million budget), "Fury of the Gods" ($133 million worldwide/$125 million budget), and "The Flash" ($270 million worldwide/$200 million budget) all flopped. "Blue Beetle" was originally supposed to go directly to streaming so one could argue that any box office is better than no box office. Even still, the result was bad. In the case of "Fury of the Gods," we're talking about a sequel to a downright beloved movie, making that performance particularly hard to swallow. It's, without hyperbole, one of the biggest superhero movie flops ever. The much-troubled "Flash" movie couldn't pack in enough cameos or Batmans to make audiences care and, because of its much bigger budget, it may lose more money for the studio than "Shazam!" It's all bad.
The concern now is whether or not the DCU reboot will be enough to make audiences care again. Resoundingly, the general public said "We don't care" in regards to everything released in theaters this year with the DC name attached to it. The pressure is now on for Gunn and Safran to steer the ship in the right direction or an entire cinematic universe could be in very serious trouble.
How this list was made
This ranking was created through a combination of independent research and expert opinion. We compiled all relevant data, studied/watched all relevant material, and used our best professional judgment to determine the order of the list. The final order was determined by examining the larger cultural ramifications of each entry, as well as our take on the material, as determined by the past year of our work and analysis at /Film.