Hollywood has a complicated relationship with originality. Studios regularly dust off beloved titles, announce a “reimagining,” and hope nostalgia alone will fill seats. Sometimes it works. Most of the time, audiences arrive with skepticism already baked in, and the final product does little to change their minds.
The films on this list aren’t necessarily the worst movies ever made. Some are just mediocre. What they share is a fundamental problem: nobody was waiting for them. The originals either stood perfectly fine on their own, or the franchise simply had no good reason to be revived. Here’s the evidence.
1. The Crow (2024)
The Crow is a reboot of the infamous 1994 movie of the same name, which made plenty of headlines due to the on-set demise of Brandon Lee. That story carries a weight that no remake could easily sidestep, and the production struggled to escape it. The project was stuck in development hell for years, with actors like Bradley Cooper, Luke Evans, and Jason Momoa all attached at various times, and the film’s original director Alex Proyas tried to stop the reboot from happening entirely.
Fans immediately condemned the film as soon as it was announced and refused to watch it when it was released, resulting in an embarrassing roughly 25 million dollar gross, about half of its production budget. The reboot received a harsh score on Rotten Tomatoes and was criticized for not capturing the solemnity and style of the original. It arrived, it stumbled, and it confirmed what fans had been saying from day one.
2. Hellboy (2019)
The project began as a sequel to Hellboy II: The Golden Army, but Guillermo del Toro was not offered the full writer-director role he had performed in the previous films, and Ron Perlman refused to return without del Toro’s involvement. That departure alone poisoned the well before a single frame was shot. In an effort to introduce the franchise to a wider audience, a full reboot ignoring the previous two films was produced, but it appears to have alienated a significant portion of the fanbase, who were disappointed that del Toro and Perlman had been replaced.
The reboot holds a lowly 15% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a Metacritic score of 31. The film bombed at the box office, grossing roughly 55 million dollars against a 50 million dollar production budget. When you factor in marketing and distribution, that math is very bad. Coming out of advance screenings, the reboot received an absolutely dismal critics score.
3. RoboCop (2014)
The RoboCop reboot lacked originality and innovation, straying from the groundbreaking elements that made the original so beloved, and failed to capture the dark humor and biting satire of the original, diluting its socio-political commentary and losing its charm. Paul Verhoeven’s 1987 film was a razor-sharp piece of social satire disguised as an action movie. The 2014 version wore the suit but missed the point entirely.
The 2014 RoboCop currently sits at a lackluster 49% on Rotten Tomatoes, in stark contrast to the original film’s 92%. The movie went for a PG-13 rating, dialing down the intense violence and gore that many fans expected, and the rating caused the movie to play more like the type of film that the commentary of the 1987 original was pointing a finger at, so the over-the-top and ironic nature of the original fell by the wayside in favor of a more serious tone.
4. The Mummy (2017)
By 2017, people were tired of this franchise. Universal went into the tomb, unearthed a dormant property, and suffered catastrophic consequences as a result. The 2017 version couldn’t just be any old project because, in the age of the MCU, it seemed like every movie needed to be part of some extended universe. That ambition turned out to be a fatal miscalculation.
The Mummy was meant to launch the so-called Dark Universe franchise, but it was such a monumental flop that all plans were canceled. While both The Mummy films were remakes of the 1932 classic, the 1999 version was far more memorable. From Tom Cruise playing an unlikeable hero to a forgetful plot, the recent remake tried to include scares that failed to deliver the horror elements that Universal was known for, and 2017’s The Mummy might have put a full stop to the prospective Dark Universe.
5. Ben-Hur (2016)
Ben-Hur is as historic as its Roman setting. The epic to end all epics, an extraordinary amount of work went into the 1959 film at every level, from the sets and costumes to the extras and horses. It had an astronomical budget and won an astounding eleven Academy Awards, proving that the time and effort was worth it. Remaking it was always going to be a near-impossible task.
The 2016 remake was a different story entirely. It was heavily criticized for its lackluster CGI, uninspired performances, and unnecessary existence. Audiences were unimpressed, and the film became one of the year’s biggest box office flops, highlighting the dangers of remaking revered classics without a clear artistic vision. The 2016 Ben-Hur grossed only roughly 94 million dollars worldwide against a 100 million dollar budget.
6. Ghostbusters (2016)
The original Ghostbusters is a cultural phenomenon, beloved for its clever script, stellar cast, and iconic theme song. The 2016 reboot, which featured an all-female lead cast, was met with controversy even before its release, with some fans criticizing the change as unnecessary. Despite some positive reviews praising the cast’s chemistry and humor, the film failed to resonate with a broad audience, and the box office returns were disappointing, especially considering the high production and marketing costs.
Plans for a sequel were shelved, and the franchise later pivoted back to its original timeline with Ghostbusters: Afterlife in 2021. That pivot essentially confirmed what most suspected: the 2016 version was a detour nobody needed. The film’s existence generated more controversy than excitement, which is rarely a good sign for a beloved legacy title.
7. Point Break (2015)
The 1991 action thriller Point Break has become a cult favorite, thanks to engaging scenes, cheesy melodrama, plot-driven action, and celebrated performances by Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze. The original had a very specific, irreplaceable energy tied to its era and its leads. It was a 1990s cult classic, and nobody was demanding a remake. Warner Bros. released one anyway in 2015, and it was nothing more than a glorified, if well-shot, stunt compilation.
Gone were the interesting character dynamics and absorbing acting, replaced by bland characters and actors with no chemistry to speak of. It misunderstood what makes the original endlessly endearing, and failed to impress. While the 2015 remake did have some intense action scenes featuring snowboarding and wingsuits, it lacked all the other elements that made the original work. Visually ambitious, dramatically hollow.
8. Psycho (1998)
Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho is one of the most celebrated films in the horror and thriller genre. From the cinematography to the foreboding sense of dread, there’s really no way to up the ante with a remake. So director Gus Van Sant just copied it. That decision, rather than bold reimagining, became the most discussed thing about the project, and not in a good way.
The 1998 Psycho remake was nearly identical to the 1960 version, shot for shot, with virtually nothing added to enhance the original. One of the few differences between the two films is that Van Sant added sound effects to make certain scenes more explicit. Much like the remake itself, nobody needed that. It remains one of Hollywood’s most baffling exercises in creative redundancy, a film that raised a question nobody had asked and answered it in the least interesting way possible.
9. Madame Web (2024)
Sony’s early 2024 release Madame Web did little to straighten the course for the studio’s Spider-Man universe. The superhero film stars Dakota Johnson as Cassie Webb, presenting an origin story for the character, following her as she attempts to protect three young women from an evil force. Madame Web received overwhelmingly negative reviews, with many declaring it to be not only among the worst films of the year but one of the worst superhero movies of all time.
Madame Web managed to earn roughly 100 million dollars at the box office, but this figure becomes much less impressive when you consider that the film’s budget was practically the same amount. To make matters worse, negative reviews declared it one of the worst superhero movies of all time. Needless to say, the project was a flop on all accounts. It’s the kind of film that raises the broader question: most remakes and reboots are not about improving upon a good idea, but about exploiting the name value of a famous property. Madame Web had almost no name value to begin with, which made the entire venture even harder to justify.
Taken together, these nine films tell a consistent story. One of the biggest complaints about cinema is the industry’s heavy reliance on remakes. In some cases, reboots can be a blessing in disguise, paying homage to the original and coming up with something new to say in the process. In other, worse cases, remakes fail to do anything except tarnish the original film’s legacy. The reboots on this list lean heavily toward the latter category, and audiences have made their feelings known at the box office with remarkable consistency.
