The biggest summer blockbuster flop every year since 1980

A couple of years after “Grease” was a proper summer blockbuster, Olivia Newton-John starred in a disaster of a musical. This is one of the movies that led to the creation of the Golden Raspberry Awards. While the soundtrack to “Xanadu” was well received, the movie was not, and it barely recouped its $20 million budget.

The summer of 1981 had a huge hit in “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and a general lack of choices for a flop. “Under the Rainbow” was released at the end of July by Warner Bros. and cost $18 million, which was not cheap at the time. Plus, it starred Chevy Chase fresh off of “Caddyshack” and Carrie Fisher in the midst of the original “Star Wars” trilogy. The movie only made $8.3 million, and you probably haven’t heard of it, so that’s a flop.

This is a good one to include because, of course, “Blade Runner” is now considered a sci-fi classic, and it got a legacy sequel decades later. That is time reclaiming what was, when it was released, a bit of a disappointment from Harrison Ford right when he was coming off a Han Solo summer followed by an Indiana Jones summer. Ford was the biggest movie star in the world, but the release of “Blade Runner” was a complicated one. It made $41.8 million, but off a budget of $30 million, that was a disappointment, and regardless of current assessments, it was polarizing at best at the time.

“Yellowbeard” was not expensive, but it is terrible, and it only made $4.3 million at the box office. It’s one of those films with a stacked cast that leads to the adage that if you have never heard of a film with a stacked cast, that’s probably because it’s awful. Multiple Monty Python members. Cheech AND Chong. James Mason. They are all a part of this mess.

In the 1980s, Sylvester Stallone was still a bankable movie star…in the right kind of movie. “Rhinestone,” a musical comedy co-starring Dolly Parton, was not such a movie. It was a fiasco that didn’t recoup its budget, and it became a cultural joke. “Rhinestone” was also directed by Bob Clark, so it’s time to mention that Clark also directed “Black Christmas,” “A Christmas Story,” “Porky’s,” and “Baby Geniuses.”

Disney figured “‘The Wizard of Oz’ was a huge success, so let’s buy the rights to the rest of L. Frank Baum’s ‘Oz’ books and make a belated quasi-sequel!” It took them 30 years to make that happen, and the result was a flop. “Return to Oz” only made $11.1 million and only has cult status because it was nightmare fuel for kids of the ‘80s. It would take “Wicked” to figure out how to draft off of “The Wizard of Oz.”

While many a Xennial will assert “Labyrinth” is a classic, this is about how movies were received at the time of release. Jim Henson’s weird, David Bowie-centric musical made $34 million, but that was on a budget of $25 million, and most of that return was overseas. This is one of those films that, thanks to the rise of home video, was able to gain its following, but “Labyrinth” barely made a blip in theaters in the summer of 1986.

Now, “Jaws: The Revenge” did make $51.9 million off a budget of $23 million. It wasn’t a hit, but it was not an out-and-out commercial flop. However, it was loathed by critics and filmgoers. “The Revenge” is considered one of the worst sequels ever made and has been lampooned for decades. Given that it is a sequel to the movie that birthed the modern summer blockbuster, it’s worth mentioning.

“Arthur” was a surprise hit, making over 10 times its budget and getting John Gielgud an Oscar. Trying to rekindle that magic made sense, but the problem is that it took them seven years to get the sequel into theaters. Released just after the 4th of July weekend, “On the Rocks” reunited the gang, but the reception was much worse, and the film made $80 million less than the original.

This was a strong summer for movies, and there wasn’t a clear, decisive choice for a flop-type flop. We landed on “The Final Frontier” for a couple of reasons. The movie didn’t quite double its budget, which is a back-of-the-envelope measure of financial success. However, the fourth “Star Trek” movie was a huge hit, well received, and revitalized the franchise. Meanwhile, “The Final Frontier” almost killed the franchise.

This is not some after-the-fact dunking on Bill Cosby. “Ghost Dad” was clearly terrible even in 1990; it ended Cosby’s film career, and people were hating on it back when he was still a popular TV dad. The high-concept, low-IQ comedy was panned, and it made $25 million on a budget of $30 million. A flop that most people skipped in the summer of 1990.

If your movie co-starred Jennifer Connelly, it was going to be a summer flop that would eventually find popularity and be considered a favorite of many. That proved true of “Labyrinth,” and it has proven true of “The Rocketeer.” Disney threw a lot of money and promotion behind this retro superhero film, but by making $46.7 million, it decidedly did not deliver what Disney wanted or needed. Planned sequels were scrapped, but now “The Rocketeer” is considered a fun throwback that people probably would have loved to see more of.

In 1988, “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” blended live-action and animation to great success. In 1992, Ralph Bakshi’s “Cool World” did the opposite of that. Co-starring a pre-fame Brad Pitt, what was probably intended to be trippy ended up being incoherent and dull. While “Cool World” has the feel and the look of some indie oddity, this was a Paramount release that cost $28 million to make. It only made half of its budget back and is considered a total disaster.

Well, this movie essentially kept Nintendo from greenlighting any adaptations for over 30 years, so it probably belongs on this list. The movie seems to have no interest in the “Super Mario Bros.” games, which isn’t inherently bad, but this movie is a mess. Nothing is holding the chaos together. Bob Hoskins is playing an Italian plumber with a thick “New Yawk” accent. The film didn’t recoup its budget, planned sequels were nixed, Hoskins never lived it down, and Nintendo steered clear of film for a generation.

This is one of the films that learned the wrong lessons from the success of 1989’s “Batman.” It wasn’t about an iconic superhero, but about people clearly wanting superheroes mixed with Gothic architecture. “The Shadow” starred Alec Baldwin and was based on a character from a radio show in the 1930s. It cost $40 million and was a big 4th of July weekend release. “The Shadow” was a pretty sizable nail in the coffin of Baldwin’s career as a leading man in film.

Yes, “Waterworld” wasn’t as big a flop as the cultural conversation would indicate, but that conversation does matter in an assessment such as this. People viewed “Waterworld” as a massive fiasco, a total disaster, reflecting Kevin Costner's hubris. At the time, it was the most expensive movie in history, and while it made almost $100 million over its budget, when everything is factored in, “Waterworld” was a flop, even if part of that is people viewing it as a flop.

Look, few adults were expecting a movie about Shaquille O’Neal, a basketball player-turned-massive celebrity who was not an actor, to be a rapping genie to be good. Even the studio executives were likely figuring that critics would pan “Kazaam,” but it would make so much money in the summer of 1996 it wouldn’t matter. Instead, it made $18.9 million and “Kazaam” became a punchline. 1997’s “Steel” did even worse, but we have another movie for 1997.

Franchise killers get extra credit. “Batman & Robin” made $238 million, but it cost between $125 million and $160 million, according to estimates, with plenty of money going into marketing as well. Box office alone wouldn’t have gotten “Batman & Robin” on this list, but it put the character of Batman on the shelf for almost 20 years. It’s considered one of the worst superhero movies ever made. Defining a definitive flop.

You might think that the success of “South Park” gave Trey Parker and Matt Stone a blank check, so they decided to make a movie that they could star in. Instead, director David Zucker had been working on “BASEketball” for a while and decided he wanted the “South Park” guys in his film. That is even though they weren’t really actors, and even a lot of “South Park” fans probably didn’t recognize them. “BASEketball” wanted to ride the early wave of “South Park,” but instead it grossed just $7 million in theaters.

Will Smith was not bulletproof. In the ‘90s, he had emerged as one of the faces of the summer blockbuster, and “Wild Wild West” was supposed to be his latest hit. He even did another theme song with an elaborate music video and everything. The film made $222.1 million, but thanks to an out-of-control production cost $170 million to make. “Wild Wild West” is an all-time fiasco, and while Smith did bounce back, his career never fully recovered.

Another attempt to mix live-action and animation that failed. Rocky and Bullwinkle were maybe not household names to kids in 2000, but the sell on a talking animal movie shouldn’t have been too hard. Instead, the whole thing proved disastrous, even if some of the actors seemed to be having fun hamming it up. Somehow this film cost $76 million, but it only made $35.1 million, and to an extent, people talk about it and say, “Why was Robert De Niro in this?”

We know, in theory and in practice, that mixing live action and animation works. This is yet another example of it failing, though, mostly because of the live-action sequences. Had “Osmosis Jones” just stuck to riffing on the buddy-cop genre within a human body, with the bad guy as a dangerous virus, it might have worked a lot better. The live-action stuff is awful, though, and “Osmosis Jones” made $14 million off a budget of $70 million.

The early 2000s were kind of a dark time for Disney (before they had fully subsumed Pixar and were coasting on that credit), and “The Country Bears” is one of several disappointments of the era. This musical is based on the “Country Bears Jamboree” Disney attraction. It was not well received, and it didn’t come close to recouping its budget. Luckily for Disney, they were already committed to another movie based on a Disney ride, because otherwise they might have scrapped “Pirates of the Caribbean” after the failure of “The Country Bears.”

“From Justin to Kelly” was made on the cheap, but make no mistake it was supposed to be a big summer hit. Fox had gotten the big idea that they could make music stars with “American Idol” and then also make them into movie stars, but without having to pay them a ton of money. “From Justin to Kelly” paired the winner of the first season of “American Idol,” Kelly Clarkson, with runner-up Justin Guarini. It made a mere $4.9 million off of a budget of $12 million; basically, everybody hated it, and Fox realized they should never try this again.

There were several good options for 2004, but “Catwoman” had to take the cake. It put a dent in Halle Berry’s career at a time when she was really on the rise. It became an instant punchline, killing any chance of a franchise. Also, it only made $82.4 million on a $100 million budget. An utter flop that probably set multiple people and business entities back a few steps.

Our critical assessment aside, by and large, the commercial success of Michael Bay was unimpeachable. From his first film, “Bad Boys,” through the third “Transformers” movie, he only had one flop. That would be “The Island.” Even if we set aside the copyright infringement lawsuit that DreamWorks settled out of court, “The Island” was poorly received and barely recouped its $125 million budget.

We’re not M. Night Shyamalan fans in general, but “Lady in the Water” was the first time we basically all came together to have enough of his nonsense. Night’s most self-aggrandizing work, “Lady in the Water” is a snooze, and the fact that it cost $70 million made no sense. Thanks in part to the poor word of mouth, it only made $72.8 million at the box office.

“Hot Rod” is a cult favorite, and it is fun if a bit of a mess. Maybe that makes sense. It largely served as a chance for the Lonely Island crew to graduate from “Saturday Night Live” to the big screen. They got a chance to take their digital shorts sensibilities and turn that into a film, one that served as a starring vehicle for Andy Samberg. It may have been too much, too soon, as “Hot Rod” only made $14.4 million.

Mike Myers’ time as a movie star ended with “The Love Guru.” All the Wayne Campbell and Austin Powers goodwill in the world meant nothing after this one. In addition to being profoundly unfunny, “The Love Guru” flopped. The fact that it cost $62 million to make may have helped play a role in the eventual semi-death of theatrical comedies, particularly original ones.

Will Ferrell would get to remain a movie star for a while after “Land of the Lost,” but this one certainly did him no favors. A riff on an old TV show, “Land of the Lost” showed that Ferrell’s name alone couldn’t carry a movie if the trailers made it look terrible and the reviews were overwhelmingly negative. Because of the sci-fi nature of this comedy, it cost $100 million but brought in only $69 million. Hey, that’s more than “The Love Guru,” at least!

Even at the peak of comic book character mania, “Jonah Hex” likely would have been a flop. It’s just too weird, too dark, too unremarkable. Plus, Jonah Hex is a former Confederate soldier, which may have been a hurdle for audiences as well. Mostly, though, nobody had heard of DC’s cowboy vigilante; the 81-minute runtime speaks to a disastrous production, and it made $11 million off of a $47 million budget.

Hey, without the failure of “Green Lantern,” we wouldn’t have the “Deadpool” movies, and Ryan Reynolds wouldn’t have been able to beat “Green Lantern” jokes into the ground in those “Deadpool” movies. Reynolds’ movie stardom was set back considerably with the failure of “Green Lantern.” It’s understandable why he may have some frustrations to vent, even all these years later. However, his performance was part of the problem, and the staggering $200 million budget was always going to make it hard for the film to succeed. Instead, it became a flop.

While a few bad Adam Sandler comedies dotted the summer calendar leading up to this point, they had done well enough commercially to avoid being chosen for this list. Not “That’s My Boy,” though. It’s a fitting choice as one of Sandler’s truly worst films, though Samberg is getting another knock here as well. This is one of the films that sent Sandler scurrying to Netflix, as it was a critical failure and also, at best, made its budget back.

With one film, Gore Verbinski burnt off all the goodwill he had earned with the “Pirates of the Caribbean" series. While the Lone Ranger was an old-timey character, one could argue he was timeless. Unfortunately, neither Armie Hammer nor Johnny Depp seemed well-suited to their roles (and, of course, time has not been kind to either hiring). Also, Verbinski’s film cost up to $250 million to make, so even though it brought in $260 million, it was a total flop, and he’s basically fallen off the moviemaking map.

This was maybe the year with the least-remarkable choices. We went through the calendar, going, “Maybe ‘Hercules’? Maybe ‘Sex Tape’?” but it turns out those were plenty successful, as were other possibilities. “Jersey Boys” is based on a popular musical; it was directed by Clint Eastwood, and it made $67.6 million off of a budget somewhere between $40 million and $60 million. That’ll count.

A movie that effectively derailed Cameron Crowe’s film career certainly deserves mention. Even “Elizabethtown” didn’t do that, but “Aloha” was the final straw it would seem. Crowe did his dramedy thing with “Aloha,” but this time it was a total mess. It didn’t come close to making its budget back, and dramedies of this ilk certainly are all but dead theatrically now, and certainly big summer releases of that sort.

Hey, we thought this “Ghostbusters” reboot was perfectly fine, and we didn’t care that they decided to do a “Lady Ghostbusters” thing. It seemed a little lazy, but Hollywood was already doing lazier I.P. mining than this. However, setting the silly controversies aside, “Ghostbusters” was not a success. It made $229 million, sure, but it cost $144 million to make. They nixed a sequel as a result, and so it feels like a pretty sizable flop.

An entire planned franchise got scrapped after “The Mummy,” so we had to go with this one. Financially, it did fine. “The Mummy” grossed $410 million and cost between $125 million and $195 million to produce. Some argue it still lost money, but who is to say? An accountant somewhere, probably. What we do know is that a big franchise was planned and that all got axed, so clearly Universal considered it a flop.

Now, “Solo” definitely lost money. That’ll happen when you basically have to make it twice. “Solo” was also received lukewarmly at best by audiences. All that from the film that was going to give us a look at a young Han Solo. Ultimately, the future plans for “Star Wars” movies were wholly derailed by “Solo.”

We thought the “X-Men” reboot was going to be a trilogy, and maybe we weren’t alone in that. All of a sudden, there was a fourth movie, and it was also apparently supposed to start a new trilogy? Yeah, that didn’t happen. “Dark Phoenix” had no cultural impact and made $252.2 million on a $200 million budget. There were no more films in this franchise, and this era of the X-Men went out with a whimper.

Okay, so one million asterisks for the summer of 2020. Movies were not being released in theaters. “Artemis Fowl” was released directly onto Disney+ in June 2020. It cost $125 million to make, and it was absolutely panned. “Artemis Fowl” was one of the worst-received movies of a summer when a lot of people were jonesing for anything to watch. In fact, you can’t even watch it now. Disney+ took “Artemis Fowl” off the platform.

“Space Jam” was a hit. It’s not a good movie, but it was a hit, and it had a real cultural impact. “Space Jam: A New Legacy” was not a hit and had virtually no cultural impact. LeBron James stepped into Michael Jordan’s shoes. After years in development hell, the “Space Jam” sequel barely made back its $150 million budget and won three Razzies. All that fighting for a movie that probably would have been better off being scrapped.

The “Toy Story” franchise has proven effectively unimpeachable, which is rare for Pixar. That is, save for this confounding spinoff. The marketing for “Lightyear” was a mess, and the whole thing seemed effectively pointless. Also, why did it cost $200 million to make? This shrug of a film made $226.4 million, making it a “Toy Story”-adjacent misfire.

A movie that would have been better served coming out around Halloween instead came out one weekend after Barbenheimer. Yeah, “Haunted Mansion” was doomed in hindsight. Steamrolled by the cinematic sensation of the last decade, the Disney movie made $117.5 million off of a budget of $150 million. A power lesson was learned: Don’t mess with Barbie and/or J. Robert Oppenheimer.

“Mad Max: Fury Road” was a hit, though maybe not as much of a hit as you might think. However, what “Fury Road” had was a ton of cultural cache, not to mention all those Oscar nominations. It was venerated in addition to making a bit of scratch, even if it was a pricey production. The prequel film from George Miller based on “Fury Road” breakthrough character Furiosa was also pricey. It also made half of what “Fury Road” did with one-tenth the cultural impact. Sometimes you don’t realize you caught lightning in a bottle until it is too late.

“Hoppers” finding success in 2026 is good, because “Elio” seemed prime to kill original Pixar movies. The production was a fiasco, and the whole thing managed to fly under the radar. At best it made its budget back, but it made zero cultural impact. Even “Elemental” was more successful than “Elio.” If 2027’s “Gatto” can follow up on “Hoppers,” though, original Pixar movies might be salvaged.