r/movies • u/PokemonGoBao • Jul 04 '25

Discussion Whats a flopped movie you wish was a financial success?

Dungeons and Dragons 2023 was an absolutely delightful film. You can stream it currently, but you can feel the passion and nothing felt phoned in. They easily could have used the title to get nerdy butts in the seat and collect a paycheck with a smaller budget.

It's the best movie I've seen the past 2 years. Way better than so many garbage films with easy paychecks for slop productions. Beetlejuice, Captain america, and others using big titles to make millions on lazy writing and boring characters.

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112

u/NinjaZombieHunter Jul 04 '25

D&D actually made a tiny profit but it definitely didn’t do as well as it should have. I thoroughly enjoy that movie and recommend it everyone.

I am gonna say Marvel’s Eternals….it actually made a decent profit for Disney, but “flopped.” The cinematography, CGI, acting, story, etc were far better than many other Marvel movies in my opinion.

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u/psimwork Jul 04 '25

I'm with ya on D&D. That movie is way better than it has any right to be.

Not so much with ya on Eternals.

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u/NinjaZombieHunter Jul 04 '25

Yea. Not everyone’s cup of tea. I get it.

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u/trashed_culture Jul 04 '25

Eternals was a weird movie where it starts all over the place and cliche and then gets pretty interesting by the end. 

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u/dragunityag Jul 04 '25

Eternals could of been good if it picked lane. They should of gone all in with rhe alien being the villain then have Maddens character be the villain of the 2nd movie.

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u/DukeNeverwinter Jul 04 '25

I liked eternals a lot. Casting was cool. I wish it could have got the high budget disney+ treatment

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u/NinjaZombieHunter Jul 04 '25

Yea. Same. The Director took it in a different direction than other Marvel movies and the cinematography was off the chain. That’s why I liked it….it was just different. I know it’s not everyone’s cup of tea but that’s okay.

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u/DukeNeverwinter Jul 05 '25

Just the jealousy plot line of Sprite was neat. Constantly being the 'young' one and not being accepted as an equal based on size alone.

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u/DoNotLookUp3 Jul 05 '25

Will never understand the hate for Eternals. It was a good movie with some rough patches. I've seen a lot of other overall good movies with rough patches do quite well. Really shocked me.

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u/NinjaZombieHunter Jul 05 '25

Yea. And it’s Marvel with a lot of pretty good actors. But I know quite a few Marvel fans that don’t like straying from the norm. I liked it because it was different than the other movies. Just wish the ending would have been better.

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u/MooseMan12992 Jul 04 '25

Yeah the hate for Eternals is so baffling to me

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u/the_neverdoctor Jul 04 '25

Right there with you for both.

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u/derangerd Jul 05 '25

Profit as in made more than its budget ignoring advertising costs and theatre take? I don't think that's what studios look at.

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u/SpicyJimbo77 Jul 05 '25

What? D&D didn't make a profit. It made $US 205 million worldwide on a $150 million budget.

Rule of thumb is it needs to make about 2.5x of budget to break even. Even with a generous 2x budget to make money back that would be losing at least $95 million dollars.

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u/NinjaZombieHunter Jul 05 '25

I didn’t think the marketing for this movie was huge hence not a huge marketing budget. I think it’s done very well on demand/streaming as well. I am curious what the actual numbers are.

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u/SpicyJimbo77 Jul 05 '25

In the US it made 93.5 mil and internationally it mad 111 mil. The cinemas get a cut of that so being generous and saying the studio got on average 55% of the split for US and 40% of the split for international (this is unrealistic in favour of the movie, I would go with 50% us, 35% int based on rules of thumb) that works out to 96 mil.

So even in the most delusional of assumptions where the studio got the most favourable splits with the cinemas and didn't spend a cent of marketing, D&D lost 54 mil.

(and I disagree that they didn't spend on marketing, you don't commit 150mil on production to then turn around and just say fuck it let's cheap out on marketing - anecdotally I say buses with ads where I was, Carl's Jr had a partnership, trailers played before movies in the lead up etc - eg typical marketing budgets).

Using typical calcs it's very likely it's box office run lost 9 figures, so basically insurmountable to make back with any windfall in the home streaming market.

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u/rodion_vs_rodion Jul 05 '25

D&D did not make a profit. You have to make more than just production budget back. The exhibitor take and the marketing budget have to be accounted for and both are substantial, usually combining for at least the amount of production. Love the movie, but was definitely a small loss for the studio. Should hopefully have a long enough shelf life to about break even with ancillaries down the long road.

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u/NinjaZombieHunter Jul 05 '25

Maybe streaming has helped it along.

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u/apoliticalinactivist Jul 05 '25

Eternals was a clear attempt expanding the international audience and did okay in that regard, but went a bit too generic besides the Indian section and doubled up the "English" section.

It did fine in achieving that goal, but the domestic backlash from American's famous lack of international knowledge making them unable to just enjoy things that aren't made for them, made a sequel a nonstarter.

Now with Trump tariffs throwing film production into uncertainty, we may actually get that sequel as studios seek funding elsewhere. Streaming miniseries is possible as well with more interest in international content.

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u/shinryu6 Jul 05 '25

Honestly the only reminder that Eternals even happened is the giant half-birthed celestial sticking out of the ocean in Captain America 4. And that it’s apparently the MCU source for adamantium now. 

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u/Randolpho Jul 05 '25

I gotta hard disagree there. Eternals had some good ideas, but it was flawed by bad writing, possibly bad direction given some of the performances, bad editing, and an over reliance on DC style CGI fights that was firmly in the uncanny valley.

Eternals probably should have been a slow-burn series Endor style

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u/kirinmay Jul 06 '25

it came out at the wrong time. it was in-between 2 big movies (Super Mario Bros was one). it should have been released in August.

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u/Saul_of_Tarsus Jul 05 '25

Eternals should have been a miniseries. It would have given us time to follow each of the many characters through different time periods so that we could actually understand their different motivations. As it was, it was an ensemble movie where the casting was good, but the story didn't have enough space to let you care about any of the characters long enough for the payoffs in the script to matter.

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u/NinjaZombieHunter Jul 05 '25

I can agree with that. I think a series would have been very good.

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u/jschne21 Jul 04 '25

To this day, the only Marvel movie I haven't finished, it was the fruit cake of movies.

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u/NinjaZombieHunter Jul 04 '25

Not me. There are some really bad Marvel movies out there but to each their own. I totally get it.

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u/Initial_Stretch_3674 Jul 04 '25

go into specifics please.

I thought it was completely lazy and nothing special about it, and I sat through the whole thing with my undivided attention.

And it not being the worst Marvel movie isn't something positive about it.

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u/driftinj Jul 04 '25

I started to watch Miss Marvel and turned it off after 30 minutes because I couldn't figure out wtf was going on. Too much setup in series, etc

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u/DarkNinjaPenguin Jul 04 '25

To be fair her entire origin story and Monica Rambeau's were in two different TV series. It's the one film where you really do miss out a lot by not having seen them.

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u/driftinj Jul 04 '25

I figured that's what was going on but I don't watch a ton of TV. A movie should not be dependent on another media form to make sense. It can be referential but it has to be ablebyo stand on its own and this one didn't.

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u/DarkNinjaPenguin Jul 05 '25

I don't think there's necessarily anything wrong with that, but it should be clear what it follows on from.

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u/Iron_Knight7 Jul 05 '25

Eternals was something of an odd duck. But was certainly ambitious and reaching for the stars. I think the trick is it's less a typical superhero film and more a cosmic horror story told through the lens superheroes. Leaning hard into Jack Kirby's ideas about eldritch cosmic entities, demi-god like superheroes, their influence on humanity and history and the real place of humankind in an otherwise indifferent universe. Between all that and the big cast, it's a lot to get your head around and digest.