From superheroes to super-yikes, 2023 has been a mixed bag for the sci-fi genre, with a few high-profile movies spectacularly underperforming. Some of these films haven't just bombed at the box office; they have outright tanked!
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00:00 From superheroes to super yikes, 2023 has been a mixed bag for the sci-fi genre, with
00:05 a few high-profile movies spectacularly underperforming. Some of these films haven't just bombed at
00:10 the box office; they have outright tanked.
00:13 What's amazing about Ant-Man and the Wasp, Quantumania, is that two things will be true
00:17 at once. It will be one of the highest-grossing movies of the year, and it will also be a
00:21 relative flop for Disney. The film kicked off Phase 5 of the MCU with a bang, delivering
00:25 over $100 million on its opening weekend, which was a record for the Ant-Man franchise.
00:30 Unfortunately, it didn't sustain the pace, suffering a huge drop-off in the second weekend
00:35 and a pretty brutal run from then on out.
00:37 At the end of the day, Quantumania topped out at $476 million worldwide. It's the lowest
00:42 of the trilogy, coming in well below Ant-Man's $519 million and Ant-Man and the Wasp's $623
00:49 million.
00:50 While almost $500 million worldwide sounds good to anyone, the film's reported $200 million
00:54 budget means the movie likely did not result in a profit during its theatrical run. Over
00:59 time, maybe it might inch toward profitability. That said, the way in which global audiences
01:03 dismissed what was pitched as an Avengers-level event must be considered a disappointment
01:07 for Disney and Marvel Studios.
01:09 There was a time when the Transformers franchise seemed downright unstoppable at the box office,
01:13 with Michael Bay at the helm during the height of his powers. Unfortunately, the Bayhem ran
01:17 out of gas with The Last Knight, and Paramount has been trying to right the ship since then.
01:21 Bumblebee scored $465 million worldwide, marking it as a win relative to its $102 million budget.
01:28 That teed up the ball for the series to return to its former glory with the release of Transformers
01:32 - Rise of the Beasts. Sadly, it didn't get the job done.
01:35 Heading into theaters with mixed reviews and a '90s setting, Rise of the Beasts earned
01:39 just $407 million globally against a pretty hefty $195 million budget before marketing.
01:46 This means Rise of the Beasts has made less than Bumblebee, with the budget nearly twice
01:50 as high. What does that mean for the future? It's tough to say, but Paramount needs to
01:53 adjust its strategy because this isn't gonna get the job done.
01:56 "This is probably a lot for you, huh?"
01:59 For whatever reason, the Jurassic Park franchise has mostly had a monopoly on using dinosaurs
02:03 in blockbusters for 30 years. A Quiet Place writers Scott Beck and Brian Woods tried to
02:08 change that trend with this year's 65. Starring Adam Driver and a bunch of CGI dinos, the
02:13 film takes place 65 million years ago and sees a lost spaceman trying to get off of
02:17 prehistoric Earth. Sadly, it didn't pan out.
02:21 Against a reasonable budget of $45 million, the film topped out at $61 million worldwide.
02:26 When accounting for marketing, there's no chance Sony came close to breaking even from
02:29 ticket sales alone. The good news here is that Sony didn't overspend on this one. When
02:34 accounting for VOD, Blu-ray sales, and other revenue streams, this one will probably break
02:38 even down the line. It's just a shame that it wasn't an actual hit, paving the way for
02:42 more inventive, mid-budget sci-fi from other studios.
02:45 Hollywood follows the money, and the money didn't follow Adam Driver to the land of dinosaurs
02:49 here.
02:50 There will be few blockbuster disasters as high-profile as The Flash in 2023. Warner
02:54 Brothers has been trying to make a solo movie about DC's fastest hero for years now, dating
02:59 back to the early 2000s. Director Andy Muschietti finally got the job done, using a trip through
03:03 the DC multiverse to tell the story, with troubled star Ezra Miller front and center
03:07 as Barry Allen.
03:09 The result was a much-hyped $200 million blockbuster that audiences roundly rejected. The studio
03:14 is going to lose a fortune to the tune of at least $150 million over this grave miscalculation.
03:20 This makes matters complicated for the future of the DC universe, and the studio's bottom
03:23 line.
03:24 The film is unlikely to cross the $300 million mark at the box office when all's said and
03:28 done. Since theaters keep about half of all money from ticket sales, you can see why Warner
03:32 Brothers is in bad shape. Blame it on overestimating the appeal of Michael Keaton's return as Batman
03:37 all these years later, or Miller's off-screen troubles.
03:39 Whatever the case, this is proof that audiences are now far more choosy about which superhero
03:44 movies they will turn up to see.
03:45 "I have nothing."
03:48 Robert Rodriguez has directed some big hits in his career, including Spy Kids and Sin
03:52 City. Meanwhile, Ben Affleck has starred in his fair share of huge movies, from Armageddon
03:57 to Gone Girl. With their powers combined, Rodriguez and Affleck made one of the biggest
04:01 bombs we're going to see in 2023.
04:03 The mind-bending sci-thriller known as Hypnotic ended up being an utter trainwreck. Against
04:08 a sizable $65 million budget, the film opened to just $2.35 million. It only got worse,
04:13 as the film crawled to $6.2 million globally.
04:16 It's downright hard to believe a movie with a big budget, as well as an A-list director
04:20 and star, can put so few butts in seats. Granted, this one got away from Rodriguez a bit, as
04:24 the film was shut down several times by the pandemic, which ended up inflating the budget
04:28 dramatically. Be that as it may, even with a budget a third that size, this would still
04:33 be a pretty big flop.
04:35 As it stands, a lot of people probably lost a lot of money, and this will certainly go
04:38 down as a blemish on his career and Affleck's.
04:41 [music]