5 Box Office Bombs That Lost Millions

I’ve always been a sucker for big, dumb action movies. The kind with explosions, wild stunts, and huge stars that make you think, “Yeah, this is gonna be awesome.” But sometimes, Hollywood spends a fortune making something that no one wants to see. That’s when you get box office bombs, a movie so expensive and so bad that it makes studios look stupid.

I remember watching some of these box office bombs and thinking, “How did this even happen?” Like, who sat in a room and said, “Yeah, let’s spend $200 million on this”? It’s almost impressive how badly some of these flopped. Even with big names like Johnny Depp or Eddie Murphy, they couldn’t pull in enough people to cover the budget. Some of these were supposed to launch franchises, but instead, they just became expensive jokes.

What’s crazy is that most of them actually had cool moments. A wild pirate battle, an insane train chase, or even some weird alien fight scene. But a couple of good scenes doesn't save a movie from being a box office bomb when everything else is a mess. You sit there, watching all this effort and money explode on screen, and just wonder... What went wrong here?

So, let’s look at five of the biggest flops ever. They lost studios millions, but at least they left behind a few fun scenes that made the films worth watching.

A pirate movie with tons of action, big ships, and a ridiculous budget—what could go wrong? Well, everything. Even with epic sword fights and explosions, no one cared, and it lost over $100 million, nearly killing pirate movies until Pirates of the Caribbean showed up.

John Travolta thought making a sci-fi epic based on a book by Scientology’s founder was a great idea. Spoiler: it was not. Bad acting, weird camera angles, and aliens with dreadlocks made this one of the worst-reviewed movies ever, losing millions in the process.

Eddie Murphy in a sci-fi comedy? Sounds fun, right? Nope. It bombed so hard it made Norbit look like an Oscar contender, barely making back a fraction of its insane $100 million budget.

Disney tried to make the next Star Wars with this big-budget sci-fi adventure. Instead, it lost over $200 million because no one knew who John Carter was or why they should care. Cool action, bad marketing, and a title that confused everyone sealed its fate.

Johnny Depp as Tonto, a $250 million budget, and wild train chases—sounds like a hit, right? Not even close. Audiences ignored it, and Disney lost a ton of money, proving not every old-school hero can be rebooted.

These movies were huge risks that didn’t pay off. But hey, at least the trailers make them look kind of cool...