With 2018 winding down, it’s time to start reflecting on the year that was, including the winners… and today’s focus, the losers at the box office. First, though, let’s set a few ground rules.
First off, the movies on this list have all opened in wide release, at least over 1,000 theaters nationwide, so while Gotti ($4.3 million worldwide, $10 million budget) would certainly be considered a bomb, it also only opened in 503 theaters. While it’s numbers are dismal, a movie like Gotti doesn’t have a wide enough release to have the potential to make blockbuster numbers anyway, so it doesn’t really make much sense to include a movie like Gotti here, as far as I’m concerned.
I’m also not including movies that technically ‘made money,’ even though I’m fully aware that movie math isn’t quite the same as traditional math. In the eyes of many, Solo: A Star Wars Story ($213.8 million domestic, $392.9 million worldwide, rumored $300 million budget) could be considered a “bomb,” especially since it’s the lowest-grossing movie in Star Wars history…even though it’s still the ninth highest-grossing movie domestically this year. The “budget” doesn’t include publicity and advertising, which Variety reported last year can cost anywhere between $20 million and $150 million for each movie, but isn’t a commonly reported figure. The production budget also doesn’t include first-dollar gross points paid out to actors, directors, producers and writers and a myriad of other costs, and the most common metric is that a movie needs to at least double its production budget to truly break even.