10 of the biggest movie failures of the last decade

As of late, we've been taking a look at some of the biggest failures and successes that have rocked the video game world over the past decade. After focusing on this topic, now we've decided it's time to shift our attention to the big screen and to spotlight 10 of the biggest movie failures of the last ten years.

Before we do, however, it's worth mentioning that this is a more volatile discussion, as typically bad games sell poorly, so there's a lot of crossover. For films, some of the best films can perform rather poorly at the box office, so we're regarding failures here on a multitude of parameters, be it box office performance, critical and fan reception, its wider impact on its series, and even how we've since looked back on each film. Naturally, while films like The Suicide Squad and Blade Runner 2049 proved to be pretty tragic at the box office, you won't see them here due to how they don't align with the other factors.

Anyway, regulations aside, let's begin with an incredibly easy pick...

There was nothing fantastic about 2015's Fantastic Four

My word, where to begin with this film. Not only was the tone and theme completely wrong, but this was one of those weird attempts to make a comic book/superhero film not seem associated with the rather 'nerdy' source material. The end result were miscasted characters, boring and unremarkable costumes, a plot that very few could recite to this day, and naturally a tragic showing in cinemas that consisted of around $170 million in tickets. For reference, this is during the peak superhero era of the 2010s, so anything shy of at least half a billion dollars for a film of this kind is practically astounding. Thankfully, the 2025 film is much better...

The Mummy should have stayed dead

The Brendan Fraser-led The Mummy films have grown to become somewhat cult favourite examples of an action-adventure movie done right. They had their issues without question, but they were fun and memorable, which is why the idea of rebooting this universe with a darker and more horror-stylised vibe seemed almost crazy. But through the power of Tom Cruise we got The Mummy, a film that had none of the character and charm of the former chapters and proved to be as lively and charming as a mummified corpse. There doesn't seem to be anyone out there even somewhat convinced that the "Dark Universe" it was laying the foundation for could've blossomed into something major.

King Arthur: Legend of the Sword was a prime example that Guy Ritchie should stick to gangsters

On paper, this film seemed like a pretty excellent idea. A fantastical re-telling of the story of Avalon and King Arthur, painting a picture that saw Charlie Hunnam feature as the fictional English king and teaming up with his Knights of the Roundtable to stop Jude Law's tyrannical leader. It took a bunch of promising talent, put them under the direction of the often successful Guy Ritchie, and the end product was... well, poor at best. The film ended up being forgettable and lacking any charisma, with the most iconic moment from the entire project now being the weird cameo by David Beckham as a guard defending the sword Excalibur. Oh and the fact that this film didn't get close to recouping its production budget is just another nail in the coffin.

Six years later, we still have nightmares about Cats

You could argue that stage musicals don't need to be turned into films, and before 2024, I would very much agree with that. Wicked has proven that it's possible to find success when the adaptation is handled correctly, something that everyone involved with Cats could learn a thing or two from. The really tough bit about this film to stomach is that it had a lot of great talent involved in front and behind the camera. In theory, this film should have found the same level of global recognition as something like Wicked, but instead we got a film packed with weird CG humanoid cats where in the lead up to its premiere, the only thing anyone wanted to talk about was the absurd Butthole Cut. In hindsight, having a bunch of actors who could sing and dance poorly at best in the main cast was probably not a great idea either... It wasn't an expensive production, in movie standards, so we'll give Cats that, but it still didn't break even and that's another example of how much of a disaster this film was.

The Matrix Resurrections was insulting mediocre

When you look at The Matrix films, they are rather inconsistent but you can't deny the impact that they've had on science-fiction and even how many people look at the world. Are we living in a simulation? Is the Matrix real? These were not questions the average joe was asking prior to The Matrix arriving in 1999. Needless to say, perhaps the largest challenge that The Matrix Resurrections had was to deliver a new chapter that felt worthy, that could get the series back on track after the abhorrent Revolutions, and all within a reasonable budget. It's not that it failed, it's just that it never really succeeded either. The Matrix Resurrections was one of the most mediocre massively-anticipated films of all-time, serving up an adventure that few will pinpoint as one of the series' best. So it was okay at best, but in the box office it was a different story. The film cost a rumoured $190 million to make (not including its gigantic marketing campaign) and then struggled to pull in much more than 75% of that. Not great at all from one of sci-fi's most iconic series at all.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny shows everything that is wrong with Hollywood

Okay, so this film made nearly $400 million at the box office and recouped its production budget. If you count the marketing on top of that, which is often around the same as the production cost, it's still massively in the red, but it did at least pay off production. That's a success, right? How honestly could that be the case? How can Disney pay a third of a billion dollars to just make (again, not even market too) a movie as middling as Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny? I'm sure this film has reached many on Disney+ and on-demand services, but movies cannot and will not succeed if production costs keep reaching these heights, and it's because of this that Indy makes the cut. No one in their right mind will select this movie in their Indiana Jones top three, and there's only five movies to pick from, and frankly the series would have been better off it was never made, as a geriatric Harrison Ford waddling around Greek caves is as much torture to watch as it probably was on Ford's knees to film it...

The Marvels showed that Marvel Studios can't just kick out any old garbage

I've routinely talked about how Marvel Studios has butchered the Hulk in its live-action universe, but a close second to experience the same fate is Carol "Captain Marvel" Danvers. She has never been given much substance to work with, despite the character having all the traits to become a key pillar in the MCU for its future. The Marvels may have just put a bullet in the back of Carol's head. This film is one of the hardest watches in the entire MCU and even the often charismatic Brie Larson struggled to wring much out of the rock-hard narrative that was cooked up. The Marvels should have been Carol's chance to step up and become a key Avenger, but instead all that we learned was that Iman Vellani's Ms. Marvel might be the future, which itself is a weird take because she has appeared in basically nothing of substance since this film... And no, I'm not counting Marvel Zombies because it's not really part of the actual MCU.

Joker: Folie a Deux proved to be literal madness

Someone should lock Todd Phillips up in Arkham Asylum for this film because clearly he's as mad as the Joker. The original film was such a ground-breaking hit that anything of a similar setup was likely set to achieve somewhat similar success at least in box office sales, but Phillips decided against that and did something objectively crazy. He took a gritty and dark drama and turned the sequel into a musical, and naturally the majority of the fans of the original couldn't give a damn about that transition... You only need to look at the box office figures for proof of that, as following up to the billion dollar-earning original, Folie a Deux just cracked $200 million... Stack that up with immensely poor critical and fan reception, and the fact that somehow this sequel cost $200 million to film and you have all the ticked boxes for a failure, perhaps the singular biggest of the 2020s.

Tron: Ares is looking to be the latest flop at the box office

2025 has had two "flops" so far with Snow White being the first and Tron: Ares being the latest. The Snow White live-action remake became a failure for a handful of reasons, including its CG dwarves, casting choices like its outspoken lead actress and now somewhat hated antagonist actress, and its high cost. But to call this a failure to define all failures is perhaps steep, because Disney's live-action remake initiative (minus Lilo & Stitch) has been hit and miss for years. What on the other hand seemed like a bullet train ride to disaster was Tron: Ares. It has been proven time-and-time again that cinemagoers don't care for Jared Leto as an actor, and likewise Tron has never really been a big success in theatres, so combining the two, throwing over $200 million at it as a budget, and then expecting anything other than a catastrophe was madness. Anyone who backed and helped make this film a reality at Disney needs to take a long hard look at themselves, and likewise, it's now time for Tron to be phased out left in the past, because there is clearly not an interest in this series.

Pretty much the entirety of the DC Extended Universe

Man of Steel was released in 2013 so by the definition of the parameters of this article, it avoids judgement, but that's also fine because it's one of very few DC Extended Universe films that wasn't hot garbage. Most everything else that was kicked out in this universe was pretty challenging to get through, with some of the lowest of lows including 2016's Suicide Squad, Black Adam, Shazam! Fury of the Gods, The Flash, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, Wonder Woman 1984, and of course Justice League - and no, Zack Snyder's version (weren't both his versions...) wasn't much, if any, better. In fact, you'd have a hard time arguing that each and every film in the DCEU wasn't a failure to some degree, and that includes generally better projects like The Suicide Squad, Birds of Prey, Shazam!, and so on. The best decision Warner Bros. and DC ever made was taking this universe out into the yard and putting it out of its misery.

Honourable mention: Sony's Spider-Man Universe was as much of a trainwreck as the DCEU

We'll keep this quick by simply listing the movies in Sony's Spider-Man Universe. This should be more than enough to prove the point, so here goes; Venom, Venom: Let There be Carnage, Morbius, Madame Web, Venom: The Last Dance, Kraven the Hunter. Enough said.

Did we miss any film failures? Let us know below.