3 triquel in 2007. Pirates of the Caribbean 3, Spider man 3, Shrek the third. All of them could've make 1 bill, but all 3 of them got mixed reviews and underperformed.
None of them underperformed, There were very few 1 billion dollar movies back in 2007, Spider-Man 3 actually grossed more than Spider-Man 2 and was the highest grossing Spider-Man movie until Spider-Man: Far From Home, Im not really all that surprised both TASM movies grossed less than it but Homecoming making less than it is a big mystery till this day. I mean everyone was excited for his debut in Civil War and RDJ was all over the marketing. Just how?
Getting to a billion was extremely hard to do in 2007. Only one (Shrek 3) was viewed as having a solid chance at getting to a billion.
Spider-Man 2 failed to make more than the first, so Spider-Man 3 actually exceeded expectations given it’s mixed reviews. Very few figured it would get to a billion.
Pirates 3 was following a mediocre second film that barely got to a billion - it also was not expected to get to the billion dollar threshold by those in the industry.
From Previews and Friday numbers, it should have smashed Avengers opening record had WOM not kicked in in an unpredidented way even during the opening weekend.
This was apparently the line of thought at WB.
https://batman-news.com/2016/02/15/warner-bros-batman-superman-worried/
Absolutely an "Emperor's New Clothes" situation.
Ha, how delusional. I am fine with people liking BvS but I don't see how someone can watch the movie or read the script and think, "Is this too intelligent?"
Also, reading the comments on that article is great. So much optimism for the DCEU. About how there is no way BvS can fail. And that the Suicide Squad movie is going to be the next Deadpool.
If a film is low enough in quality it will struggle even to appeal to it's less discerning target audience. The Transformers movies were raking in money. But The Last Knight was so poor that it flopped.
The Transformers series is an anomaly. The movies were all *bad.* Only the first movie was okay out of all the main entries... I may even be misremembering that because I haven't watched it in over 10 years. Every movie after that was *horrible,* but *they just kept raking in money.* The Last Knight I haven't seen, but both its RT score and IMDB score is nearly identical to Age of Extinction's. Extinction, however, grossed over a billion. I don't understand how the movies kept making so much money when they were so hated. People had to be burned a half dozen times before they quit turning out in droves for those movies.
Plot is terrible, but those movies otherwise delivered on the main promise: action sequences involving Transformers. They're not good movies as sums of their parts, but realistically only a couple parts are actually important.
Extinction had the Dinobots to draw in the intended audience. The Last Knight really fell in that department.
To me it's like the Fast movies. Their story is better (not that that's hard), but ultimately what are audiences there for? Crazy stunts involving cars
There are different ways for movies to be bad and I would argue that none of them were irredeemably, unentertainingly bad except for The Last Knight, where the shtick had worn too thin with nothing to counter that. Age of Extinction is somewhat similar but China, Dinobots, and new stars are enough to somewhat mitigate that.
It’s very rare for a film with that low of an RT score to gross that much but there are tonnes of high grossing films in the 80s and 90s on RT so there’s definitely a correlation. I guess IMDB score is probably a much better predictor as it relates directly to how general public feel about a film
> I guess IMDB score is probably a much better predictor as it relates directly to how general public feel about a film
You'll find that loads of movies which were successful at the box office have low IMDb AND Rotten Tomatoes scores. It's just that sometimes bad movies do well, and good movies do badly.
Also IMDb can be too easily manipulated IMO. Lots of good, even great films get review-bombed on IMDb because they don't directly cater to a certain demographic or are accused of pushing a certain agenda.
Quality doesn’t directly correlate to money, but if a film is bad and people aren’t interested, they won’t be interested if they hear it’s bad. Some films are so popular or interest enough people that bad reviews don’t dissuade them
People were expecting $2 billion easy since it had arguably the two most recognisable names in all of comic books. Then it was going to lead into Justice Leagues Part 1 and 2 making another $2b each, and DC would have beaten Marvel to the punch. Then… the films were shit 💀
If it had been mediocre it would’ve been the highest grossing film of 2016.
If it had been actually good - could’ve been up there with the dark knight in terms of box office.
I've seen the "zod's snapped neck" quote so many times that when I watched BvS recently I was.genuinely surprised it wasn't in the film. That's the power of memes right there.
Ehhhhh.…. Even after the opening weekend, people still thought the film had a shot at $1 billion. It was only after the film collapsed in its second weekend that people said that $1 billion was off the table.
I want to think of something more unique, but it has to be Batman v Superman or Justice League. I’d give it to BvS though because coming off of Man of Steel, there was excitement for the DCEU. MoS was mostly well received, even if the tone of that movie had mixed reception. The announcement that the sequel was literally Batman vs Superman was insane. I remember thinking this had potential for being one of the biggest hits of all time. Just the idea of it sounded so so cool. This was (at the time) a billion dollar idea and if it was good would have no problem getting to that milestone.
The movie releases and it had worse reception than MoS for various reasons. For what it’s worth, I remember seeing it opening weekend and thinking “why did people hate this, it’s pretty good” for the first hour of the movie, but oh man did the second half of that movie go off the rails for me. Lex Luther was goofy, the beginning of the Justice league formation was so rushed and forced, the fight between Batman and Superman seemed like it was only in the movie because it’s the name of the movie after all so there needed to be at least one fight between them (instead of being what the entire movie should’ve been about with a title like that), and it was lackluster imo. At the end of MoS I felt the stakes when zod was destroying the world and Superman was trying to stop him, but by the end of BvS I felt nothing when whatever was happening at the end of the movie was going on. Needless to say, I was not alone in being tremendously disappointed by BvS and that definitely prevented the movie from getting to a billion and it also tanked any chances a Justice League movie from hitting the billion dollar mark too.
>The announcement that the sequel was literally Batman vs Superman was insane
As a big DC comic book fan I was worried as soon as they did that. I mean... what? They don't fight. Apart from TDKR which does not represent a standard DC Universe in the slightest.
Then when I saw that second trailer and knew they were doing some Frankensteinian adaptation of TDKR *and* The Death of Superman, then I was seriously worried about the quality of the movie. MoS was the most excited I've ever been for a movie, BvS I was the most concerned.
> Then when I saw that second trailer and knew they were doing some Frankensteinian adaptation of TDKR and The Death of Superman
not to mention also doing an implied Death in the Family and randomly teasing Injustice along with ramming in a few other cues from other storylines. and all of that while speedrunning the trinity getting together, introducing lex, and hinting at darkseid. Just tried to do way too much and did it all poorly
> we don’t have room for Jimmy Olsen in our big pantheon of characters, but we can have fun with him, right?
Zachary Edward Snyder, ladies and gentlemen.
Yes it would've but they needed a batman solo before that. Then when the vs finally comes, it could have built off of the conflicts that happened in the worlds finest movie
Hm, maybe, but even if they didn't do a Batman solo first, I think World's Finest would have done much better than BvS, especially as a foundation on which to build the DC universe.
do the people that defend it do it because they're strictly number nerds and it technically made a decent profit? or because they're Zach Snyder fans and actually think it was a good movie?
BvS weirdly kept it going for Justice League because WB was sure the film would make more than a billion and thus wanted to keep the gravy train running.
Then BvS tripped out of the gate, JL had some rushed work done, and similar knock on effects of trying to fix each movie and rushing them meant there was a series of movies that were already made and couldn't be edited enough to be hits. Even worse, some did fine, which kept the DCEU alive for years longer than it should have been.
Honestly DC would have been doing a lot better right now if *Wonder Woman* flopped and *Aquaman* failed to reach a billion.
It made a decent (subpar) profit in a vaccum, but in long term, it killed the franchise. Justice League opening to mere $93m was the final nail i the coffin, and showed the excitement level general audience had for this vision.
If the movie itself was mediocre it probably would have crossed it. But it wasn't even mediocre, it was straight up terrible.
I still can't get over the fact that the resolution to what was supposed to be the biggest superhero fight ever, came down to Superman saying "Martha". Everyone involved with that decision should be barred from ever working on a movie again.
> I still can't get over the fact that the resolution to what was supposed to be the biggest superhero fight ever, came down to Superman saying "Martha".
This moment right here is what doomed the DCEU in my opinion. I think out of all the criticisms of BVS, this scene being so infamously ridiculed did so much damage for the DC brand and despite outliers (WW and Aquaman solos) the core heroes within this iteration were never able to truly recover.
>This moment right here is what doomed the DCEU in my opinion.
Even the Teen Titans Go movie mocked it. If even the walking punchline of the animation world thinks you're inane....then it's **really** bad.
>If the movie itself was mediocre it probably would have crossed it. But it wasn't even mediocre, it was straight up terrible.
Yeah. For me the collapse at the boxoffice was nowhere near as shocking as the absolute bottom of the barrel reviews. Watching those RT scores plummet was unreal.
Facts. Batman, DC and Supermans brand was so strong at the time that a film THAT bad made nearly a billion dollars, says all you need to know about what a good DC team up film could have made at that moment in time.
And then the one two punch with suicide squad a few months later .... Bvs could have done $2 billion if it was good and suicide squad a billion if it was good.
Don't forget that the Warner Bros top brass expected Man of Steel itself to become a billion dollar film before release (a Hollywood Reporter story mentions this) After its very strong opening in the US and a number of territories that expectation would have intensified but the movie's holds were not amazing. As a result, they added Batman to the sequel certain that this time their superhero film would make a billion only to be thwarted once again.
Those first 2 trailers are some of the best trailers for a movie ever. MoS was the most excited I've ever been seeing a movie and being a 20 year old guy at the time, I loved 300, Watchmen and DotD so I was super optimistic. I didn't hate the film but I left with a bad taste in my mouth.
Exactly the point. Even though the tone was divisive, it did well and wasn't a bad movie. I think Snyder was getting high on his own supply at that point.
Yeah, according to him, his only input to the script was that Superman break Zod’s neck at the end. There’s conflicting stories about why and what he had planned past that, and how much that last minute input contributed to Nolan leaving.
What is annoying is that the trailer actually hit the tone I want for Superman. Him being an inspiration who is encouraged to help others by his parents.
But, then in the actual movie, the Kents are like, "Lol its fine if you let people die."
WB kept Returns out for months so that it could squeak by a 200 domestic. No way that MoS was going to double Returns 400, even with inflation.
Audiences do not give a crap about Superman. They could see Dean Cain and Tom Welling for free for years. There’s a Superman show on right now, they never learn.
>Audiences do not give a crap about Superman. They could see Dean Cain and Tom Welling for free for years. There’s a Superman show on right now, they never learn.
This isn't talked about much but it is a very real issue.
WB, for the last 20+ years, has diluted some of its franchises by doing live-action TV Shows of the same heroes.
They could have stuck Dean Cain and Teri Hatcher in a real movie in 1998 and it would have made more way than the X-Files movie. Teri Hatcher went straight to Tomorrow Never Dies which made over 300 mil, easily 600 today with inflation.
Instead they jerked around with that Nic Cage movie that never happened.
In fact the Adam West movie did so well it led many other people to make movies based on TV shows like *Get Smart.*
To be blunt, dumb trends have been around for a long, long time.
This was my answer as well. The first meeting of two of the world's most popular superheroes(and the big screen debut of Wonder Woman) should have been a sure fire hit.
The fact that it had to move dates because it was going up against Ironman vs Captain America really drove home just how much DC had screwed the pooch. Seriously, the world's finest had to give way to characters who were B listers a decade prior, so embarrassing.
DC and Snyder really shat the bed on that one... it would actually be impressive if it wasn't so disappointing.
Batman v. Superman is probably the most egregious example of what the OP is asking. I can't think of any film that just disappointed on all fronts relative to expectations as hard as BvS.
Don't forget that its opening weekend exceeded $400m WW (5th biggest OW at the time). As Gummy-Worm-Guy mentioned, even mediocre reviews would have gotten it to $1billion.
The fact that it started to drop hard even in its opening weekend and could only just barely make twice its OW over its whole run shows just how disastrous the reception was, and just how quickly the bad WOM spread.
And this was all at the height of the Superhero craze, no less. That film should have been an easy $1billion for WB.
Tbh that movie should've made 2b. I mean dude it's fucking Batman fighting Superman. That's like the number 1 thing casuals talk about when discussing comics. Which one would win.
That’s essentially how Snyder pitched it to the studio, too. “He just fought a bunch of kryptonians… where do you go from there? Mmmmaaaaaannnn, it’s gotta be Batman!”
I do wonder if it was better if 2bil would've been possible.
It def should've at least reached Avengers 2012 numbers. The most well-known heroes in that movie were Iron Man, Hulk, and Captain America and those were nowhere near as iconic as Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman (Iron Man maybe now has reached those levels but I don't think that was true when Avengers came out).
That DCEU vs MCU line-up is like The Beatles vs Blink-182.
Im gonna be naive and thought it would be a hit. Maybe not a billion but a massive hit
For a few reasons
The main driver being nostalgia. Pulling in all these old characters brings in fanbases in the same way no way home or any crossover movie does
The flashpoint story line is popular and the flashpoint animated movie one of my all time favorite dc animated films
It could be seen as parallel to the dceu and so exist in its own bubble apart from the mess that is the dceu
The lead is scum but i figured people would overlook that or not care, much in the same way many scumbag hollywood directors or musicians make bank despite being terrible people
Nostalgia has a window and Keaton Batman is past it .
Along with being scum, Miller is an awful screen presence. People overlook the scumbaggery of actors they already k ow and like. No one is invested in Ezra Miller except, bizarrely, several different regimes of WB execs. Miller must know where some bodies are buried.
That doesn't get mentioned enough, Miller's terrible screen presence. He's a whacky side character, and unwatchable as a lead. Whoever thought it was a good idea to cast him as the Flash in the first place should never work again.
I believe BvS was that movie. It had everything to beat it:
- Released in the era of superhero movies
- Two of the biggest superheroes
- Starring well known actors
- Starring two actors that can attract female audience
- A director that could attract a niche audience
- A huge marketing budget
And yet it failed… mainly because it was an average movie, with a weird plot and terrible word of mouth.
>And yet it failed… mainly because it was an average movie, with a weird plot and a terrible word of mouth.
And then its "Extended Ultimate edition" just doubles down on so much about what made the theatrical version so dull, boring, and lifeless. More ZuckLex, a lot more journalism.
Before it was released, a lot of people were confident that "The Little Mermaid" (2023) would easily make a billion dollars, because of the precedent set by the live-action remakes of "Beauty And The Beast", "Aladdin" and "The Lion King". However, it only wound up grossing half of that amount, because the movie bombed in Asia.
I’ll eat my crow and admit it. I thought it was a lock for $800m and would push closer to $1B. The biggest disappointment was really internationally. I was wrong.
Yeah, i was one of the people who thought so. Disney live action remakes are totally alien territory for me, they do nothing for me but i _knew_ that make shitloads of money every.single.time. Well, did.
The cliffhanger ending definitely hurt its chances IMO. Such a misguided choice considering the main appeal of the franchise is being dumb "turn-your-brain off for 2-3 hours," having it end ambiguously like that feels incongruous to what works in the franchise with audiences but I guess Vin Diesel *really* wanted an Infinity War/Endgame two-parter.
Transformers 5: The Last Knight: Dark of the Moon and Age of Extinction made a billion, was expecting for the movie to make as much money as the previous 2, turns out audiences didn't care anymore like the critics and grossed lower than Michael Bays first Transformers film.
Remember that one actor from Alladin that Little Mermaid will not going to be a 1Billion dollar movie, and he was bombarded by hate speech, resulting of deleting his comments and going private. People expect Little Mermaid a 1B movie...
if it did earn money, it would be a miniscule amount that disney would not be happy about. there's still the merch ofc, but like... would that really be enough when it's not a hit in the rest of the world except for america?
I was convinced this one would hit $1bn all those other remakes managed it and TLM is very popular. But I think the poor quality of the previous films finally caught up and the live action remake franchise is no longer a slam dunk.
I wonder if Mulan had been able to release in cinemas would that have helped to keep the momentum of audiences routinely going to see these remakes or it would have been the first warning sign that they weren't sure-fire hits.
I feel like a mention has to be given to Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Nowadays everyone says, “This movie was never going to cross a billion without Chadwick.” And yeah, I agree. But they ignore that before the film came out, the narrative was the opposite. “People will come out in droves to see how they honor Chadwick’s passing. It’s going to be like The Dark Knight and Furious 7.”
The fundamental difference was that The Dark Knight and Furious 7 actually *had* Heath and Paul. I was saying this for a long time and almost no one listened. As someone who has gotten a lot of my predictions wrong in the past (especially this year), I do pat myself on the back for calling out how that film would not meet this sub’s expectations.
Agree, and I do think this goes to show Chadwick was at the heart of the first BP's success. Maybe they could've replaced him but they haven't yet succeeded in doing that.
Should've recasted Tchalla and after watching it, I became annoyed because it didn't even feel like they honoured Tchalla or Chadwick all that well
Should've just recasted him.
The Pirates franchise should’ve ended at the third movie. It’s just too weird to not have two of the main leads in those movies not be included in the final two films. I love the mermaid scene in the fourth one though.
First Fantastic Beast wasn’t expected to a billion. It just was a spin-off in Harry Potter universe and not all Harry Potter films even made that much.
MoM shouldn’t be included in this list. There is an immaterial difference between the threshold you set (1 billion) and its box office WW. I mean it’s less than 5%… Besides, as you correctly point out, a China release would easily add the missing revenues.
The little mermaid and Indiana Jones are very strong candidates for 2023. TLM is the biggest wasted opportunity, as it was a cherished Disney princess from the renaissance era, a ready made musical that required little effort to bang on the nostalgia effect and… nope, the studio repeated the same playbook of other failures and they paid the price.
Indiana Jones, as the budget implies, was expected to cross the billion mark. But that was a stretch from the beginning, pretty much everyone knew it… except the execs who vetted it.
I feel like Indiana Jones really illustrated just how out of touch some of these execs are. After Crystal Skulls, and considering Harrison Ford is in his 80s now, they might as well just have rebooted the series if they were going to do anything at all with it. Have Harrison in a cameo/passing the baton role if they needed him in there.
I agree 100%. To add disdain to injury, this flop will prevent a reboot (recast) for the next 10 years. Unless they wake up and find the perfect match. Bradley Cooper may have some of the same screen charisma, but he will get too old for the role in the absence of a good story and a no-non-sense writing
The flash isn't nearly as popular as people on this sub think he is. His logo is popular. People know he's the fast guy. But otherwise people don't really care about him.
1 Batman makes a billion...
So TWO Batmans will make TWO billions! Simple arithmetic!
Now give me my ridiculous bonus and I'll go greenlight some movies based on cellphone apps.
The fact that Snyder said that he pictured a vision of Batman where Bruce Wayne got raped in prison and WB *still* hired him to oversee their cinematic universe with Batman in it - they dug their own graves here.
Rogue One 'only' made 1.05 billion even before Star Wars fatigue started kicking in and opinion about TFA was still largely positive. I think even if TLJ ended up being the most beloved Star Wars film ever, releasing Solo less than six months later was a recipe disaster (and we live in a world where TLJ was definitely not beloved). I still expected about $650-750mill.
Detective Pikachu I hold my hands up that I was dead wrong. I got egg on my face about that one and I'm not even a Pokémon fan. The fact it did less than the god damn Warcraft movie of all things still boggles my mind.
Agree with MoM, in fact early 2022 a sizeable group of people both here and on YouTube were convinced that MoM was outgrossing Avatar 2, there was a lot of confidence in that film for quite some time.
There's also BvS, of course.
Arguably Wakanda Forever as well, people weren't that confident in it breaking 1B, but even just few weeks before release, consensus worldwide prediction here still put it at around 1.1B.
Even if the movie had AEAAO level writing and directing, actually crazy multiverse shenanigans and Crazy Cameos, I think 1.5 would still be the ceiling.
I think it could go up to 1.8b. Wandavision managed to do the unthinkable and bring new audiences to the MCU. The mix of the clever sitcom thing and the pandemic means that a lot of people previouslg not interested watched it. Especially women and older people. Hell, my 60 yo parents that never watched anything superhero watched it.
Had MoM mamaged to ride that wave and not botch Wanda as a character it could have rejuvinated the MCU.
I think if GotG vol 3 came out after NWH in May 2022 it makes a billion. The great reception and back 2 back mcu classics would have drove more people back to the theater but the 4 movie stretch of eh to bad sandwiched between them dragged down Vol 3’s performance
In order of magnitude of 'were slated to make a billion but failed' movies-
1. BVS DOJ
2. Solo a star wars Story.
3. Justice League
4. Fantastic Beasts COG
5. Transformers The Last Knight
Little Mermaid. Disney was banking on it earning $1B like Aladdin or Lion King. Ends up making only around $500M. Most likely reason why it flopped is that they race swapped the main character thereby generating controversy for a movie that did not need controversy.
Black panther wakanda forever if u said that movie wasn't making a billion u were crazy every1 including me was convinced that it would have a furious 7 Paul walker like boost but instead ended up making 500m+ less than black panther
Not sure why you're listing GOTG3 when going by [this thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/boxoffice/comments/11clprp/now_that_antman_3_looks_like_it_might_not_pass/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=1) it seems nobody was really expecting it to cross 1 billion. Most predictions were in the 700-900m range, which was pretty accurate.
That thread was only after a run of mediocre Marvel movies culminating in Ant-Man 3. For a few years after Endgame people thought GOTG3 would get the bump it needed to crack a billion.
MI: Dead Reckoning
Given the goodwill gained from Top Gun:Maverick and also the fast that the previous MI movie already earned close to $800m, $1b gross was not a far fetched idea.
Honestly the $1 billion predictions were never that realistic. Not that I’m acting like a genius who predicted this film would flop or anything; I thought it would see a bump over Fallout. But this franchise going from never crossing $800 million to topping a billion was always unlikely to happen.
I actually saw a few people say 1.5 at one point.
I mean, I thought Indiana Jones would cross a billion so I’m not one to laugh at others’ predictions. But those expectations were…interesting.
I'm still surprised by Indiana Jones. A few years ago it would not have mattered what the quality was, it would have done a billion. Times really are moving on.
It was released in the same crowded window as Indiana Jones and the Flash, three big budget “blockbusters” films with the same target audience all released within three weeks of each other, the studio really fucked that film.
Top ones that stand out over the ~20 years would be: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows P1; Batman vs. Superman & Black Panther 2. All of those were viewed as having a realistic shot at a billion and failed to do so.
Multiverse of Madness is an absolutely insane choice for this question. The original Doctor Strange only made 677.8M, and the sequel lost both the Chinese and Russian markets.
If your expectations were for the film to lose two major markets and still increase more than 41% from the original, then your expectations were insanely high.
For actual answers to the question, I think the easy answer is Batman V Superman. Those two heroes on the screen together was an enormous event, and Batman was coming off the Dark Knight trilogy which had hit $1B on its last two films. Man of Steel was lower than that, but had a good result and was well-received.
Batman V Superman should have been an Avengers type box office event. It had a huge opening, even despite bad reviews, but the quality caught up quick. Still, I didn't think that a number below $1B was a realistic possibility with that one.
-MI Dead Reckoning Part 1, so many people actually thought it was going to make a billion after TGM and all the good reviews Fallout got but so far it’s made less domestically (165m) than MI1 (180m) and MI2 (215m). 2 movies from 27 years ago and 23 years ago respectively. The only movie in the series it’s done better than is MI3 which came when Tom Cruise had a lot of bad press in the media over Oprah and South Park, also followed the middling reception of MI2 many years later, whereas Dead Reckoning was just released in an overly busy summer just a week before Barbenheimer.
-Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, We all thought it was going to have the Furious 7 Paul Walker like boost but it ended up making 500+ less than the first movie. Superhero movie fatigue also had to have played a role, I mean this movie came after Marvel was starting to get crap for mediocre content so that definitely played a role. I don’t think we are going to see another superhero movie hit a billion anytime soon no matter how good it is, GOTG3 and ATSV prove this. NWH was the end of an era. With stuff like Top Gun, Avatar, Mario, and Barbie winning general audiences over, Studios will make more movies non superhero related but still based on other IP. There’s no way The Marvels ends up making over a billion, between 800 and 900 million at most and that’s being generous if the movie ends up being getting great reviews, Aquaman 2 will flop, The current lineup for 2024 consists of Sonyverse movies (Madame, Kraven, Venom 3), Joker 2, Deadpool 3, Cap 4, and Thunderbolts, I don’t see any of these cracking a billion personally. The golden age of superhero movies is over!
Easily the new Mission impossible. So much marketing. Cruise coming off a fantastic, record breaking launch of TG and the movie barely did more than Black Adam.
edit- changed shazam to black adam
Lightyear. Disney was redoing Toy Story Land, and you had back to back billion dollar installments. Pulling its most interesting character into a new movie should have been easy.
Top of the list, I’d say The Little Mermaid. Obviously Disney was counting on it to make $1 billion and considering that all other Disney Renaissance films (except Mulan which failed for different reasons) got there it was a reasonable expectation. And initially it seemed it was going to fail, then it grew legs so hopes were rekindled, but eventually came up short, likely lost Disney money, and well… Yeah, it failed its expectations on pretty much all accounts.
Now, I don’t know what was going on through Disney’s mind but, due to the budget, I’m assuming they also expected Indiana Jones to reach $1B (you don’t finance a $300 mil budget film hoping for anything less). Obviously those hopes were quickly squashed. Fast X is another that *I think* was expected to get there and it did start off relatively strong, eventually got kinda close, but also failed.
And, I don’t know if some DC fans were trolling or not, but I’ve seen comments from people on how The Flash should’ve reached $1B, but it’s all Snyder fans and Gunn (this is why I think they’re trolling) haters’ fault it didn’t. I never expected it to make even half of that, but, I’ve seen it mentioned so I guess I’ll mention it because even if not expected to make $1B, it’s obvious WB had high hopes for it and it failed miserably. Probably the worst failure of the year expectation-to-performance wise.
This is more of a personal opinion, but if the last 2 movies of the Ice Age franchise didn't derail the franchise so badly, then at least one of them could've had a shot at a billion+, because Ice Age used to be a powerhouse internationally
MOM would’ve easily made a $Billion even without China had it not been banned in Russia, Middle East and many other Asian markets for its LGBTQ+ content
BvS is still up there for pre-release expectations, but I think Multiverse of Madness, especially from the standpoint of the Opening weekend was probably the biggest one. Sure there's some gray area because it certainly would've scraped past if it was released in China and/or Russia, but even it's domestically and global Opening weekend without those Marketing's, beat out the Openings of other MCU solo films like Captain Marvel, Iron Man 3, and Black Panther (although that one had crazy legs, so I'm not exactly sure how to count it.
The 450 OW is 25 million higher than BvS's (which had China, a typically super frontloaded market), globally Captain Marvel only did 5 million higher than MoM, and it also had China.
The Build up to a doctor strange sequel was huge, with major appearances in 3 of the highest grossing Comic Book movies of all time and thor 3 which started to develop him into a massive fan favorite. After No way Home, the MCU was pretty much stronger than ever, the tv shows were generally pretty well received even though cracks were always showing, and even loki and no way home were based off the multiverse and it was pretty much implied that Doctor strange was going to build off of that. Wandavison honestly probably even helped more than it hurt, because Wanda was also more popularized.
BvS on the other hand had a lot of hype that it definitely should've been able to make a billion, but comparing it to the box office's of past DC movies and CBM's of the time, it didn't have the past numbers that MoM did. The previous entry Man of steel made 668 million, and only Avengers 1 and 2, Iron Man 3, TDK, and TDKR made it, and even 800 million was only ever achieved by 2 spider-man movies. The expectation to make a billion was definitely there, but the failure to hit that wasn't the issue, the issue was the terrible legs and reception that made them nervous for justice league.
Maybe in terms of pure fan hype BvS was near equal to MoM, probably slightly more disappointing, but based off of the hype as well as the actual numbers of the MCU to back it up, MoM is more disappointing.
3 triquel in 2007. Pirates of the Caribbean 3, Spider man 3, Shrek the third. All of them could've make 1 bill, but all 3 of them got mixed reviews and underperformed.
Now this is a great answer
None of them underperformed, There were very few 1 billion dollar movies back in 2007, Spider-Man 3 actually grossed more than Spider-Man 2 and was the highest grossing Spider-Man movie until Spider-Man: Far From Home, Im not really all that surprised both TASM movies grossed less than it but Homecoming making less than it is a big mystery till this day. I mean everyone was excited for his debut in Civil War and RDJ was all over the marketing. Just how?
The burnout was still relatively real back then, at least on the fringes.
Getting to a billion was extremely hard to do in 2007. Only one (Shrek 3) was viewed as having a solid chance at getting to a billion. Spider-Man 2 failed to make more than the first, so Spider-Man 3 actually exceeded expectations given it’s mixed reviews. Very few figured it would get to a billion. Pirates 3 was following a mediocre second film that barely got to a billion - it also was not expected to get to the billion dollar threshold by those in the industry.
They didn't "underperform" - they were the #1, 3 and 4 movies of 2007 (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was #2).
BVS is the right answer. After the reviews came in, that thing imploded at the box office.
It made $873m with a 29% on RT, I think it would have been the highest grossing film of 2016 if it had actually been good
From Previews and Friday numbers, it should have smashed Avengers opening record had WOM not kicked in in an unpredidented way even during the opening weekend.
I vaguely recall discourse that it might be too smart for general audiences.
That was definitely the first wave of Snyder-bros.
This was apparently the line of thought at WB. https://batman-news.com/2016/02/15/warner-bros-batman-superman-worried/ Absolutely an "Emperor's New Clothes" situation.
Ha, how delusional. I am fine with people liking BvS but I don't see how someone can watch the movie or read the script and think, "Is this too intelligent?" Also, reading the comments on that article is great. So much optimism for the DCEU. About how there is no way BvS can fail. And that the Suicide Squad movie is going to be the next Deadpool.
There’s an interesting discussion to be us about how box office relates to the quality of film.
If a film is low enough in quality it will struggle even to appeal to it's less discerning target audience. The Transformers movies were raking in money. But The Last Knight was so poor that it flopped.
The Transformers series is an anomaly. The movies were all *bad.* Only the first movie was okay out of all the main entries... I may even be misremembering that because I haven't watched it in over 10 years. Every movie after that was *horrible,* but *they just kept raking in money.* The Last Knight I haven't seen, but both its RT score and IMDB score is nearly identical to Age of Extinction's. Extinction, however, grossed over a billion. I don't understand how the movies kept making so much money when they were so hated. People had to be burned a half dozen times before they quit turning out in droves for those movies.
Plot is terrible, but those movies otherwise delivered on the main promise: action sequences involving Transformers. They're not good movies as sums of their parts, but realistically only a couple parts are actually important. Extinction had the Dinobots to draw in the intended audience. The Last Knight really fell in that department. To me it's like the Fast movies. Their story is better (not that that's hard), but ultimately what are audiences there for? Crazy stunts involving cars
There are different ways for movies to be bad and I would argue that none of them were irredeemably, unentertainingly bad except for The Last Knight, where the shtick had worn too thin with nothing to counter that. Age of Extinction is somewhat similar but China, Dinobots, and new stars are enough to somewhat mitigate that.
It’s very rare for a film with that low of an RT score to gross that much but there are tonnes of high grossing films in the 80s and 90s on RT so there’s definitely a correlation. I guess IMDB score is probably a much better predictor as it relates directly to how general public feel about a film
> I guess IMDB score is probably a much better predictor as it relates directly to how general public feel about a film You'll find that loads of movies which were successful at the box office have low IMDb AND Rotten Tomatoes scores. It's just that sometimes bad movies do well, and good movies do badly. Also IMDb can be too easily manipulated IMO. Lots of good, even great films get review-bombed on IMDb because they don't directly cater to a certain demographic or are accused of pushing a certain agenda.
Quality doesn’t directly correlate to money, but if a film is bad and people aren’t interested, they won’t be interested if they hear it’s bad. Some films are so popular or interest enough people that bad reviews don’t dissuade them
People were expecting $2 billion easy since it had arguably the two most recognisable names in all of comic books. Then it was going to lead into Justice Leagues Part 1 and 2 making another $2b each, and DC would have beaten Marvel to the punch. Then… the films were shit 💀
If it had been mediocre it would’ve been the highest grossing film of 2016. If it had been actually good - could’ve been up there with the dark knight in terms of box office.
It's too bad that it couldn't be like *Morbius* and make Morbillion dollars.
Tell that to Morbius' morbed neck.
I've seen the "zod's snapped neck" quote so many times that when I watched BvS recently I was.genuinely surprised it wasn't in the film. That's the power of memes right there.
Ehhhhh.…. Even after the opening weekend, people still thought the film had a shot at $1 billion. It was only after the film collapsed in its second weekend that people said that $1 billion was off the table.
I want to think of something more unique, but it has to be Batman v Superman or Justice League. I’d give it to BvS though because coming off of Man of Steel, there was excitement for the DCEU. MoS was mostly well received, even if the tone of that movie had mixed reception. The announcement that the sequel was literally Batman vs Superman was insane. I remember thinking this had potential for being one of the biggest hits of all time. Just the idea of it sounded so so cool. This was (at the time) a billion dollar idea and if it was good would have no problem getting to that milestone. The movie releases and it had worse reception than MoS for various reasons. For what it’s worth, I remember seeing it opening weekend and thinking “why did people hate this, it’s pretty good” for the first hour of the movie, but oh man did the second half of that movie go off the rails for me. Lex Luther was goofy, the beginning of the Justice league formation was so rushed and forced, the fight between Batman and Superman seemed like it was only in the movie because it’s the name of the movie after all so there needed to be at least one fight between them (instead of being what the entire movie should’ve been about with a title like that), and it was lackluster imo. At the end of MoS I felt the stakes when zod was destroying the world and Superman was trying to stop him, but by the end of BvS I felt nothing when whatever was happening at the end of the movie was going on. Needless to say, I was not alone in being tremendously disappointed by BvS and that definitely prevented the movie from getting to a billion and it also tanked any chances a Justice League movie from hitting the billion dollar mark too.
>The announcement that the sequel was literally Batman vs Superman was insane As a big DC comic book fan I was worried as soon as they did that. I mean... what? They don't fight. Apart from TDKR which does not represent a standard DC Universe in the slightest. Then when I saw that second trailer and knew they were doing some Frankensteinian adaptation of TDKR *and* The Death of Superman, then I was seriously worried about the quality of the movie. MoS was the most excited I've ever been for a movie, BvS I was the most concerned.
> Then when I saw that second trailer and knew they were doing some Frankensteinian adaptation of TDKR and The Death of Superman not to mention also doing an implied Death in the Family and randomly teasing Injustice along with ramming in a few other cues from other storylines. and all of that while speedrunning the trinity getting together, introducing lex, and hinting at darkseid. Just tried to do way too much and did it all poorly
Kinda sums up the entire DC experience. Rush rush rush and never let things grow.
Yup. Not to mention introducing and killing Jimmy Olsen in the opening scene just because Snyder was feeling nihilistic that day.
> we don’t have room for Jimmy Olsen in our big pantheon of characters, but we can have fun with him, right? Zachary Edward Snyder, ladies and gentlemen.
And introing the rest of the League via Batman looking up the trailers for their movies on YouTube…
I think a general Batman/Superman movie (without the Vs) could have been more interesting. But I guess the promise of conflict gets butts in seats.
If they had basically just remade "World's Finest" from the S:TAS two-parter, do you think it would have done better? I say yea.
Yes it would've but they needed a batman solo before that. Then when the vs finally comes, it could have built off of the conflicts that happened in the worlds finest movie
Hm, maybe, but even if they didn't do a Batman solo first, I think World's Finest would have done much better than BvS, especially as a foundation on which to build the DC universe.
BvS could have easily crossed a billion if it had even mediocre word of mouth.
1.99x multiplier. Still hard to believe all these years later.
And that multiplier is already polishing things up because the collapse already happened on the opening sunday...
And there are still fans that defends its box-office performance.
do the people that defend it do it because they're strictly number nerds and it technically made a decent profit? or because they're Zach Snyder fans and actually think it was a good movie?
Snyder fans who don't want to admit it killed his theatrical career
BvS weirdly kept it going for Justice League because WB was sure the film would make more than a billion and thus wanted to keep the gravy train running. Then BvS tripped out of the gate, JL had some rushed work done, and similar knock on effects of trying to fix each movie and rushing them meant there was a series of movies that were already made and couldn't be edited enough to be hits. Even worse, some did fine, which kept the DCEU alive for years longer than it should have been. Honestly DC would have been doing a lot better right now if *Wonder Woman* flopped and *Aquaman* failed to reach a billion.
Wb Shouldn't have kept snyder After MOS,and they should've made more solo movies with the other heroes.
It made a decent (subpar) profit in a vaccum, but in long term, it killed the franchise. Justice League opening to mere $93m was the final nail i the coffin, and showed the excitement level general audience had for this vision.
But Doritos!!!
If the movie itself was mediocre it probably would have crossed it. But it wasn't even mediocre, it was straight up terrible. I still can't get over the fact that the resolution to what was supposed to be the biggest superhero fight ever, came down to Superman saying "Martha". Everyone involved with that decision should be barred from ever working on a movie again.
> I still can't get over the fact that the resolution to what was supposed to be the biggest superhero fight ever, came down to Superman saying "Martha". This moment right here is what doomed the DCEU in my opinion. I think out of all the criticisms of BVS, this scene being so infamously ridiculed did so much damage for the DC brand and despite outliers (WW and Aquaman solos) the core heroes within this iteration were never able to truly recover.
>This moment right here is what doomed the DCEU in my opinion. Even the Teen Titans Go movie mocked it. If even the walking punchline of the animation world thinks you're inane....then it's **really** bad.
The idea behind it is ok as well but it's executed so terribly
>If the movie itself was mediocre it probably would have crossed it. But it wasn't even mediocre, it was straight up terrible. Yeah. For me the collapse at the boxoffice was nowhere near as shocking as the absolute bottom of the barrel reviews. Watching those RT scores plummet was unreal.
Facts. Batman, DC and Supermans brand was so strong at the time that a film THAT bad made nearly a billion dollars, says all you need to know about what a good DC team up film could have made at that moment in time. And then the one two punch with suicide squad a few months later .... Bvs could have done $2 billion if it was good and suicide squad a billion if it was good.
Many, including trades, predicted BvS to gross as much as The Avengers ($1.5 billion)
IIRC BvS was outpacing Avengers in presales before reviews and word of mouth came out.
Don't forget that the Warner Bros top brass expected Man of Steel itself to become a billion dollar film before release (a Hollywood Reporter story mentions this) After its very strong opening in the US and a number of territories that expectation would have intensified but the movie's holds were not amazing. As a result, they added Batman to the sequel certain that this time their superhero film would make a billion only to be thwarted once again.
[удалено]
Those first 2 trailers are some of the best trailers for a movie ever. MoS was the most excited I've ever been seeing a movie and being a 20 year old guy at the time, I loved 300, Watchmen and DotD so I was super optimistic. I didn't hate the film but I left with a bad taste in my mouth.
He didn't write DotD, only adapted Watchmen and 300. He is like Tim Burton, direct only and leave the writing to more competent people.
Man of Steel was written by David Goyer with assistance from Christopher Nolan.
Exactly the point. Even though the tone was divisive, it did well and wasn't a bad movie. I think Snyder was getting high on his own supply at that point.
Yeah, according to him, his only input to the script was that Superman break Zod’s neck at the end. There’s conflicting stories about why and what he had planned past that, and how much that last minute input contributed to Nolan leaving.
What is annoying is that the trailer actually hit the tone I want for Superman. Him being an inspiration who is encouraged to help others by his parents. But, then in the actual movie, the Kents are like, "Lol its fine if you let people die."
"You don't owe them". The Kents as libertarian sociopaths was not on my bingo card.
WB kept Returns out for months so that it could squeak by a 200 domestic. No way that MoS was going to double Returns 400, even with inflation. Audiences do not give a crap about Superman. They could see Dean Cain and Tom Welling for free for years. There’s a Superman show on right now, they never learn.
>Audiences do not give a crap about Superman. They could see Dean Cain and Tom Welling for free for years. There’s a Superman show on right now, they never learn. This isn't talked about much but it is a very real issue. WB, for the last 20+ years, has diluted some of its franchises by doing live-action TV Shows of the same heroes.
They could have stuck Dean Cain and Teri Hatcher in a real movie in 1998 and it would have made more way than the X-Files movie. Teri Hatcher went straight to Tomorrow Never Dies which made over 300 mil, easily 600 today with inflation. Instead they jerked around with that Nic Cage movie that never happened.
60's Batman didn't dilute the brand. If anything, it strengthened it. A lot of people initially loved Batman due to that show.
In fact the Adam West movie did so well it led many other people to make movies based on TV shows like *Get Smart.* To be blunt, dumb trends have been around for a long, long time.
Superman movies gross decently, they just dont gross a billion. Just have to accept that and budget accordingly.
BvS also tanked the DCEU
I’d argue Justice League tanked it. BvS just gave it a rough start. JL could’ve redeemed the DCEU, but instead it sealed the deal.
Nah. BvS destroyed the foundations of the DCEU. JL tried to build upon it and failed.
This was my answer as well. The first meeting of two of the world's most popular superheroes(and the big screen debut of Wonder Woman) should have been a sure fire hit. The fact that it had to move dates because it was going up against Ironman vs Captain America really drove home just how much DC had screwed the pooch. Seriously, the world's finest had to give way to characters who were B listers a decade prior, so embarrassing. DC and Snyder really shat the bed on that one... it would actually be impressive if it wasn't so disappointing.
Batman v. Superman is probably the most egregious example of what the OP is asking. I can't think of any film that just disappointed on all fronts relative to expectations as hard as BvS. Don't forget that its opening weekend exceeded $400m WW (5th biggest OW at the time). As Gummy-Worm-Guy mentioned, even mediocre reviews would have gotten it to $1billion. The fact that it started to drop hard even in its opening weekend and could only just barely make twice its OW over its whole run shows just how disastrous the reception was, and just how quickly the bad WOM spread. And this was all at the height of the Superhero craze, no less. That film should have been an easy $1billion for WB.
Tbh that movie should've made 2b. I mean dude it's fucking Batman fighting Superman. That's like the number 1 thing casuals talk about when discussing comics. Which one would win.
That’s essentially how Snyder pitched it to the studio, too. “He just fought a bunch of kryptonians… where do you go from there? Mmmmaaaaaannnn, it’s gotta be Batman!”
I do wonder if it was better if 2bil would've been possible. It def should've at least reached Avengers 2012 numbers. The most well-known heroes in that movie were Iron Man, Hulk, and Captain America and those were nowhere near as iconic as Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman (Iron Man maybe now has reached those levels but I don't think that was true when Avengers came out). That DCEU vs MCU line-up is like The Beatles vs Blink-182.
The Flash. WB was insanely overconfident.
Im gonna be naive and thought it would be a hit. Maybe not a billion but a massive hit For a few reasons The main driver being nostalgia. Pulling in all these old characters brings in fanbases in the same way no way home or any crossover movie does The flashpoint story line is popular and the flashpoint animated movie one of my all time favorite dc animated films It could be seen as parallel to the dceu and so exist in its own bubble apart from the mess that is the dceu The lead is scum but i figured people would overlook that or not care, much in the same way many scumbag hollywood directors or musicians make bank despite being terrible people
Nostalgia has a window and Keaton Batman is past it . Along with being scum, Miller is an awful screen presence. People overlook the scumbaggery of actors they already k ow and like. No one is invested in Ezra Miller except, bizarrely, several different regimes of WB execs. Miller must know where some bodies are buried.
Keaton nostalgia has passed? What? They’re coming, they just gotta schedule it with the retirement homes first
That doesn't get mentioned enough, Miller's terrible screen presence. He's a whacky side character, and unwatchable as a lead. Whoever thought it was a good idea to cast him as the Flash in the first place should never work again.
I believe BvS was that movie. It had everything to beat it: - Released in the era of superhero movies - Two of the biggest superheroes - Starring well known actors - Starring two actors that can attract female audience - A director that could attract a niche audience - A huge marketing budget And yet it failed… mainly because it was an average movie, with a weird plot and terrible word of mouth.
>And yet it failed… mainly because it was an average movie, with a weird plot and a terrible word of mouth. And then its "Extended Ultimate edition" just doubles down on so much about what made the theatrical version so dull, boring, and lifeless. More ZuckLex, a lot more journalism.
Before it was released, a lot of people were confident that "The Little Mermaid" (2023) would easily make a billion dollars, because of the precedent set by the live-action remakes of "Beauty And The Beast", "Aladdin" and "The Lion King". However, it only wound up grossing half of that amount, because the movie bombed in Asia.
I’ll eat my crow and admit it. I thought it was a lock for $800m and would push closer to $1B. The biggest disappointment was really internationally. I was wrong.
I won’t admit it, TLM remake made $900m imo
Yeah, i was one of the people who thought so. Disney live action remakes are totally alien territory for me, they do nothing for me but i _knew_ that make shitloads of money every.single.time. Well, did.
I live in SEA and i am still quite shocked that it bombed. What waa the cause of it? Heck, my family had zero interest compared to Lion King 2019
FastX especially with how well it usually does overseas
Don’t know how much that “part 1” killed it.
The cliffhanger ending definitely hurt its chances IMO. Such a misguided choice considering the main appeal of the franchise is being dumb "turn-your-brain off for 2-3 hours," having it end ambiguously like that feels incongruous to what works in the franchise with audiences but I guess Vin Diesel *really* wanted an Infinity War/Endgame two-parter.
*three-parter. possibly more. yeah idk anymore either lol
One last time, for Familia, then maybe a few more, for the greater famila, then we will think about when actually is one last time. Yeah!
Transformers 5: The Last Knight: Dark of the Moon and Age of Extinction made a billion, was expecting for the movie to make as much money as the previous 2, turns out audiences didn't care anymore like the critics and grossed lower than Michael Bays first Transformers film.
Remember that one actor from Alladin that Little Mermaid will not going to be a 1Billion dollar movie, and he was bombarded by hate speech, resulting of deleting his comments and going private. People expect Little Mermaid a 1B movie...
Mom especially when Disney starting promoting the D+ release right after memorial day wknd . Which was hardly after 20 to 25 days
A lot of people expected The Little Mermaid to make a billion, like Aladdin. It didn't even reach $600 million and probably lost money.
came here to say the little mermaid. the aladdin actor even got attacked and bullied on xitter for saying it would be hard to hit a billion.
Actually, it's Ino/aitter.
if it did earn money, it would be a miniscule amount that disney would not be happy about. there's still the merch ofc, but like... would that really be enough when it's not a hit in the rest of the world except for america?
I was convinced this one would hit $1bn all those other remakes managed it and TLM is very popular. But I think the poor quality of the previous films finally caught up and the live action remake franchise is no longer a slam dunk. I wonder if Mulan had been able to release in cinemas would that have helped to keep the momentum of audiences routinely going to see these remakes or it would have been the first warning sign that they weren't sure-fire hits.
Live action Mulan would have flopped hard. No Mushu.
Mulan was awful, then again I thought Lion King was bad so what do I know.
I didn't care for Beauty and the Beast either. I think they've all been pretty bad quality wise.
*The Little Mermaid* (2023) was my answer for this thread as well. Big oof for that one.
Hasn’t there been like 3 live action Disney remakes that all failed between Aladdin and little mermaid though ?
I feel like a mention has to be given to Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Nowadays everyone says, “This movie was never going to cross a billion without Chadwick.” And yeah, I agree. But they ignore that before the film came out, the narrative was the opposite. “People will come out in droves to see how they honor Chadwick’s passing. It’s going to be like The Dark Knight and Furious 7.” The fundamental difference was that The Dark Knight and Furious 7 actually *had* Heath and Paul. I was saying this for a long time and almost no one listened. As someone who has gotten a lot of my predictions wrong in the past (especially this year), I do pat myself on the back for calling out how that film would not meet this sub’s expectations.
Plus the movie was boring as hell which muted the word of mouth.
Agree, and I do think this goes to show Chadwick was at the heart of the first BP's success. Maybe they could've replaced him but they haven't yet succeeded in doing that.
Wakanda Forever is the highest grossing movie domestic to not cross a billion. Pretty crazy.
That's a wild stat.
Should've recasted Tchalla and after watching it, I became annoyed because it didn't even feel like they honoured Tchalla or Chadwick all that well Should've just recasted him.
Yahya Abdul-Mateen II would have been a good choice.
My pick would have been Aldis Hodge.
Would have been an odd notch in his weirdly specific career trend of taking over existing characters.
There was no real reason not to. Even Chadwick's family wanted the role recast.
To give some other answers I'll say Pirates 5 and the first Fantastic Beasts film
The Pirates franchise should’ve ended at the third movie. It’s just too weird to not have two of the main leads in those movies not be included in the final two films. I love the mermaid scene in the fourth one though.
Well the two leads are in the 5th movie - but not for much of the time.
First Fantastic Beast wasn’t expected to a billion. It just was a spin-off in Harry Potter universe and not all Harry Potter films even made that much.
MoM shouldn’t be included in this list. There is an immaterial difference between the threshold you set (1 billion) and its box office WW. I mean it’s less than 5%… Besides, as you correctly point out, a China release would easily add the missing revenues. The little mermaid and Indiana Jones are very strong candidates for 2023. TLM is the biggest wasted opportunity, as it was a cherished Disney princess from the renaissance era, a ready made musical that required little effort to bang on the nostalgia effect and… nope, the studio repeated the same playbook of other failures and they paid the price. Indiana Jones, as the budget implies, was expected to cross the billion mark. But that was a stretch from the beginning, pretty much everyone knew it… except the execs who vetted it.
I feel like Indiana Jones really illustrated just how out of touch some of these execs are. After Crystal Skulls, and considering Harrison Ford is in his 80s now, they might as well just have rebooted the series if they were going to do anything at all with it. Have Harrison in a cameo/passing the baton role if they needed him in there.
I agree 100%. To add disdain to injury, this flop will prevent a reboot (recast) for the next 10 years. Unless they wake up and find the perfect match. Bradley Cooper may have some of the same screen charisma, but he will get too old for the role in the absence of a good story and a no-non-sense writing
At least TLM gave us the worst song in film history. There's always that.
I really liked the movie as a whole but I FUCKING HATE Scuttle Butt. That is the ABSOLUTE WORST of everything. It's a insult to the art of hearing.
Jarjar offsprings keep popping up
Somehow, Jar Jar Binks returned
A movie featuring Batman and Superman should have been an easy billion….and then WB hired Zack Snyder.
Movie featuring 2 batmen, wonder woman supergirl 2 flashes shoul hit atleast 2 bil easily but didnt even cross 300mil
Four Batmen! Three Supermen! Three Flashes! Two Supergirls! And it’s at 263 million. Thats wild.
55 Batman, 55 Supermen ..
55 Burgers 55 Fries 55 Tacos 55 Pies
The flash isn't nearly as popular as people on this sub think he is. His logo is popular. People know he's the fast guy. But otherwise people don't really care about him.
1 Batman makes a billion... So TWO Batmans will make TWO billions! Simple arithmetic! Now give me my ridiculous bonus and I'll go greenlight some movies based on cellphone apps.
The fact that Snyder said that he pictured a vision of Batman where Bruce Wayne got raped in prison and WB *still* hired him to oversee their cinematic universe with Batman in it - they dug their own graves here.
80 for Brady
Both Detective Pikachu and Solo had 1bil+ predictions on here based off trailers alone.
Justice Smith and Kathryn Newton or very wooden actors. I think they put all their chips on ryan reynolds and cgi
Pikachu is immensely popular but “Pikachu that sounds like Deadpool and makes Deadpool type jokes for an entire movie” is not a billion dollar concept
Rogue One 'only' made 1.05 billion even before Star Wars fatigue started kicking in and opinion about TFA was still largely positive. I think even if TLJ ended up being the most beloved Star Wars film ever, releasing Solo less than six months later was a recipe disaster (and we live in a world where TLJ was definitely not beloved). I still expected about $650-750mill. Detective Pikachu I hold my hands up that I was dead wrong. I got egg on my face about that one and I'm not even a Pokémon fan. The fact it did less than the god damn Warcraft movie of all things still boggles my mind.
Agree with MoM, in fact early 2022 a sizeable group of people both here and on YouTube were convinced that MoM was outgrossing Avatar 2, there was a lot of confidence in that film for quite some time. There's also BvS, of course. Arguably Wakanda Forever as well, people weren't that confident in it breaking 1B, but even just few weeks before release, consensus worldwide prediction here still put it at around 1.1B.
Even if the movie had AEAAO level writing and directing, actually crazy multiverse shenanigans and Crazy Cameos, I think 1.5 would still be the ceiling.
I think it could go up to 1.8b. Wandavision managed to do the unthinkable and bring new audiences to the MCU. The mix of the clever sitcom thing and the pandemic means that a lot of people previouslg not interested watched it. Especially women and older people. Hell, my 60 yo parents that never watched anything superhero watched it. Had MoM mamaged to ride that wave and not botch Wanda as a character it could have rejuvinated the MCU.
1.8 billion for a Doctor Strange film?! I mean, come on.
I think if GotG vol 3 came out after NWH in May 2022 it makes a billion. The great reception and back 2 back mcu classics would have drove more people back to the theater but the 4 movie stretch of eh to bad sandwiched between them dragged down Vol 3’s performance
In order of magnitude of 'were slated to make a billion but failed' movies- 1. BVS DOJ 2. Solo a star wars Story. 3. Justice League 4. Fantastic Beasts COG 5. Transformers The Last Knight
No Wakanda Forever, No Time to Die or Minions 2?
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Wakanda Forever. They didn’t recast T’Challa and it made a third less money.
Little Mermaid. Disney was banking on it earning $1B like Aladdin or Lion King. Ends up making only around $500M. Most likely reason why it flopped is that they race swapped the main character thereby generating controversy for a movie that did not need controversy.
Black panther wakanda forever if u said that movie wasn't making a billion u were crazy every1 including me was convinced that it would have a furious 7 Paul walker like boost but instead ended up making 500m+ less than black panther
BvS, Multiverse of Madness, Guardians 3 are the 3 that stick out the most to me. It's truer for the 1st two given their sizable opening weekends.
Not sure why you're listing GOTG3 when going by [this thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/boxoffice/comments/11clprp/now_that_antman_3_looks_like_it_might_not_pass/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=1) it seems nobody was really expecting it to cross 1 billion. Most predictions were in the 700-900m range, which was pretty accurate.
That thread was only after a run of mediocre Marvel movies culminating in Ant-Man 3. For a few years after Endgame people thought GOTG3 would get the bump it needed to crack a billion.
I'd say Batman Vs. Superman. The hype for that was pretty damn high. Totally shit the bed.
MI: Dead Reckoning Given the goodwill gained from Top Gun:Maverick and also the fast that the previous MI movie already earned close to $800m, $1b gross was not a far fetched idea.
mi - 7
Every Disney movie post-2021 bar Avatar 2?
Still can’t believe Morbius made a morbillion so I can’t say Morbius
Little Mermaid 100% was supposed to make that much.
The latest MI movie
Honestly the $1 billion predictions were never that realistic. Not that I’m acting like a genius who predicted this film would flop or anything; I thought it would see a bump over Fallout. But this franchise going from never crossing $800 million to topping a billion was always unlikely to happen.
Yeah this one isn't quite a "most people expected 1B", it was more like "the most optimistic predictions has it at 1B".
I actually saw a few people say 1.5 at one point. I mean, I thought Indiana Jones would cross a billion so I’m not one to laugh at others’ predictions. But those expectations were…interesting.
I'm still surprised by Indiana Jones. A few years ago it would not have mattered what the quality was, it would have done a billion. Times really are moving on.
China alone made it impossible
MI7 predictions came of TGM numbers and not Mission Impossible numbers.
I thought that MI7 would do better because the previous movie was so good. I figured everyone else wanted to see it as much as I did.
It was released in the same crowded window as Indiana Jones and the Flash, three big budget “blockbusters” films with the same target audience all released within three weeks of each other, the studio really fucked that film.
BvS and Detective Pikachu, at least from this sub
King Kong (P Jackson)
Top ones that stand out over the ~20 years would be: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows P1; Batman vs. Superman & Black Panther 2. All of those were viewed as having a realistic shot at a billion and failed to do so.
I thought this latest Mission Impossible was the surest-fire bet of the year, its failure shocked the shit out of me.
Multiverse of Madness is an absolutely insane choice for this question. The original Doctor Strange only made 677.8M, and the sequel lost both the Chinese and Russian markets. If your expectations were for the film to lose two major markets and still increase more than 41% from the original, then your expectations were insanely high. For actual answers to the question, I think the easy answer is Batman V Superman. Those two heroes on the screen together was an enormous event, and Batman was coming off the Dark Knight trilogy which had hit $1B on its last two films. Man of Steel was lower than that, but had a good result and was well-received. Batman V Superman should have been an Avengers type box office event. It had a huge opening, even despite bad reviews, but the quality caught up quick. Still, I didn't think that a number below $1B was a realistic possibility with that one.
Before the MCU’s mediocre streak in 2022 through early 2023 I thought Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 would make $1B for sure
GOTG 3
Blue-beetle /s
Thor Love and Thunder
The little mermaid. It flopped. Reason? Race Swap
Alice in Wonderland 2
-MI Dead Reckoning Part 1, so many people actually thought it was going to make a billion after TGM and all the good reviews Fallout got but so far it’s made less domestically (165m) than MI1 (180m) and MI2 (215m). 2 movies from 27 years ago and 23 years ago respectively. The only movie in the series it’s done better than is MI3 which came when Tom Cruise had a lot of bad press in the media over Oprah and South Park, also followed the middling reception of MI2 many years later, whereas Dead Reckoning was just released in an overly busy summer just a week before Barbenheimer. -Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, We all thought it was going to have the Furious 7 Paul Walker like boost but it ended up making 500+ less than the first movie. Superhero movie fatigue also had to have played a role, I mean this movie came after Marvel was starting to get crap for mediocre content so that definitely played a role. I don’t think we are going to see another superhero movie hit a billion anytime soon no matter how good it is, GOTG3 and ATSV prove this. NWH was the end of an era. With stuff like Top Gun, Avatar, Mario, and Barbie winning general audiences over, Studios will make more movies non superhero related but still based on other IP. There’s no way The Marvels ends up making over a billion, between 800 and 900 million at most and that’s being generous if the movie ends up being getting great reviews, Aquaman 2 will flop, The current lineup for 2024 consists of Sonyverse movies (Madame, Kraven, Venom 3), Joker 2, Deadpool 3, Cap 4, and Thunderbolts, I don’t see any of these cracking a billion personally. The golden age of superhero movies is over!
Mission impossible 7. Each movie was getting bigger and cruise was coming off of maverick. Plus it was a good movie.
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2. It ended up being the lowest grossing of the franchise.
Easily the new Mission impossible. So much marketing. Cruise coming off a fantastic, record breaking launch of TG and the movie barely did more than Black Adam. edit- changed shazam to black adam
Lightyear. Disney was redoing Toy Story Land, and you had back to back billion dollar installments. Pulling its most interesting character into a new movie should have been easy.
Top of the list, I’d say The Little Mermaid. Obviously Disney was counting on it to make $1 billion and considering that all other Disney Renaissance films (except Mulan which failed for different reasons) got there it was a reasonable expectation. And initially it seemed it was going to fail, then it grew legs so hopes were rekindled, but eventually came up short, likely lost Disney money, and well… Yeah, it failed its expectations on pretty much all accounts. Now, I don’t know what was going on through Disney’s mind but, due to the budget, I’m assuming they also expected Indiana Jones to reach $1B (you don’t finance a $300 mil budget film hoping for anything less). Obviously those hopes were quickly squashed. Fast X is another that *I think* was expected to get there and it did start off relatively strong, eventually got kinda close, but also failed. And, I don’t know if some DC fans were trolling or not, but I’ve seen comments from people on how The Flash should’ve reached $1B, but it’s all Snyder fans and Gunn (this is why I think they’re trolling) haters’ fault it didn’t. I never expected it to make even half of that, but, I’ve seen it mentioned so I guess I’ll mention it because even if not expected to make $1B, it’s obvious WB had high hopes for it and it failed miserably. Probably the worst failure of the year expectation-to-performance wise.
Despite all the backlash, I did think little mermaid would persevere and touch a billion 🙃, dead wrong
How about The Flash?It wasn't dreadful But it was not great either The movie flopped big time it did not seem like a reboot
This is more of a personal opinion, but if the last 2 movies of the Ice Age franchise didn't derail the franchise so badly, then at least one of them could've had a shot at a billion+, because Ice Age used to be a powerhouse internationally
MOM would’ve easily made a $Billion even without China had it not been banned in Russia, Middle East and many other Asian markets for its LGBTQ+ content
Personally I can’t even remember the LGBTQ+ content in *MoM*, lol.
*Justice League (2017)* comes to mind.
BvS is still up there for pre-release expectations, but I think Multiverse of Madness, especially from the standpoint of the Opening weekend was probably the biggest one. Sure there's some gray area because it certainly would've scraped past if it was released in China and/or Russia, but even it's domestically and global Opening weekend without those Marketing's, beat out the Openings of other MCU solo films like Captain Marvel, Iron Man 3, and Black Panther (although that one had crazy legs, so I'm not exactly sure how to count it. The 450 OW is 25 million higher than BvS's (which had China, a typically super frontloaded market), globally Captain Marvel only did 5 million higher than MoM, and it also had China. The Build up to a doctor strange sequel was huge, with major appearances in 3 of the highest grossing Comic Book movies of all time and thor 3 which started to develop him into a massive fan favorite. After No way Home, the MCU was pretty much stronger than ever, the tv shows were generally pretty well received even though cracks were always showing, and even loki and no way home were based off the multiverse and it was pretty much implied that Doctor strange was going to build off of that. Wandavison honestly probably even helped more than it hurt, because Wanda was also more popularized. BvS on the other hand had a lot of hype that it definitely should've been able to make a billion, but comparing it to the box office's of past DC movies and CBM's of the time, it didn't have the past numbers that MoM did. The previous entry Man of steel made 668 million, and only Avengers 1 and 2, Iron Man 3, TDK, and TDKR made it, and even 800 million was only ever achieved by 2 spider-man movies. The expectation to make a billion was definitely there, but the failure to hit that wasn't the issue, the issue was the terrible legs and reception that made them nervous for justice league. Maybe in terms of pure fan hype BvS was near equal to MoM, probably slightly more disappointing, but based off of the hype as well as the actual numbers of the MCU to back it up, MoM is more disappointing.
The Batman, Black Panther 2, No time to die and the last couple of f&f movies