The last decade of film has given audiences a plethora of great box office successes, from Barbie to ᴅᴇᴀᴅpool & Wolverine, but not every great movie enjoys that same success. This is hardly new for the entertainment business, and many of us have had to see excellent projects from some of our favorite directors go down in flames. Still, it’s hard to get over just how badly some of these films bombed, and what that meant for their respective directors and genres.

As much as we’d like it to be otherwise, quality doesn’t always translate into box office success, and everything from small artsy movies to ambitious franchise entries have fallen flat. While I understand no movie deserves to be a hit, the impact that some flops have had extend beyond just a single bad year. From setting entire genres back with studios to signaling a decline in franchises, I can’t help but feel bummed out that these films didn’t reel in a wider audience.

12

Scoob! (2020)

Directed By Tony Cervone

Like millions of people around the world, I have a soft spot for Scooby-Doo. Once a genuine powerhouse of a Saturday-morning cartoon franchise, the Great Dane and his friends have slowly lost the attention of kids. In 2020’s Scoob!, Warner Bros. tried to change that by bringing an all-star voice cast together for a 3D animated, big-budget movie. Pairing the gang with Dynomutt and the Blue Falcon against Dick Dastardly and Muttley, the film was ambitious, even if a bit bloated.

For me, it wasn’t so much that I felt Scoob! was an amazing film, and I’d rank it somewhere around the middle of its franchise. Rather, it was what the film represented and its potential. Here, Warner Bros. had the chance to reinvigorate public interest in Scooby and the gang, and even spark a Hanna-Barbera universe. Unfortunately, the pandemic combined with its jumbled plot converged to make it one of the year’s biggest flops — likely killing Mystery Inc’s future cinematic prospects.

11

Horizon: An American Saga Chapter One (2024)

Directed By Kevin Costner

Being a Western fan in the 21st century can often be bittersweet. While we’ve been able to experience some true masterpieces of the genre, from Open Range to There Will Be Blood, the box office returns are almost never promising. In Horizon: An American Saga, Kevin Costner tried to reverse this trend by crafting a truly epic piece of cinema, one that explores the founding of the American West through a small town: Horizon, Texas.

I went into Horizon understanding that it wasn’t the full picture, and news that Costner was planning a combined four-part saga had me excited. When I saw the stunning failure at the box office, I couldn’t help but empathize with its director, knowing how much he’d gone through to make it happen. Horizon’s failure signals a bleak future for both epic Westerns and truly ambitious original film-making. This is the kind of film that cinephiles should reward.

10

Blade Runner 2049 (2017)

Directed By Denis Villeneuve

Set in a dystopian world where rogue self-aware androids are hunted by elite police, Blade Runner explores themes of life, sentience and freedom. Thirty-five years after the original, Denis Villeneuve took sci-fi fans back to Ridley Scott’s world, focusing on a replicant blade runner who begins to believe he’s the child of Deckard and Rachael. In this film, the audience is given something both familiar and new, building on what made the original great from a fresh perspective.

Much like the original, it has the almost universal admiration of everyone who saw it, but, like many cyberpunk movies, didn’t appeal to the wider mainstream moviegoer.

Considering how much respect Ridley Scott’s classic has accumulated over the years, as well as Villeneuve’s following, I truly believed Blade Runner 2049 would be a hit. While its box office draw was nothing to scoff at, it failed to turn a profit. Much like the original, it has the almost universal admiration of everyone who saw it, but, like many cyberpunk movies, didn’t appeal to the wider mainstream moviegoer.

9

The Suicide Squad (2021)

Directed By James Gunn

In contrast to the MCU, DC’s cinematic universe has stumbled since it started, with as many duds as successes. When James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad released, we got an interesting blend between the colorful, energetic tone of Marvel movies with the darker antiheroes of DC. The plot and formula just worked, outperforming the previous Suicide Squad movie at almost every level. Unfortunately, with theaters still recovering from the pandemic, as well as the messy situation at DC, it flopped.

The Suicide Squad signaled that, much as was the case with Marvel, DC had the potential to make great films out of obscure characters. Fortunately, James Gunn has since been handed creative control over DC Studios, but his 2021 movie could still bode poorly for upcoming projects like Superman. There was a moment where the company’s direction could have taken a turn for the worse, but the success of sequel the series Peacemaker proved the problem didn’t lie with Gunn.

8

Bad Times At The El Royale (2018)

Directed By Drew Goddard

Sometimes, a director is lucky enough to make an artsy, stylish movie that is simply unique in its decade. For Drew Goddard, that film was Bad Times at the El Royale, a crime thriller set in the 1960s that revolves around a group of strangers at an isolated H๏τel. The premise and cast alone were enough to reel me in, and what followed was one of the most captivating works of suspense of the decade.

Bad Times at the El Royale came off as a more subdued, Tarantinoesque crime story, one that made great use of non-linear storytelling to get the audience to care for its characters. However, like so many smaller productions of the last decade, this excellent caper went completely unnoticed by the vast majority of people. Movies like this used to become hits on the home video market but, in a world of streaming, seems doomed to obscurity.

7

Cold Pursuit (2019)

Directed By Hans Petter Moland

Since the decline of the Taken franchise, Liam Neeson has become something of the king of small and independent crime movies that go unnoticed by the mainstream. In Cold Pursuit, I actually think he gave audiences perhaps the best film he’s made since his 2008 hit. Following a vengeful father waging a one-man war against a local crime boss, the film brilliantly combines satire, dark humor and action.

Cold Pursuit is best described as a modern, artsy homage to Fargo with a revenge makeover. Fans of the likes of Guy Ritchie and the Coen Brothers alike could have found something to love in this film, and there’s no doubt in my mind it will earn the status of cult classic. This is the type of film that people who lament the dominance of superhero films should have rewarded, from its excellent humor to its emotional revenge story. It’s just a shame so few people know it exists.

6

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023)

Directed By James Mangold

After the franchise was almost killed following the widely-panned Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Disney revived Indiana Jones in 2023’s Dial of Destiny. Helmed by James Mangold, the film straddled the line between science fiction and mythology, sending Jones and his newest companions on a hunt for the Antikythera Mechanism. After watching the film, I was certain its quality and spirit would speak for itself and carry it to modest box office success. Unfortunately, it turned into the year’s biggest flop.

To me, this film signaled a studio finally investing in giving fans what they want, and it led to a charming adventure that nailed its period and characters.

Kingdom of the Crystal was a complete mess of a movie and, if anything else, Dial of Destiny should be applauded for putting some heart back in the franchise. To me, this film signaled a studio finally investing in giving fans what they want, and it led to a charming adventure that nailed its period and characters. Audiences saw it differently, and it’s sadly unlikely Disney will return to the franchise or big-budget adventure for a while.

5

The Covenant (2023)

Directed By Guy Ritchie

Throughout the last decade, Guy Ritchie has moved beyond the comedy-crime movies that made him famous and into the realm of action and thriller. While these films aren’t to the liking of all of his fans, I’ve enjoyed them, and I can confidently say The Covenant is one of his best movies. Focusing on a veteran’s quest to rescue an Afghan translator from the Taliban, the film does a brilliant job of building on its heroes’ sense of duty, loyalty and doing the right thing.

The Covenant is one of the best modern war movies we’ve had since American Sniper, and it did a great job of highlighting the situation in Afghanistan. It’s interesting to see a war movie that doesn’t rely too heavily on flashy effects and combat sequences. I’d rank it as the director’s best movie since Snatch, and I can’t figure out why audiences didn’t have any interest in seeing it.

4

The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare (2024)

Directed By Guy Ritchie

Since Inglourious Basterds, the war genre has made a push into the realm of pulpy action, embracing a zany, ultra-violent tone. In The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, Guy Ritchie brought to life the true story behind one of Britain’s most effective special forces units, which innovated new ways of killing Nazis. Despite a fun premise, A-list director and powerful cast, the movie was perhaps the biggest box office disappointment of 2024.

The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare feels to me like one of those action movies that, in ten years or so, people will look back and ask why they don’t make them like that anymore. It’s an adventurous epic that combines the scale of a Mission: Impossible film with the buddy dynamic of a good Tarantino flick — pure, unadulterated escapism at its best. The worst part for me was seeing the enthusiasm of its cast while marketing it, knowing their pᴀssion wasn’t enough to carry it to victory.

3

The Hunt (2020)

Directed By Craig Zobel

When Blumhouse announced, amidst growing political tensions in the US, that it was producing a movie about liberals hunting conservatives for sport, the internet almost universally spoke out. In a rare move for a film studio, the company actually embraced the controversy for its marketing, plastering the poster with criticism from people who hadn’t yet seen it. Unfortunately, Universal’s decision to postpone its release to early 2020 landed it at the heart of the outbreak of the COVID-19 lockdown.

Rather than take sides in politics, the movie instead satirizes the excesses of both sides, delivering a fantastic action movie in the process.

It’s unclear just how well The Hunt would have performed without theater closures, but even after release, so many criticisms of the movie revealed that people still hadn’t watched it. Rather than take sides in politics, the movie instead satirizes the excesses of both sides, delivering a fantastic action movie in the process. What could have been 2020’s best action movie became one of its most obscure, symbolizing the devastation the pandemic wrought on Hollywood.

2

Mission: Impossible ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Reckoning (2023)

Directed By Christopher McQuarrie

Tom Cruise’s Mission: Impossible movies have achieved what used to be a difficult feat in surpᴀssing James Bond as the best, most action-packed spy thriller franchise in film. After the brilliance of Mission: Impossible Fallout, fans had to wait five years to finally see Cruise get back in the saddle for ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Reckoning, the first in a two-part epic. Following Ethan and the IMF against a rogue AI program, the movie established itself in my eyes as one of the best spy thrillers of the last 25 years.

As is often the case with two-parters, ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Reckoning didn’t do well at the box office, especially as the Barbenheimer phenomenon captured audience attention in its place. The film’s stumble at the box office jeopardized the franchise’s future, even contributing to delays of part two. For such an ambitious, action-packed movie, I’ll never understand how this excellent project was outperformed by No Time To Die.

1

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024)

Directed By George Miller

After action fans almost unanimously declared Mad Max: Fury Road one of the best movies in the genre, we were ready for more from George Miller. While it did take nine years to get there, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga delivered an outstanding prequel, one that explored the wasteland and the origin of Furiosa. Although the film should have gone lighter on CGI, it made for a thrilling return to George Miller’s universe, and was arguably the best action film of 2024.

Unfortunately, the brilliant world-building and gripping action weren’t enough to compensate for the long wait between movies and the absence of Max himself. When factoring in how the movie became yet another focal point of online culture war discourse, I don’t think I’ve been as disappointed by a flop in recent memory. After waiting so long for Miller to get back to the wasteland, we might never get to see the director’s continuation for Max.