economie

The biggest box-office disappointments of 2024 so far

July 11, 20240
“Horizon: An American Saga — Chapter 1.”

New Line Cinema

“Horizon” was a huge gamble for its star/director/writer/producer, Kevin Costner. Costner mortgaged his home in Santa Barbara and invested $38 million of his own fortune to fund the film.

He also left his lucrative role on the smash-hit TV show “Yellowstone” due to scheduling conflicts with “Horizon.”

It’s an ambitious task — Costner sees “Horizon” as a four-part series that he planned on releasing over the course of a few months. “Chapter 1” was released in June and made $11 million on its first weekend. A rough start for a movie that cost as much as $100 million to make.

New Line, its distributor, apparently agreed. “Chapter 2” was supposed to hit movie theaters on August 16, but the sequel was pulled from the schedule and now sits in limbo.

“Furiosa” opened to a bleak $32 million over the four-day Memorial Day Weekend.
“The Garfield Movie.”

Sony Pictures Releasing

We can’t only blame “Furiosa” for the abysmal Memorial Day box office. The other film that opened as counter-programming that weekend was “The Garfield Movie,” the second animated adaptation of everyone’s favorite grumpy cat.

The film, which stars Chris Pratt as Garfield, made just $31 million on its opening weekend. So, between “Garfield” and “Furiosa,” the top two movies at the box office made a total of $63 million.

For context, the No. 1 movie at the box office last Memorial Day weekend was “The Little Mermaid,” which made $118 million.

After the billion-dollar success of “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” (also starring Pratt), “Garfield” simply couldn’t measure up. The other big animated movie of the year, “Kung Fu Panda 4,” opened to $57 million and has made $541 million worldwide.

When “Inside Out 2” was released, that’s when it was truly curtains for Garfield. The Pixar sequel has already made $1.2 billion worldwide, making it the highest-grossing movie of the year.

“The Fall Guy” didn’t light up box offices in the way some thought it would.
Henry Cavill as Agent Argylle in “Argylle.”

Peter Mountain/Universal Pictures, Apple Original Films, and MARV

Put aside the deeply annoying “Who is the real Agent Argylle?” marketing campaign and think about how wild this is: “Argylle,” an action spy-thriller starring Oscar-winner Sam Rockwell, former Superman Henry Cavill, the former star of a multi-billion-dollar franchise Bryce Dallas Howard, living legend Samuel L. Jackson, comedy icon Catherine O’Hara, beloved actor Bryan Cranston, and current pop star Dua Lipa couldn’t crack $100 million at the box-office.

Compare that to the $200 million it cost Apple to make, as reported by Indiewire, and that’s a true box-office bomb, even if Apple claims otherwise.

“Madame Web” solidified that the Sony Spider-Man Universe is truly in trouble.
Nell Tiger Free as Margaret in “The First Omen.”

Moris Puccio/20th Century Studios

“The First Omen” is by no means a huge disappointment for 20th Century Studios — it’s made $53 million worldwide against a $30 million budget — but it wasn’t the hit you might’ve expected from one of the most iconic franchises in horror history.

Variety even reported that projections expected the film to make $14 to $15 million on opening weekend. It made a little over half that: just $8.3 million.

“The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare” was 2024’s second movie starring Henry Cavill to flop.
LaKeith Stanfield in “The Book of Clarence.”

TriStar Pictures

“The Book of Clarence” is an alternate-history biblical comedy that posits the existence of a 13th Apostle, Clarence.

“The Book of Clarence” is only director Jeymes Samuel’s second film. His first, “The Harder They Fall,” was a critical success and enjoyed by viewers, but it debuted on Netflix, so it was hard to gauge what the box office would be like for his follow-up.

It turns out that biblical comedy doesn’t go over as well as a Western. According to Variety, “The Book of Clarence” cost $40 million to produce and made only $6.2 million worldwide.

“Lisa Frankenstein” made less than $10 million worldwide.
Margaret Qualley and Geraldine Viswanathan in “Drive-Away Dolls.”

Focus Features

“Drive-Away Dolls” was directed by Ethan Coen and was the first film he directed on his own without his brother, Joel (excluding the 2022 documentary, “Jerry Lee Lewis: Trouble in Mind”).

It was also the first Coen film to make less than $10 million since 1991’s “Barton Fink,” which made $6.2 million to “Drive-Away Dolls'” $6.8 million. The Coens have since made 14 films, some of which made as much as $252 million (“True Grit”).