Coming out of the pandemic, movie theaters have been awaiting this new era where people would return to theaters, and they are doing so – somewhat. There are those titles boasting massive box office figures on par with those from the pre-COVID era – “Avatar: The Way of the Water,” “Maverick,” and “Barbie” leap to the fore – but the balance of the film market is still in flux. Unless it is an event picture there is a real challenge to get audiences excited and arriving.

This slate of titles that bear a huge loss in the red-ink column faced a number of challenges leading to failure. Audience resistance, a poor economy, and the ever-evolving streaming market meant that unless there was a real reason to go out to a cineplex, people were content to ride out the calendar until titles arrived on their streaming service. Then, add in the actors' strike taking place all summer, which meant no performers could promote the films.

These were failures in terms of money as well as expectations. Some of these on the bottom rung are titles that were overlooked, some completely forgotten, and many that were doomed from their conception at the studio. So make some popcorn in your kitchen at a deep discount, and behold Hollywood’s dismal players from the past year.

RECEIVING RECOGNITION

“Aquaman” has just been released, and it is just too early yet to tell how far its underwhelming opening will place Warners underwater. Disney’s summer release, “Elemental,” was regarded as a bomb, but it did better overseas and managed to last long enough to come close to break-even territory.

“Air” was the telling of the Michael Jordan/Nike story, and as it lost money, it nearly broke even, which is actually a win as Amazon had this as a streaming title and released it in theaters as a late decision. “Dumb Money” was a decent retelling of the GameStop stock story but suffered from a rival documentary showing up on Netflix.

Director Guy Ritchie had a pair of misfires — “Operation Fortune” and “The Covenant” — but only missed the main list due to the budgets being slightly more modest. “Strays” was a misbegotten concept of an R-rated animation about dogs that did not appeal to adults while restricting kids from seeing it. “The Machine” was an attempt to make comedian Bert Kreischer a feature and failed to make half of its modest budget, and Nick Cage failed to draw much of an audience in his comedic vampire take “Renfield.”

A brief financial explainer. In measuring losses, you need to factor in that studios take in roughly half of the ticket prices, and then there is the moving target of the marketing costs of the titles to be added to the budget.

Now, on to the worst.

20. RUBY GILLMAN

Dreamworks Animation released this in the summer, and few even noticed. It opened to a dismal $5.2 million opening and only pulled in about $40 million. With a budget of $70m, plus advertising, it probably needed to see a $200m gross to be profitable.

19. FREELANCE

We almost defy anyone to tell us about this film. It arrived in October, and I swear it is a vapor in just about everyone’s memory. John Cena is in this action-comedy romp, and not a soul cared, as it feels like a direct-to-streaming venture. Currently, its Rotten Tomatoes score is seven percent, and the studio clearly knew it had a loser on its hands and did not waste money on marketing. The result: It could not even garner a $10m total in its run while sporting a $40m budget. 

18. MAGIC MIKE’S LAST DANCE

The attempt to wring out more cash from this property was misbegotten from its concept. The studio spent more on this than the previous films, and it featured the adored cast members far less — a bad formula. The first two films made over $120m each, while this needless attempt earned less than half that sum.

17. HYPNOTIC

Ben Affleck came and went in this action film that was mostly impacted by — Ben Affleck. The late decision to see “Air” come to theaters was a factor in drawing interest away, but not the main one. It began production before the pandemic, had numerous production companies, and the small studio, Solstice, was affected by pandemic delays and laid off staff ahead of release. This meant little to no marketing as the actors were on strike, so it earned under $10m against a $70m cost.

16. KNIGHTS OF THE ZODIAC

An attempt to bring a live-action anime was rejected by most, especially the ardent fans. It was scorched by critics and fans on the review sites, as it pulled in under $7m against a budget of around $60m. Safe to say this will not grow into a franchise.

15. DUNGEONS & DRAGONS: HONOR AMONG THIEVES

This one saw some decent business, but not decent enough. It slightly exceeded projections at the opening, but even with a global haul of $190m, it fell short of the big budget, needing to probably hit at least $350m to see a profit.

14. BLUE BEETLE

This will be just the first of the DC comic adaptations making a thud this year. This secondary character had a challenge with interest, and its muddled marketing did not help. With a $129m global take, it did manage to slightly outgain its budget, but it likely needed to have at least made twice as much to help out DC-Warners.

13. 65

Adam Driver’s sci-fi time-bending planetary dinosaur epic had some initial interest with the first trailers, but never built on that. The odd title, gauzy plotline, and competitive March slate saw this only make $32m in the States, less overseas, and it fell well short of the needed minimum of about $200m needed to see a benefit.

12. ANT-MAN QUANTUMANIA

A sign of the troubles Marvel is seeing in a rare development this year. Apart from the success of “Guardians of the Galaxy 3,” the comic book fatigue appears to be a real thing. This one was a curiosity in that it saw the best opening for the “Ant-Man” franchise but also had the worst second-week drop. In the end, the poor word of mouth led to a healthy box office of $476m which was well short of the estimated $600m profit line for Disney-Marvel.

11. EXPEND4BLES

Sylvester Stallone was trying vainly to extend this venture in what is a clear attempt to have Jason Statham take over the lead of this property. The appeal has always been in gathering a collection of action stars, and that novelty has already played out. This fourth attempt barely made half of its $100m budget, so this could have been the death knell of this killers franchise.

Coming up: The Top-10 (bottom-10??) bombs of the past year.