Making a big Hollywood blockbuster ain’t cheap — but how expensive is too expensive?
Which popular superhero just couldn’t save the day — or, rather, the opening weekend?
Keep watching to find out!
Sony has been trying to turn "Ghostbusters" into a franchise for three decades, with little
success thanks in part to inflated expectations.
The original "Ghostbusters" made $295 million worldwide in 1984, about $789 million worldwide
in today's dollars.
Five years later, "Ghostbusters II" made $215 million worldwide, over $480 million worldwide
today.
So when Sony finally made a new "Ghostbusters" after the series spent nearly 30 years in
development hell, they apparently figured the new version would land in that $500-800
million range.
That may explain why they spent a bloated $144 million on 2016's "Ghostbusters: Answer
the Call."
The big problem is that it wasn't a sequel featuring characters we knew and loved but
a reboot with a whole new cast.
That typically doesn't work out, and "Answer the Call" was no exception.
The film finished with $229 million worldwide — not bad for a comedy in modern Hollywood,
but not nearly enough to warrant a sequel.
Instead, Sony apparently learned their financial lessons and made 2021's "Ghostbusters: Afterlife"
for only half the budget of "Answer the Call," allowing it to turn a profit.
"You are a genius, Patty."
"I am a Ghostbuster."
"Battleship" is considered one of the biggest box office bombs of the past decade, and not
even Rihanna's legion of fans would argue that.
But it's not for the reason you might think.
"Battleship" wasn't a bomb because it didn't make money; it bombed because it didn't make
enough money.
"Battleship" scored $313 million worldwide in 2012, not bad for an insanely bad sci-fi
film based on a board game.
That was mostly due to its $248 million international gross.
But it had the misfortune of debuting just after Marvel's "The Avengers," which went
on to become one of the highest grossing films of all time.
The crazy part?
"Battleship" and "The Avengers" had almost the same budget!
"The Avengers" cost $225 million, only about $5 million more than "Battleship's" $220 million.
Yep, Universal almost spent the same amount on friggin' "Battleship" as Marvel did on
"The Avengers."
According to The New Yorker, "Battleship" was greenlit with a $150 million budget, which
would have allowed it to turn a profit.
But after the production ran into issues, the studio had to throw tens of millions of
dollars down the drain to try and fix it.
Whoops.
"J-10."
"Earl, you sunk my battleship!"
Just because a character is a household name doesn't mean he's a box office draw.
Thus, while Superman is probably the most famous superhero of all time, he's no longer
the most bankable at the box office.
Though he once was.
In 1978, "Superman: The Movie" made moviegoers believe a man could fly and made a lot of
money doing it, earning $300 million worldwide, about $1.2 billion today, mighty impressive
for the Man of Steel.
After the original franchise ended with a whimper with 1987's "Superman IV: The Quest
for Peace," Warner Bros. spent almost two decades trying to figure out what to do next.
The rest was 2006's "Superman Returns," which at $232 million cost a lot more than other
superhero origin stories at the time.
2002's "Spider-Man," for instance, only cost $139 million to make, while 2005's "Batman
Begins" cost $150 million.
"Superman Returns" ended up earning $391 million worldwide.
With "Spider-Man" or "Batman Begins" budgets, it would've made money, and likely would have
spawned a whole new trilogy, just as those two films did.
Thanks to its inflated budget, though, it has been considered a failure, and signaled
the final end of the classic Superman franchise.
By 2012, the "Pirates of the Caribbean" franchise had earned about $3.5 billion across four
films.
Pride comes before the fall, so Disney, Johnny Depp, director Gore Verbinski, and producer
Jerry Bruckheimer thought their relationship was a license to print gold and could do no
wrong.
But "The Lone Ranger" went wrong.
Very, very wrong, beginning with the whole idea of reviving an outdated radio western
that hadn't been popular for decades.
In Disney's defense, they realized the film's budget was getting out of control and even
shut down production to contain it.
It didn't work.
Sources vary, with the final budget estimated to have been between $225 million and $250
million.
Wherever it landed, "The Lone Ranger" would've had to break records to break even.
For context, "The Lone Ranger" cost about $100 million more than the first "Pirates
of the Caribbean" film despite starring Armie Hammer, who has since been accused of cannibalism
- and worse.
The film still made $260 million worldwide, so with a smaller budget, it could have been
a success.
But with those costs, making a "Lone Ranger 2" would've been a true trainwreck.
Thanks to "Star Wars," Marvel, Pixar, and Disney +, it may seem like the house that
Walt built is indestructible.
This conveniently ignores the fact that Disney's original live-action output has mostly been
a wasteland of box office bombs, including some of the biggest disappointments of all
time.
In fact, Disney's desperation for live-action movies is probably why they purchased Marvel
and Lucasfilm in the first place.
One Disney film that did so-so, and would've been a big hit if not for the even bigger
budget, was "Tron: Legacy."
"Tron" bombed in 1982, and while it built a cult following, making a legacy sequel 28
years later to a movie nobody saw in theaters was a bit of a head-scatcher.
Couple that with the $200 million price tag and you'd have to wonder whether Mickey lost
his marbles.
Smartly, though, Disney positioned "Tron: Legacy" as the must-see holiday blockbuster
of 2010, and it mostly worked, as the film earned $399 million worldwide.
Had Disney spent just a little bit less, there's no question we would have seen more sequels.
As it is, though, the legacy of "Tron" is failure.
Speaking of waiting three decades to make an overpriced sequel of a movie that was a
flop to begin with, say hello to 2017's "Blade Runner 2049."
The original "Blade Runner" made $39 million on a $28 million budget back in 1982, meaning
it wasn't a disaster but was far from a hit.
Still, it has been hailed as a masterpiece by critics, so surely that would translate
into ticket sales 35 years later, right?
Warner Bros. bet $185 million that it would.
It didn't.
With $258 million worldwide, the sequel far exceeded the original's take but didn't come
close to becoming a hit.
We can argue all day whether Deckard was a replicant, but there's no debate on this — "Blade
Runner" should not have been replicated at $185 million.
What do you do when your movie's in production, isn't working, and you've already spent a
ton of money on it?
Option A is finishing the film and hoping for the best.
Option B is dropping another several million in the hopes of fixing it.
Warner Bros. opted for Option B with "Justice League," and the result was a mixed bag at
the box office.
After spending $275 million on 2017's "Justice League," Warner Bros. removed director Zack
Snyder, replaced him with problematic "Avengers" director Joss Whedon, and dumped another $25
million into reshoots, bloating the budget to an incredible $300 million.
They still hoped to turn a profit, as "Batman v Superman" had made $872 million worldwide,
and "Justice League" was adding Wonder Woman, Flash, and Aquaman to the film.
It should have been a surefire recipe for success.
Instead, fans and critics alike hated the film.
Bad word of mouth tanked it at the box office, and it limped to a $655 million worldwide
gross.
Though it made a small profit, it destroyed the franchise, and earned less than half of
what Marvel's "The Avengers" had brought in five years earlier.
All in all, "Justice League" was more trainwreck than tentpole.
"What was it like?
Coming back?"
"Itchy."
Conventional wisdom says "The Mummy" franchise was going strong until "The Mummy: Tomb of
the Dragon Emperor" bombed.
As with most things, the conventional wisdom isn't wrong, it's just missing part of the
story.
Yes, "Tomb of the Dragon Emperor" was also really, really bad, even for a franchise that
never got much love from critics.
However, "The Mummy" franchise made money with every movie.
The problem is that the budget on "Tomb of the Dragon Emperor" was so much bigger than
its predecessors.
1999's "The Mummy" cost $80 million to make, while 2001's "The Mummy Returns" cost $98
million.
But when "Tomb of the Dragon Emperor" came out in 2008, it cost a whopping $175 million.
"Tomb of the Dragon Emperor" actually earned $405 million worldwide, almost the same amount
as each of the previous films.
But with a budget twice as high, it didn't make nearly as much money, killing the franchise
deader than Imhotep.
Harrison Ford is one of the 10 highest-grossing movie stars of all time, with career earnings
$10 billion worldwide — and that's unadjusted for inflation.
However, outside of "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" and "Star Wars:
The Force Awakens," Ford hasn't had an above-the-title hit since 2000's "What Lies Beneath."
That should have changed in 2020 with "The Call of the Wild."
Key word: should.
"The Call of the Wild" made $62 million domestically and $107 million worldwide.
Fairly modest amounts, but for a film about a guy and his dog, it did quite well.
One massive problem, though: 20th Century Fox spent an incredible $125 to make it!
Blame "budget-itis," a term for Hollywood's inexplicable inability to make mid-budget
movies.
The big issue was their decision to use CGI to create Buck the dog, which turned what
could have been a modest hit into a $50 million loser.
Some box office observers argue that Robert Downey Jr. isn't a movie star outside his
signature Tony Stark role.
While there's no denying most of his $15.7 billion worldwide career earnings come from
playing the man in the iron suit, he has proven to be a reliable draw in films like "Tropic
Thunder" and the "Sherlock Holmes" movies.
No, his "butts-in-seats" bankability isn't on par with Leonardo DiCaprio or Dwayne "The
Rock" Johnson, but no other movie stars have that drawing power either.
It seemed like Downey Jr. would add to his bankable resume with 2020's "Dolittle," but
instead, that movie turned out to be a titanic turkey ... and not a talking one either.
Yet "Dolittle" actually made $251 million worldwide, about on par with other live-action
kids' movies released in the past 15 years, as the sub-genre has been dominated for more
than a decade by animation.
The problem?
Somebody at Universal thought it was a good idea to spend $175 million on "Dolittle,"
which is actually more than "Iron Man 2" cost to make.
Expecting Downey Jr. to pull MCU numbers in a non-Iron Man role was dumb.
Still, he might have been one of the only humans popular enough to save "Dolittle" from
utter destruction.
"It's no good!
As far as I'm concerned, I'm the only human here!"
Comedies hit or miss at the box office, as humor doesn't always translate overseas.
What's a movie studio to do?
You don't spend millions on pricey VFX like you're making a Marvel movie.
Instead, you spend most of its money on the movie star and hope he can put butts in seats.
Unless you're Universal, that is.
"Bruce Almighty," with Jim Carrey's mug plastered on the poster, made $484 million on a $81
million budget in 2003, making it not only Carrey's biggest hit but one of the highest-grossing
comedies ever.
But "Bruce Almighty" worked because of the "Jim Carrey as God" concept, not the brand.
There was no indication audiences would show up to "Steve Carell as Noah" just because
Universal slapped "Almighty" on it.
Welp, Universal felt otherwise and spent $175 million on the film, more than twice "Bruce's"
budget, making it the most expensive comedy ever made to that point.
The budget was supposed to be "just" $140 million, but costs ran up thanks to CGI and
live animals.
Ultimately, the film made $174 million worldwide, which wasn't wasn't bad for a comedy sequel
that didn't even star the original actor, but was a disaster of Biblical proportions
based on the budget.
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