We're not actively rooting for any of these movies to fail - but there's something about
each of them that carries the whiff of an inevitable bomb.
We may be wrong, but thankfully for us, we're not the studio executives whose jobs depend
on these turkeys turning a profit.
Here are our predictions for the biggest box office bombs of 2020.
Matthew McConaughey's career rebirth, dubbed the McConaissance, has been good for the actor,
and great for film and TV fans.
However, despite the praise, box office results and even an Academy Award win for Dallas Buyers
Club, this is still the same guy who recently signed on to star in Serenity, The Beach Bum,
and The Dark Tower.
"Death always wins.
That's the deal."
McConaughey has come far, but he's still prone to headlining duds, and the forthcoming The
Gentlemen looks to be one of them.
With Guy Ritchie at the helm, McConaughey leads a stacked cast including Charlie Hunnam,
Colin Farrell, and Hugh Grant.
The British/American co-production is about a British drug lord who tries to sell his
empire to a dynasty of Oklahoma billionaires.
Sounds good, but in addition to McConaughey's spotty box office, there's the release date:
January 24, 2020, just one week after Dolittle and Bad Boys for Life.
A movie doesn't have to be high-profile to be a bomb.
Take Run, for example.
It's scheduled for release on January 24, 2020, and we barely know a thing about it.
We don't even have a trailer for it.
All we know is it stars Sarah Paulson, and it's about a teenage girl who has been raised
in total isolation by her mother, and then discovers that her mother has been hiding
a sinister secret.
That makes it sound like it could be interesting, especially since it's created by the team
that made the underrated Searching.
Unfortunately, there's been almost no promotion behind it, which would seem to indicate that
Lionsgate doesn't have much confidence in the film, and is trying to quietly unload
it during one of the winter dump months.
Lionsgate has had a very successful 2019 with John Wick 3, so maybe they just want Run to
quietly saunter away while they plot their next blockbuster.
"Long live the king."
Sonic the Hedgehog crashing and burning seems guaranteed at this point.
But what else can you expect when reactions to the first trailer were so bad?
It was such a mess that director Jeff Fowler pledged to redesign the character to please
fans.
This massive undertaking pushed the film back from its original release date of November
8, 2019 to February 14, 2020, and no doubt added some zeroes to its reported $90 million
budget.
With that costly redesign, it's hard not to wonder whether Paramount should have taken
a loss on a modest dud instead of the massive bomb we're now expecting.
With a few notable exceptions, video game adaptations aren't exactly blessed with a
great track record when it comes to box office performance.
Sonic the Hedgehog seems unlikely to fix that.
In fact, we expect the fastest thing on land to speed right out of theaters within a few
weeks.
Fantasy Island was a cheesy 1970s TV show starring Ricardo Montalban as the host of
a magical island resort.
2020's Fantasy Island is a big-screen update starring Michael Peña, which, based on the
trailer, turns the resort into a torture paradise similar to movies like Saw and Hostel.
The studio behind the movie, Blumhouse, has more or less earned our trust over the years,
but turning a 1970s TV hit into a gory horror movie seems like a stretch.
It's difficult to imagine fans of the original show turning out for this, while modern horror
fans seem very unlikely to even be familiar with the source material.
Fantasy Island is set for release on February 14, 2020, so maybe it'll satisfy young lovers'
bloodlust by showing pretty people getting hacked to pieces over Valentine's Day weekend.
Though with the recent success of supernatural and high-brow horror films like It Follows,
A Quiet Place, and Hereditary, we can't help but wonder if there's even an audience for
this type of torture-driven horror anymore.
Even if there is, will Fantasy Island be the movie that they show up in droves for?
Comic book movies are often big business at the box office, but most of those hits have
come from Marvel or DC.
On March 13, 2020, Sony is taking a risk on a less well-known character from Valiant Comics
named Bloodshot.
In Bloodshot, a murdered soldier seeks revenge after being reanimated with superpowers.
Bloodshot has the ability to heal instantly, and he's seeking vengeance against those who
"killed" him before he was re-birthed by an evil corporation.
Basically, he's like a mix between Captain America, the Punisher, Wolverine and Robocop.
Despite having a pretty effective trailer, there's nothing about Bloodshot that screams
"must see."
And as summer 2019 taught us, if your blockbuster movie isn't must-see, moviegoers won't bother,
especially with so many other entertainment options out there.
Sony may be hoping that star Vin Diesel will make up for Bloodshot's lack of name recognition.
But despite being 2017's top-grossing actor, Diesel's box office is mostly predicated on
playing alongside an ensemble as he does in the Fast and the Furious franchise, and Guardians
of the Galaxy.
While Bloodshot looks likely to bomb, Diesel can take solace knowing Fast & Furious 9 will
be coming out a few months later with his friends.
"I don't got friends.
I got family."
We predicted that The New Mutants would bomb in 2019, and then it was delayed into 2020.
Who saw that coming?
But everything we said still holds true.
The New Mutants was originally scheduled to be released on April 13, 2018, but was pushed
back to August 2, 2019.
Following Disney's purchase of Fox, it was pushed back again, this time to April 3, 2020.
It doesn't help that the X-Men franchise is in a bad way following Dark Phoenix, the final
film in the previous trilogy and the biggest bomb in the series.
Even under the best of circumstances, it would be hard for The New Mutants to follow that.
At this point, the studio might be better served cutting their losses, dropping The
New Mutants onto Disney+ and crossing their fingers.
As is, The New Mutants may surpass Dark Phoenix's record as the financial low point in the X-Men
franchise.
On the bright side?
At least nobody is expecting anything different.
Disney had one of the most successful years ever in 2019, but Artemis Fowl doesn't feature
Jedi Knights, Marvel superheroes, or CG-animated characters from Disney classics.
It's a Disney branded live-action film that has more in common with Disney's other live-action
movies, which don't tend to be quite as ground-breaking.
Tommorowland only made $209 million worldwide on a $190 million budget in 2015.
A Wrinkle in Time mustered a measly $132 million in 2018 against a $103 million budget.
The Nutcracker and the Four Realms made a mere $173 million worldwide against a $120
million budget.
Even the once-successful Pirates of the Caribbean franchise is a sinking ship.
Artemis Fowl is following in these footsteps, and may do even worse.
Based on the best-selling novel series, the film follows a young, genius criminal mastermind
who becomes locked in an epic battle against evil fairies.
Disney probably hoped that this story would be its Harry Potter, and it certainly seems
packed with fantasy and franchise potential.
However, The House of Mouse moved Artemis Fowl back from its original August 2019 release
to the more competitive summer date of May 29.
That could mean that the studio is feeling confident or that it hopes to just get it
out of the way early in the summer.
One way or another, Disney may have to sell a lot of Baby Yoda merchandise to make up
for all the money Artemis Fowl seems likely to lose.
For the second time in four years, moviegoers will be getting a new Ghostbusters movie.
Ironic, considering we had to wait 27 years for a new Ghostbusters in 2016.
Fans didn't show up for that one, which made a hefty-yet-disappointing $229 million worldwide
against a $144 million budget.
Numbers like that mean one thing in Hollywood: no sequel.
Ghostbusters: Afterlife isn't a sequel to the 2016 Ghostbusters, but to the 1984 original.
While details are sketchy, the new Ghostbusters will essentially be the third film in the
original Ghostbusters franchise, with Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Sigourney Weaver, Annie
Potts, and Ernie Hudson reprising their roles.
Joining their ranks are Paul Rudd, one of the most bankable names in comedy, with Academy
Award-nominated director Jason Reitman, son of original Ghostbusters director Ivan Reitman,
taking the reins.
So why does this look like a bomb?
Well, film fans are fickle.
Thirty-one years will have passed since the last film in this timeline, Ghostbusters II,
was released to poor reviews in 1989.
Is there still a huge audience there?
Maybe.
Ghostbusters seems like a beloved franchise that's been passed down through the generations,
but the same could be said about Terminator and Terminator 2.
Terminator: Dark Fate, released in 2019 as a direct sequel, probably killed the franchise.
Ghostbusters: Afterlife could meet a similar fate on July 10.
Eddie Murphy was huge at his peak.
In addition to saving Saturday Night Live, his starring role in Beverly Hills Cop saw
the film open in more theaters nationwide than Indiana Jones and Ghostbusters in 1984.
What's more, Beverly Hills Cop wound up topping both in total final grosses.
That's an incredible achievement, but that was also 35 years ago.
Despite receiving some of the best reviews of his career for Dolemite Is My Name in 2019,
Eddie Murphy is a long way away from his box office glory days.
That said, he's hoping to change that with a sequel to one of his biggest box office
hits from that era, 1988's Coming to America.
In the original, Murphy plays a pampered African prince who goes undercover in Queens to find
a wife.
The original was a massive success, earning returns of $288 million worldwide.
Those would be huge numbers for a comedy today, but can Coming 2 America come even close to
flying that high when it arrives on August 7?
It seems doubtful.
For one, there's the time factor.
Thirty-two years will have passed since Coming To America first graced our screens.
There's also the fact that Murphy's box office clout has been trending downwards for a while.
Prince Akeem's return sadly seems likely to continue that trend.
On December 18, 2020, Warner Bros. hopes to mine holiday season box office gold with an
adaptation of Frank Herbert's beloved book series Dune.
Dune has sold millions of copies and may be the greatest sci-fi novel of all time.
But all of that has very little to do with how successful a film adaptation is, particularly
during the end of the year.
His Dark Materials is a pretty popular fantasy novel series, but The Golden Compass barely
broke even in 2007.
Mortal Engines sold plenty of books, but the film couldn't sell tickets, and bombed big
time.
And do we even need to mention John Carter?
Based on the Edgar Rice Burroughs Barsoom stories, John Carter is one of the biggest
bombs ever.
For every Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, or Game of Thrones, there are numerous other
sci-fi and fantasy stories that should have stayed on the printed page.
This isn't the first time Dune has been on the big screen, either.
David Lynch's Dune died a horrible death in 1984, earning $30 million worldwide against
a $40 million budget.
"I must not fear.
Fear is the mind killer.
Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear."
New Dune director Denis Villenueve's last movie, Blade Runner 2049, tanked in 2017.
High-concept sci-fi is always risky, and Dune's box office seems all but certain to lack spice.
Check out one of our newest videos right here!
Plus, even more Looper videos about your favorite movies and TV shows are coming soon.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel and hit the bell so you don't miss a single one.