Every studio has a slide deck somewhere that promised a hit and delivered a headline instead. Behind each disaster sits a real decision, made by real people in a real boardroom, usually under pressure to compete with a rival’s slate or chase a franchise that seemed too obvious to fail. What follows isn’t a list of bad movies for the sake of mockery. It’s a look at the business logic that broke down, the numbers that tell the story, and the lessons studios claim to have learned, at least until the next gamble comes along.
1. Borderlands (2024) – Lionsgate’s video game gamble that never fired
Lionsgate bet big on adapting Gearbox’s chaotic loot-shooter franchise, assembling a cast that included Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Jack Black. The film had a budget of $120 million, not including all of the expensive marketing surrounding its 2024 summer blockbuster release. That’s a heavy price tag for a property with a passionate but relatively niche fan base outside the gaming world.
The results were brutal. Following a disastrous $9 million opening weekend, the movie ended its month-long run at the box office with a dismal $31 million. With a production budget of $115 million and a $30 million marketing campaign, the studio has likely lost upwards of $114 million. Lionsgate’s own CFO admitted the losses were “outside the range of outcomes we would expect, given the underlying IP cast and size of the film’s budget.”
2. Madame Web (2024) – Sony’s spin-off that spun nowhere
Sony’s Spider-Man Universe kept expanding into characters casual audiences barely recognized, and Madame Web pushed that strategy to its limit. Dakota Johnson starred as a psychic paramedic in a film that critics savaged almost immediately. Many of the critiques of this film include poor ADR, a lame villain, stiff acting, and a terrible script.
The box office reflected the reception. The film was made for less than $100 million, and it needed to make around $200 million worldwide at the box office to make a profit. Instead, Madame Web released on February 14, 2024, and went on to earn less than $100 million worldwide due to its unpopular reception, making it one of the most unpopular live-action Spider-Man movies of all time. Sony has since pulled back sharply on further spin-offs built around characters nobody was asking to see on the big screen.
3. Joker: Folie à Deux (2024) – Warner Bros.’ billion-dollar franchise that collapsed on itself
After the original Joker became a cultural phenomenon and a billion-dollar earner on a shoestring budget, Warner Bros. handed director Todd Phillips a much bigger canvas for the sequel. After the billion-dollar success of “Joker” in 2019 on a shoestring budget of just $55 million, the studio greenlit a sequel, offering director Todd Phillips a substantially larger budget of $200 million. The film, a musical courtroom drama pairing Joaquin Phoenix with Lady Gaga, was a sharp creative left turn from what audiences expected.
That gamble did not pay off. Globally, the movie made around $207.5 million, resulting in an approximate $144.25 million net loss for Warner Bros. Studio executives later admitted the film’s unconventional tone worked against it, with one describing it as possibly “too revisionist for a global mainstream audience.” It remains one of the starkest examples of a sequel actively rejecting what made the original a hit, and paying for it at the box office.
4. John Carter (2012) – Disney’s science fiction epic that never found its audience
Disney poured enormous resources into adapting Edgar Rice Burroughs’ early twentieth century pulp novels, betting that a sweeping Mars adventure could launch a new franchise. The film reportedly cost well over 250 million dollars once marketing was included, an enormous sum for source material that most modern moviegoers had never heard of. Critics found the film competent but unremarkable, and the marketing campaign struggled to explain what the movie was even about.
The financial fallout was severe enough that Disney took a write down exceeding 200 million dollars, one of the largest in studio history at the time. The film’s failure also cost then-studio chairman Rich Ross his job within months of release. John Carter has since become a textbook case study in film schools and business courses about the dangers of a confused marketing strategy paired with an unproven title.
5. Cutthroat Island (1995) – the pirate movie that sank a studio
Long before Disney found gold with Pirates of the Caribbean, Carolco Pictures tried its own swashbuckling epic starring Geena Davis and Matthew Modine. Production costs ballooned past 100 million dollars amid reshoots, weather delays, and a troubled shoot, at a time when that figure represented an almost unprecedented gamble for an original pirate story with no built-in fan base. The film opened to poor reviews and worse audience turnout. Cutthroat Island didn’t just underperform, it helped bankrupt the studio that made it. Carolco Pictures filed for bankruptcy months after the film’s release, and the movie earned a lasting reputation as one of the biggest box office bombs relative to its budget in Hollywood history. It remains a cautionary tale cited whenever a studio considers reviving a dormant genre without a clear creative hook.
6. Heaven’s Gate (1980) – the western that ended an era of director control
Michael Cimino followed his Oscar winning success with The Deer Hunter by demanding near total creative control over an ambitious western epic. Costs spiraled far beyond the original budget as Cimino reshot scenes repeatedly and insisted on elaborate period detail, turning a modest production into one of the most expensive films of its era. United Artists released it to scathing reviews and empty theaters.
The commercial failure was so severe that it contributed directly to United Artists being sold off, effectively ending the studio’s independent existence. Heaven’s Gate became shorthand in the industry for unchecked directorial ambition, and it changed how studios approached budget oversight and final cut authority for a generation. Few films have had as lasting an institutional impact on how Hollywood structures its contracts.
7. The Lone Ranger (2013) – Disney’s second western gamble in a decade
Disney tried again with a big budget western a year after John Carter, this time pairing Johnny Depp with director Gore Verbinski for a reimagining of the classic radio and television hero. Production costs reportedly reached around 225 million dollars, driven by extensive location shooting and elaborate action sequences involving trains. The film’s tone struggled to land, mixing broad comedy with unexpectedly dark violence in a way that confused test audiences and critics alike. The box office returns fell far short of covering that investment, and Disney absorbed another significant write down. Coming so soon after John Carter, the failure reinforced a pattern at the studio around expensive original westerns built primarily on star power rather than existing fan demand. Disney has largely avoided the genre at that budget level ever since.
8. Cats (2019) – Universal’s musical adaptation that became internet infamous
Universal Pictures acquired the rights to Andrew Lloyd Webber’s long running stage musical with hopes of repeating the success of adaptations like Les Misérables. The studio assembled a starry cast including Judi Dench, Idris Elba, and Taylor Swift, and invested heavily in digital fur technology to bring the feline characters to life. Early test screenings reportedly raised concerns internally, yet the release date held firm.
The finished film became a punchline almost overnight, with its unsettling visual effects drawing widespread mockery across social media before word of mouth even had time to spread through traditional channels. The movie underperformed significantly against its production and marketing costs, and Universal was forced to quietly pull promotional material and adjust its awards season strategy within days of release. Cats remains frequently cited as a case where visual effects decisions, rather than the underlying story, sank an otherwise proven property.
Final thoughts
