It's fair to say that this year's biggest movies are probably going
to make some serious bank at the box office… but these aren't them. From iffy adaptations
to unnecessary sequels, these are the movies that are bound to bomb in 2021.
The aptly-named Chaos Walking has been in development since 2011 — long before its stars,
Daisy Ridley and Tom Holland, were even a thing in Hollywood. Even after the project
finally made it out of development hell, poor test screenings forced multiple rewrites and reshoots.
The movie is based on Patrick Ness' young adult novel The Knife of Never Letting Go,
which is the first book in his Chaos Walking trilogy. It follows a mysterious alien girl named
Viola, who crash lands on a world without any women, and where men are affected by
"the Noise" — an affliction that causes them to constantly hear each other's thoughts.
There, she meets Todd, who must unlock his own inner powers to protect Viola from the evil mayor.
Feel like you've seen this all before? No one could blame you — and the film's troubled,
ten-year production history doesn't inspire much confidence, either. Sure,
Ridley and Holland had strong lead roles in the two most popular franchises ever, but now it's
looking increasingly like they've walked into Chaos. Don't expect moviegoers to follow them.
Let's face it: Hollywood is addicted to rehashing tired intellectual properties.
Case in point: the upcoming Masters of the Universe reboot.
Sure, it was a hugely popular cartoon TV show and action figure series, but that was back in 1985.
Just two years later, the power of Grayskull had already worn off, as the original live-action
Masters of the Universe movie tanked, earning just $17 million worldwide.
And honestly, it's hard to believe anything has changed in the past three decades.
It's possible that Sony sees this as another potential Transformers franchise,
but there's a real chance that the nostalgia train for the He-Man brand ran out of steam
a long time ago. It's also been an Eternia since anyone has heard anything official about the
movie, with the last real announcement being that Disney Channel heartthrob
Noah Centineo had signed up to play He-Man himself. On top of that, a shift in release
date for the Uncharted movie recently pushed Masters of the Universe off the calendar,
so it's not even certain whether this one will be coming in 2021 at all.
If and when it does hit theaters, though… well, just don't get your hopes up for a sequel.
Shocking absolutely nobody, 2017's The Boss Baby was a critical disaster, garnering a 53%
critics' score and 51% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. Still, the concept was clearly enough
to catch the public's attention, earning it $175 million domestically and $527 million worldwide.
Those are shockingly good numbers, and they were highly profitable too, since the movie was made
on a $125 million budget. Unfortunately, this made a sequel pretty much inevitable.
And sure enough, in September 2021, The Boss Baby: Family Business is due to hit
theaters — but things probably won't turn out so well this time. A negative audience score
on sites like Rotten Tomatoes suggests that, although people flocked to see the first movie,
nobody actually liked it. It's also been four years since the first movie was released,
meaning what little goodwill it earned at the time has long since worn off. Throw in a tired
premise and 90 minutes of fairly dumb jokes and you've got a recipe for a box office catastrophe.
It's likely that Sony are hoping their upcoming Marvel flick Morbius will
replicate the success of 2018's Venom, another Spider-Man spin-off set in the
same universe. But there's really no reason to believe this will happen.
For one, back in the day, Venom's popularity rivaled that of Spider-Man himself. Conversely,
most casual Spider-Man fans probably don't really remember Morbius' connection to the Spidey series.
More importantly, though, Venom starred Tom Hardy, whose fanboy bona fides were
well-established following The Dark Knight Rises and Mad Max: Fury Road. Thanks to Hardy's natural
charisma and star power, audiences learned to love Venom despite its negative reviews,
and the movie raked in a stunning $853 million worldwide. What does Morbius have? Jared Leto,
who's probably best known in the comic book world for playing the worst Joker ever.
"Blah, blah-blah, blah-blah. Blah-blah, blah, blah."
The only thing that could really save Morbius is a whole heap of
stellar reviews — and we wouldn't count on that happening, either.
Make no mistake, there aren't many butts-in-seats movie stars left, but Mark Wahlberg probably makes
the list. Wahlberg's movies have earned more than $3 billion domestically and $6.4 billion
worldwide — and although those numbers have been juiced a little by the Transformers franchise,
there's no doubt Wahlberg had at least something to do with them.
Things are a little trickier these days, though. Wahlberg's last hit in an action role was Spenser
Confidential, but that debuted on Netflix, not in theaters. Meanwhile, one of his recent bombs,
Mile 22, tanked in theaters, but landed in Netflix's Top 10 in November. So where does
that leave his latest picture, Infinite? Well, if it keeps its current theatrical release date
on Memorial Day weekend opposite Disney's Cruella spin-off, it's pretty much toast.
While it could have been a decent action-oriented counter-programmer for Disney's movie,
a little flick called Fast & Furious 9 is due for release a weekend earlier,
and that movie is guaranteed to win out over Infinite any day. For now, it seems like the only
thing that can save Wahlberg's latest is a swift move to Netflix — or a shift in release date.
Everyone loves a little Sly Stallone, but there's no denying that, since the 1990s,
his box office record has been pretty spotty — outside the usual franchise fare, that is. Still,
you can't fault a guy for trying. Clearly hoping to keep making action movies well into his sunset
years, Stallone's next feature, currently slated for June 4th, is the superhero thriller Samaritan.
The movie follows a young boy who discovers that a superhero who went missing 20 years ago
is still very much alive and well. It's an intriguing premise, and one that might have
given the movie a chance, had it kept to its pre-pandemic fall 2020 release date. Alas,
the summer movie season is likely to swallow Samaritan whole. There's also an issue with tone,
here — the movie is supposed to be a darker, edgier take on the world of superheroes,
and while that may prove popular with critics, it's unlikely to draw much of a crowd.
Stallone's older fanbase is unlikely to show up for yet another dark, gritty superhero movie,
while younger moviegoers aren't going to be too keen on watching an old dude kick
ass — especially if he's not having fun while he's doing it. So although Samaritan may turn
out to be pretty great, well, let's just say you probably shouldn't get your hopes up for a sequel.
The Tomorrow War didn't stand much of a chance at the box office when it was due to be released
on Christmas Day 2020, and things aren't looking much better now that it's been delayed to an even
tougher summer release of July 23rd, 2021. What's worse, Deadline reported in January 2021 that the
film was being shopped to streamers, so there's a chance The Tomorrow War might not even see a
theatrical release at all. While the film stars Chris Pratt, who is about as reliable a movie star
as you can get, it's also a concept-heavy sci-fi film, which is always a risky bet.
The setup sounds promising, at least. Humans are losing a war in the future,
so they go back in time to recruit a number of legendary soldiers from the past.
It sounds pretty similar to Tom Cruise's Edge of Tomorrow, which scratched and clawed its
way to $100 million domestically after a meek $28 million opening — but even with
$367 million worldwide, that movie barely made back its mammoth $178 million budget.
The Tomorrow War will be facing a similar battle should it even make it to a market that's changed
dramatically since 2014. Had The Tomorrow War opened during the holidays of a non-pandemic year,
the high daily grosses may have carried it to profitability. In the sink-or-swim,
opening-weekend obsessed summer, though? Even Chris Pratt will have problems pulling that off.
Releasing a prequel to a popular movie franchise is always a risky
proposition — but to a mediocre one? That's just asking for trouble.
Enter Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins, currently scheduled for release in October 2021.
Another popular toy line and cartoon that made the leap to the big screen,
the G.I. Joe franchise has proven to be a mixed bag at the box office. G.I. Joe:
The Rise of Cobra opened strong with $54 million in 2009, but it failed to keep up interest,
and with a $175 million price tag, the movie turned out to be a bomb. Paramount spent $140
million on its 2013 sequel, G.I. Joe: Retaliation, which managed to bring in a tidy profit thanks to
a decent performance at the worldwide box office. However, nearly a decade has passed since that
movie, which, despite being totally forgettable, benefited by plastering Dwayne Johnson's mug
all over its marketing materials. A Rock-less prequel, eight years later? Not a chance.
Ben Affleck's career has been kinda spotty lately, but following his big-time comeback
with Argo and Gone Girl, it seemed like he'd finally won back a little street cred. And then,
of course, he decided to play Batman. Sure, Affleck did a good enough job in the role,
and the DCEU movies are technically his biggest grossers, but they were also pretty underwhelming,
and seem to have killed off the credibility he had managed to claw back. While The Accountant
did well back in 2016, his follow-up movies, Live by Night and The Way Back,
bombed hard, earning less than $40 million worldwide combined.
And now there's Deep Water. Scheduled for a November 2021 release, the movie seems
to be echoing Gone Girl by having Affleck play the sleazy husband in a movie based
on a popular novel. With Knives Out's breakout star Ana de Armas co-starring,
the stars are aligned for Deep Water to do well with critics. As for the box office,
though, everything will come down to whether Affleck himself can shed all that baggage.
It might be hard to believe, but before Deadpool's record-breaking run in 2016, Ryan Reynolds was box
office poison. His career mostly involved playing supporting roles to bigger names,
featuring in a string of so-so genre flicks, and starring in a handful of genuine bombs.
"Bad Deadpool."
His latest, Free Guy, seems poised to fall into the latter category, which will no doubt leave box
office analysts wondering if Reynolds can carry a movie without help from the merc with a mouth.
Disney may be wondering the same thing, too, as they've removed Free Guy from their release
calendar. Given the movie was originally set for a July 2020 release but was pushed back to December,
it might have been fair to assume this was just another pandemic-related pushback — except that
Disney announced a newer release date - Free Guy will be, um, freed on May 21,
2021. It’s not exactly clear if it’s doing the dual movie theater/ [say slash] streaming thingie
yet, so keep your ears peeled. If it heads to Disney Plus, that pretty much tells you
what Disney thinks of the film. Good thing Reynolds has Deadpool 3 to look forward to.
The Kingsman franchise has proven to be a surprisingly profitable blockbuster series,
despite not being based on a mainstream property. Kingsman: The Secret Service earned $128 million
domestically and $404 million worldwide on a $94 million budget, while Kingsman: The Golden Circle
earned a little less domestically but a little more overseas, on a slightly higher budget.
Obviously, a downward trend is never a good sign, though Hollywood has seen worse drop-offs
over the years. The bigger cause for concern is that the next film, The King's Man, isn't a
sequel reuniting the original cast, but a period prequel set decades before the previous films.
The premise sounds great, following one man and his protégé banding together to stop history's
worst tyrants from plotting a war to wipe out millions. Ralph Fiennes is always a welcome
addition to a movie, too. Unlike most of his blockbusters, however, Fiennes is playing the
co-lead here, and it remains to be seen whether he can keep a big movie afloat all by himself.
The King's Man has also been delayed multiple times, and while most of those push backs were
COVID-related, the movie had actually been delayed before the pandemic struck — which
is never a good sign. It appears as though The King’s Man has a March 2021
theater release date, but that may pivot to a streaming site.
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