It’s quite apparent to fellow movie pundits like me that the box office has been faltering as of late. Sure, we’ve had some big hits in the past year—including the phenomenon known as “Barbenheimer” that struck theaters last July. Barbie surpassed The Super Mario Bros Movie for the top spot at the 2023 Worldwide Box Office, earning over $1.446 billion, and Oppenheimer grossed $953 million worldwide. However, this might be attributed to a release in the middle of summer and high critical acclaim. Unfortunately, the rest of the year proved to be disappointing, to say the least.
The biggest financial failures were The Haunted Mansion, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, and The Flash. The Haunted Mansion cost Disney $115 million after concluding its theatrical run with just over $100 million on a $150 million production budget, and those numbers don’t account for marketing which will make the film an even bigger failure. This is a scenario where there just wasn’t really an audience for the film.
Indiana Jones returned in Dial of Destiny, a film that nobody was asking for, coming out 15 years after Kingdom of the Crystal Skull barely cracked $384 million worldwide and cost $300 million to make, which also doesn’t account for marketing, which cost $100 million. In the end, the demand just wasn’t there for this movie, and it will be another failure for Lucasfilm and Disney.
The biggest disappointment of the year had to be The Flash, which despite receiving some early critical success, proved to be divisive and only made $268 million, a terrible new failure for the DCEU. The Flash cost $220 million to make, and once you add in marketing, the film would’ve needed at least $375 million to break even, and as previously stated, it came up much short of that. In fact, the collapse of the DCEU universe financially has actually prompted Warner Bros to start fresh in 2025 with a new DC universe, having ended the current DCEU universe with its last film being Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. Aquaman and the Lost KIngdom also underperformed, only raking in $433 million while its predecessor, Aquaman was able to make more than $1.1 million globally. However, its predecessor happened to be well-received among comic book fans, something this film didn’t have going for it; having mostly negative reviews.
Even Marvel, one of the most successful entertainment companies, has had its fair share of struggles. The Marvels barely made $200 million at the box office, a new record low for them. This is another scenario where its predecessor, Captain Marvel made over $1.1 million back in 2019. This can be attributed to the film being very divisive amongst fans, as many thought it fell short of its predecessor.
These box office failures can be attributed to low demand from consumers and poor execution from the studios. If you look at all of these movies, generally they weren’t the most broadly liked with a number of them being very divisive. Studios should analyze these disappointing returns and prioritize their investments better based on the demand and potential for each project. Hopefully, we will start to see a rise in box office returns very soon.
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