While not every movie can be a financial hit, the biggest box office bombs of all time prove that some projects can take down careers, genres, and even studios. While movie studios do everything possible to ensure they take as few risks as possible, investing in a film is always a gamble. The common criticism that Hollywood only produces reboots, sequels, remakes, and spinoffs is not without justification. This claim comes from the fact that, for studios, an intellectual property with proven potential and a built-in fanbase will always be more appealing than an unknown, original prospect.

However, this approach does not always bear fruit. The box office failure of superhero movies in 2023 shows that no genre is going to be a surefire hit forever. While superhero movies were once the biggest earner, they have now made for some costly losses. This can be the same for big ambitious productions that spiral out of control, attempts to start franchises that fail to launch, and star-studded movies that don't interest audiences. Regardless of the confidence going in, these box office bombs have made an unfortunate mark in Hollywood history.

Box office figures via Box Office Mojo.

25 How Do You Know (2010)

Loss: $140 Million

Many box office bombs are testaments to misplaced ambition, but 2010’s How Do You Know is an exception to this rule. A modest romantic comedy, How Do You Know somehow cost $120 million to produce. The salaries of the star-studded cast contributed to the high price tag, with Reese Witherspoon ($15 million), Owen Wilson ($10 million), and Jack Nicholson ($12 million) making a lot for their work.

Along with the hefty salaries for the talented cast, another issue with the film's budget stemmed from writer-director James L. Brooks' filmmaking style. He moved at a meticulous pace and the time that everything took only added to the pricetag. Ultimately though, nothing about How Do You Know’s familiar story justified this sky-high cost.

How Do You Know is a rom-com that sees Witherspoon’s softball player struggling to choose between Wilson’s charming baseball player and Paul Rudd’s white-collar criminal. Viewers chose neither, resulting in a $140 million loss. While the careers of the movie;s stars were not noticeably harmed, the underperforming movie led to Brooks not making another film until 2025's Ella McCay.

24 Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny (2023)

Loss: $143 Million

While movies like Top Gun: Maverick proved that the return of beloved cinematic heroes with an iconic star in the role could lead to massive success, that result isn't always guaranteed. Even still, the lack of excitement for the fifth and final Indiana Jones movie starring Harrison Ford as the legendary hero surprised many people in Hollywood. Following the lackluster Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, the new adventure was meant to leave the franchise on a positive note.

The reception to Dial of Destiny was somewhat mixed though more positive than the previous movie. However, Indiana Jones 5 became the lowest-grossing installment in the series, making under $175 million at the box office. Regardless of the quality of the movie, it was an unfortunate way to end the series with its loss of $143 million.

23 Heaven’s Gate (1980)

Loss: $144 Million

Michael Cimono’s Heaven’s Gate is often seen as the movie that ended the auteur-driven mindset of Hollywood. A wildly ambitious epic Western, Heaven’s Gate cost $44 million and earned back less than $4 million.

A true tragedy of ambition, Heaven’s Gate takes place alongside Damien Chazelle's Babylon and director Richard Kelly’s underrated sci-fi flop Southland Tales as a quintessential case of a visionary director whose carte blanch opportunity proved to be a financial disaster. The movie is an epic that mixes romance and war with the story of a sheriff who struggles to protect immigrant farmers in 1890's Wyoming. Like those aforementioned films, Heaven's Gate has many defenders.

Lush, immersive, and surprisingly affecting, Heaven’s Gate is still undeniably as overlong and meandering as critics claimed. Adjusted for inflation, Cimino’s Western lost $144 million. Despite having directed the Best Picture winner, The Deer Hunter, this movie all but ended Cimino's career.

22 Mars Needs Moms (2011)

Loss: $145 Million

Disney was known for producing some of the best animated movies of all time and that reputation was further solidified with the success of Pixar. However, when the studio would come out with a lesser animated offering, the drop in quality was quite noticeable. Mars Needs Moms was one such project, a bizarre space adventure that lacked the heart and impressive animation that Disney was known for. Part of the reason was that the movie continued Disney's experimentation with motion-capture animation.

The animation style had previously been seen in the likes of The Polar Express and A Christmas Carol, but the reaction to the "uncanny valley" of the characters was offputting to many audiences. The production company ImageMovers was heavily involved with the making of these animated movies, but following the dismal $39 million gross and $145 million loss of Mars Needs Moms, ImageMovers never made an animated movie again.

21 The Flash (2023)

Loss: $150 Million

2023 was the year that superhero movie fatigue officially set in, with a number of high-profile projects falling short. One of the most notorious failures of the genre was DC's long-awaited standalone movie The Flash. Not only was the movie set to be Barry Allen's first solo movie, but it was to feature cameos from other DCEU cast like Batman (Ben Affleck) and Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot). On top of it all, the movie was a multiverse story in which Barry found himself in the timeline of Michael Keaton's Batman.

As exciting as the movie seemed on paper, The Flash was marred by issues for years. The movie was in development for a number of years with multiple directors coming and going. The multiverse angle, which once seemed like an exciting idea, was being picked clear from the MCU. The incoming DCU reboot also put into question how much this movie mattered. Finally, the ongoing legal issues with star Ezra Miller cast a cloud over the film. This all led to The Flash failing to break $300 million at the worldwide box office and suffering a $150 million loss.

20 A Wrinkle In Time (2018)

Loss: $152 Million

Director Ava DuVernay’s adaptation of the famous young adult novel A Wrinkle in Time assembled an impressive cast, including Reese Witherspoon, Mindy Kaling, and Oprah Winfrey. The movie stars Storm Reid as a young girl whose scientist father goes missing, motivating her on a journey alongside her friends to travel across time and space to find him.

The story is a beloved one and there was certainly a lot of talent involved. However, this was not enough to save A Wrinkle In Time from a disastrous box office performance upon its release in 2018. With a budget of $130 million, A Wrinkle In Time earned a little less than that number at the box office. While this may not sound too bad, the film's marketing and promotional budget means that the movie lost somewhere in the realm of $152 million.

19 Wonder Woman 1984 (2020)

Loss: $155 Million

With 2020’s Wonder Woman 1984, there is the tricky question of the COVID-19 pandemic and its box office impact. Most of the bombs from the era were affected by theater closures caused by the pandemic, and it is impossible to know whether these movies might have performed better if released later. This is especially true as the studio made the unprecedented decision to also release the film for at-home streaming during its theatrical run.

However, the only version of Wonder Woman 1984’s box office performance that viewers can use to gauge is the one that happened. Released in December 2020, the Wonder Woman sequel earned around $46 million in the U.S. and around $123 million worldwide. This resulted in Wonder Woman 1984 losing somewhere around $155 million.

Despite starting out as one of the DCU's most successful properties, Wonder Woman 3 was canceled after this movie. While the pandemic changed the way audiences could see the movie and certainly limited its box office potential, a smaller factor could have also been the critical and audience reception, which was decidedly more mixed than the acclaimed first installment.

18 Mulan (2020)

Loss: $159 Million

Another movie whose box office underperformance is inexorably tied to the COVID-19 pandemic, Mulan's live-action Disney remake, was released in theaters in September 2020. Like the beloved animated original, Mulan tells the story of the titular heroine, a young woman in Imperial China who is being pushed down one path in life as a dutiful wife, but challenges tradition when she poses as a male soldier and takes her father's place in the army.

Earning lukewarm critical write-ups and significant criticism from non-Western reviewers, 2020's Mulan had a disastrous showing at the box office. Costing around $200 million, the filmed earned a mere $70 million. Mulan’s losses totaled around $159 million, a far cry from the 1998 original.

In stark contrast with its live-action re-imagining, that animated classic cost $90 million and earned over $300 million. However, like Wonder Woman 1984, Mulan was only released in countries in which the movie theaters had reopened amid the pandemic. In the United States and many other countries, the movie was released on Disney+.

17 X-Men: Dark Phoenix (2019)

Loss: $155 Million

Dark Phoenix was intended to be a star vehicle for Game of Thrones heroine Sophie Turner, who played the uncontrollable, tragic anti-villain Phoenix in this 10th X-Men movie. The story saw Jean Grey struggling with her new and extreme powers while being torn between her X-Men friends and a race of aliens attempting to use her as the ultimate weapon. It is an adaptation of a beloved comic book storyline that many fans feel was poorly done in 2006's X-Men: The Last Stand.

An overstuffed cast, convoluted plot, and hasty re-shoots all contributed to the failure.

However, the response to Dark Phoenix was even worse than the 2006 version, with it being called a messy, misjudged story that signaled the X-Men franchise reaching the end of its run. An overstuffed cast, convoluted plot, and hasty re-shoots all contributed to the failure of director Simon Kinberg’s Dark Phoenix, which earned $252 million worldwide on a budget of $200 million. Thanks to marketing, this meant a $155 million loss for the studio at the end of the day.

The movie was released in the aftermath of the deal struck by Fox and Disney that would mean the MCU regained the rights to the X-Men characters. This suggested the X-Men Fox franchise was over, and the audience might have already been moving on, looking ahead to the MCU's take on these characters. The movie's many delays likely didn't help matters, with Dark Phoenix originally scheduled for a fall 2018 release.

16 Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001)

Loss: $155 Million

In the early 2000s, video game adaptations seemed like a major moneymaking opportunity for Hollywood studios. While the critical failure of 1993’s Super Mario Bros and 1995’s Mortal Kombat should have given executives pause, there was too much excitement and too much money to be made in this new medium for anyone to consider temperance. As a result, viewers got a star-studded adaption of the incredibly popular Final Fantasy franchise in 2001’s Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within.

The movie details humanity's fight against alien phantoms who have taken control of Earth, with a scientist pushing back against the military's approach and seeking a non-destructive way to win the war. A "photo-realistic" animated effort, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within lost $155 million and was largely responsible for the death of the studio responsible for the flop. The film was the most expensive video game adaptation at the time, but ironically alienated fans of the franchise due to its taking liberties with the story.