Movies including "Furiosa," "The Fall Guy," and "Horizon: An American Saga" failed to light up box offices this year.
Cindy Ord/Getty Images
This year has not been great for the box office. In fact, Memorial Day was the worst weekend for the movies since the '90s. The entire domestic box office pulled in just $126 million — in years past, the No. 1 movie alone has made as much as $160 million, as "Top Gun: Maverick" did in 2022.
A few factors have led to this. Mainly, the WGA/SAG strikes last year put many productions on pause, so some of the bigger movies won't come out until later in the year.
Another factor is streaming and VOD. "Furiosa," which came out a little over six weeks ago, is already available to rent at home. For a family, it's cheaper to spend $30 to rent something at home than $50-plus on tickets, snacks, and drinks.
And finally, people apparently just aren't convinced they need to see some of these films on the big screen. Why go see Kevin Costner's new Western when you can watch him in "Yellowstone" at home?
Not all movies have bombed this year — "Inside Out 2" has pulled in $1.2 billion worldwide, a record for Pixar, Forbes reported — but these films performed much worse than anticipated.
New Line Cinema
"Horizon" was a huge gamble for its star/director/writer/producer, Kevin Costner. Costner mortgaged his home in Santa Barbara and invested $38 million of his own fortune to fund the film.
He also left his lucrative role on the smash-hit TV show "Yellowstone" due to scheduling conflicts with "Horizon."
It's an ambitious task — Costner sees "Horizon" as a four-part series that he planned on releasing over the course of a few months. "Chapter 1" was released in June and made $11 million on its first weekend. A rough start for a movie that cost as much as $100 million to make.
New Line, its distributor, apparently agreed. "Chapter 2" was supposed to hit movie theaters on August 16, but the sequel was pulled from the schedule and now sits in limbo.
Warner Bros.
As The Wrap pointed out, "Furiosa's" $32 million opening weekend is the lowest No. 1 total for a Memorial Day Weekend since 1995, when "Casper" topped the box office with $22 million.
Another depressing stat for the "Mad Max: Fury Road" prequel? According to Screen Rant, it had the worst second-week drop of any "Mad Max" movie, plunging a staggering 59%.
Now, why exactly is "Furiosa" flopping so hard? It might be a case of unreasonable expectations. "Fury Road" is rightfully hailed as one of the best action movies of all time, but it didn't light the box office on fire at first either. Its domestic opening in 2015 was $42.4 million, ending up at a respectable $380 million worldwide.
Also, Anya-Taylor Joy (who plays the titular Furiosa) is famous but not a definite movie star yet — arguably, her big break was for a TV show ("The Queen's Gambit"), and her last big cinematic hits ("Dune: Part Two" and "The Menu") were sold on bigger stars like Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, and Ralph Fiennes.
By July, the film hadn't crossed the $175 million mark worldwide.
Sony Pictures Releasing
We can't only blame "Furiosa" for the abysmal Memorial Day box office. The other film that opened as counter-programming that weekend was "The Garfield Movie," the second animated adaptation of everyone's favorite grumpy cat.
The film, which stars Chris Pratt as Garfield, made just $31 million on its opening weekend. So, between "Garfield" and "Furiosa," the top two movies at the box office made a total of $63 million.
For context, the No. 1 movie at the box office last Memorial Day weekend was "The Little Mermaid," which made $118 million.
After the billion-dollar success of "The Super Mario Bros. Movie" (also starring Pratt), "Garfield" simply couldn't measure up. The other big animated movie of the year, "Kung Fu Panda 4," opened to $57 million and has made $541 million worldwide.
When "Inside Out 2" was released, that's when it was truly curtains for Garfield. The Pixar sequel has already made $1.2 billion worldwide, making it the highest-grossing movie of the year.
Universal
An action rom-com led by the two of the stars of last year's box-office phenomenon, Barbenheimer? You'd think that'd be a no-brainer smash, but "The Fall Guy" hasn't lived up to those lofty expectations.
Variety reported that the film was projected to debut between $30 and $40 million, but it made just $28.5 million. At this point, it's made $177 million worldwide.
As Business Insider's Jason Guerrasio noted before the film premiered, this May was the first time in 17 years (excluding 2020) that a Marvel movie of some kind hasn't kicked off the summer. Last May's Marvel film, "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3," made $118 million domestically in its opening weekend.
With that looming over its head, it's no surprise that "The Fall Guy," based on the little-remembered '80s TV show of the same name, couldn't measure up.
Peter Mountain/Universal Pictures, Apple Original Films, and MARV
Put aside the deeply annoying "Who is the real Agent Argylle?" marketing campaign and think about how wild this is: "Argylle," an action spy-thriller starring Oscar-winner Sam Rockwell, former Superman Henry Cavill, the former star of a multi-billion-dollar franchise Bryce Dallas Howard, living legend Samuel L. Jackson, comedy icon Catherine O'Hara, beloved actor Bryan Cranston, and current pop star Dua Lipa couldn't crack $100 million at the box-office.
Compare that to the $200 million it cost Apple to make, as reported by Indiewire, and that's a true box-office bomb, even if Apple claims otherwise.
Jessica Kourkounis/Sony Pictures
If you're unfamiliar with the Sony Spider-Man Universe (or the SSU), here's a quick explanation: Marvel (and, therefore, Disney) now owns the rights to almost all of its comic characters. The one property it can't get back? Spider-Man and all his related villains, friends, and love interests, which are still owned by Sony.
Although Sony and Disney have agreed on a deal that allows Spidey to appear in the MCU, Sony is still holding tight to the rest of his associates, which is how we end up with films like "Venom," "Morbius," "Kraven the Hunter," and yes, "Madame Web."
Why Sony thought this movie was a good idea is beyond us — Madame Web is a little-known character (and matters even less without, you know, Spider-Man around to help save the day), and star Dakota Johnson hasn't proven herself to be a cinematic draw outside IP-driven properties like "Fifty Shades of Grey," which made a combined $1.3 billion worldwide.
With a dismal worldwide box office of $100 million, all that the SSU has proven is that these movies make for good memes.
Moris Puccio/20th Century Studios
"The First Omen" is by no means a huge disappointment for 20th Century Studios — it's made $53 million worldwide against a $30 million budget — but it wasn't the hit you might've expected from one of the most iconic franchises in horror history.
Variety even reported that projections expected the film to make $14 to $15 million on opening weekend. It made a little over half that: just $8.3 million.
Daniel Smith for Lionsgate
Director Guy Ritchie's latest film is about Winston Churchill's secret special forces team that operated in World War II. This team would perform top-secret missions to take down the Nazis — it's destined to become a No. 1 dad movie in the future.
But for now, this film starring Cavill, Eiza González, Alan Ritchson, and Henry Golding will be known as a movie that cost $60 million to make, according to Variety, and earned just $27 million.
It's been a rough few years for Cavill post-"Justice League" in 2017. He began starring in "The Witcher" in 2019 (a very successful show by all accounts), only to leave after season three. It's never been officially announced why he left, but the timing did line up with his cameo as Superman in the DCEU film "Black Adam" in 2022.
Unfortunately for Cavill, when James Gunn took over the DC film division, he announced his plans to scrap the entire DCEU (DC Extended Universe) and start fresh with a brand-new Superman, now played by David Corenswet.
And now, Cavill's last two films since his last appearance as Superman in "The Flash" have bombed.
TriStar Pictures
"The Book of Clarence" is an alternate-history biblical comedy that posits the existence of a 13th Apostle, Clarence.
"The Book of Clarence" is only director Jeymes Samuel's second film. His first, "The Harder They Fall," was a critical success and enjoyed by viewers, but it debuted on Netflix, so it was hard to gauge what the box office would be like for his follow-up.
It turns out that biblical comedy doesn't go over as well as a Western. According to Variety, "The Book of Clarence" cost $40 million to produce and made only $6.2 million worldwide.
Michele K. Short/2024 Focus Features LLC
Cole Sprouse and Kathryn Newton have been tapped as potential movie stars in the next generation of Hollywood and have each been in successful films.
However, their star power and the value of "Frankenstein" as intellectual property didn't help this '80s teen comedy earn money.
Even though it was a relatively cheap film to make at just $13 million, according to Variety, it couldn't crack double digits at the box office. It made only $9.9 million.
Focus Features
"Drive-Away Dolls" was directed by Ethan Coen and was the first film he directed on his own without his brother, Joel (excluding the 2022 documentary, "Jerry Lee Lewis: Trouble in Mind").
It was also the first Coen film to make less than $10 million since 1991's "Barton Fink," which made $6.2 million to "Drive-Away Dolls'" $6.8 million. The Coens have since made 14 films, some of which made as much as $252 million ("True Grit").
