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- 20 of the biggest box-office flops of the decade, from 'Green Lantern' to 'Dark Phoenix'
20 of the biggest box-office flops of the decade, from 'Green Lantern' to 'Dark Phoenix'
"Mars Needs Moms" (2011)
"Green Lantern" (2011)
Production budget: $200 million
Worldwide gross: $220 million
Rotten Tomatoes critics score: 26%
What critics said: "How many more of these superheroes can we take?" — The Wrap
"John Carter" (2012)
Production budget: $250 million
Worldwide gross: $284 million
Rotten Tomatoes critics score: 52%
What critics said: "The reported $250 million price tag for John Carter gives one pause. I suppose one could argue that masterpieces have no price. Then again, John Carter is no masterpiece." — Christian Science Monitor
"Cloud Atlas" (2012)
Production budget: $102 million
Worldwide gross: $130 million
Rotten Tomatoes critics score: 66%
What critics said: "An earnest but misbegotten adaptation, which reduces a moving tour de force to a dull and homiletic house of frenetically shuffled cards." — Newsweek
"The Lone Ranger" (2013)
Production budget: $215 million
Worldwide gross: $260 million
Rotten Tomatoes critics score: 31%
What critics said: "Gallops across our skulls for two and a half hours, pounding them into the same kind of desert as that on screen: a barren flatland with occasional rearing outcries of rock." — Financial Times
"I, Frankenstein" (2014)
Production budget: $65 million
Worldwide gross: $71 million
Rotten Tomatoes critics score: 5%
What critics said: "Long on talk and incoherent action, devoid of humor, this listless supernatural actioner surely has Mary Shelley turning in her grave." — Variety
"Sin City: A Dame to Kill For" (2014)
Production budget: $65 million
Worldwide gross: $39 million
Rotten Tomatoes critics score: 43%
What critics said: "Reviewers were forbidden from posting a word about this sequel until opening day, lest we give away the shocking secret that it's a carbon copy of its predecessor." — Chicago Reader
"Blackhat" (2015)
Production budget: $70 million
Worldwide gross: $19 million
Rotten Tomatoes critics score: 33%
What critics said: "Hints of a quasi-apocalyptic chill seem arbitrary — neither symbolic nor dramatic. The effect is like watching software run itself." — New Yorker
"Fantastic Four" (2015)
Production budget: $120 million
Worldwide gross: $168 million
Rotten Tomatoes critics score: 9%
What critics said: "It's as if the whole Marvel thing got in the way of the indie movie everyone secretly wanted to make — a squeamishness that does no one any favours." — London Evening Standard
"In the Heart of the Sea" (2015)
Production budget: $100 million
Worldwide gross: $93 million
Rotten Tomatoes critics score: 43%
What critics said: "If a silent whale is your most magnetic screen presence, he should probably appear for more than a few minutes." — The Atlantic
"The Huntsman: Winter's War" (2016)
Production budget: $115 million
Worldwide gross: $164 million
Rotten Tomatoes critics score: 18%
What critics said: "Here's hoping that any future installment ditches the Huntsman the way that Snow White was shunted aside, because the evil queens are where it's at." — BuzzFeed
"Ben-Hur" (2016)
Production budget: $100 million
Worldwide gross: $94 million
Rotten Tomatoes critics score: 25%
What critics said: "What's wrong with the new Ben-Hur? How long have you got? This is a textbook case, step by agonising step, of how not to make a big-budget blockbuster." — Times (UK)
"King Arthur: Legend of the Sword" (2017)
Production budget: $175 million
Worldwide gross: $148 million
Rotten Tomatoes critics score: 30%
What critics said: "Director Guy Ritchie can turn London crime dramas into cinematic lightning, but apply his fast cuts and jagged pacing to the Arthurian legend and you get, well, a brutal, bleedin' mess." — Rolling Stone
"The Happytime Murders" (2018)
Production budget: $40 million
Worldwide gross: $27 million
Rotten Tomatoes critics score: 24%
What critics said: "Comedies this broad come down to percentage games and (in what has become a ritual for me, alas), I estimate less than 10 percent of screenwriter Todd Berger's jokes land." — Vulture
"The Girl in the Spider's Web" (2018)
Production budget: $43 million
Worldwide gross: $35 million
Rotten Tomatoes critics score: 40%
What critics said: "It's "new" in the way New Coke was new, familiar enough so you can tell what it's aiming for, but it's subtly, and sometimes not-so-subtly, off." — Slate
"Robin Hood" (2018)
Production budget: $100 million
Worldwide gross: $86 million
Rotten Tomatoes critics score: 15%
What critics said: "It's legitimately funny. Not sure that was the intention." — Chicago Sun-Times
"Mortal Engines" (2018)
Production budget: $100 million
Worldwide gross: $83 million
Rotten Tomatoes critics score: 27%
What critics said: "How did this truly crummy movie get made?" — RogerEbert.com
"Hellboy" (2019)
Production budget: $50 million
Worldwide gross: $44 million
Rotten Tomatoes critics score: 17%
What critics said: "Watching Hellboy is my new personal idea of hell." — Globe and Mail
"Dark Phoenix" (2019)
Production budget: $200 million
Worldwide gross: $252 million
Rotten Tomatoes critics score: 23%
What critics said: "Seeking to tie up loose ends and correct past errors, Dark Phoenix instead comes across as more of a collection of forgettable outtakes, like Pink Floyd's The Endless River LP." — Toronto Star
"Playmobil: The Movie"
Production budget: $70 million
Worldwide gross (so far): $13 million
Rotten Tomatoes critics score: 18%
What critics said: "Playmobil: The Movie isn't as funny as some of the direct-to-video Lego-related movies, either, and that's very much the field it competes in, theatrical release or not." — AV Club
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