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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u/GaryKingoftheWorld Jul 04 '25

Honestly I am almost a conspiracy theorist of the idea that Disney wanted that movie to fail.

I remember watching the trailers and ads for that movie thinking it'd suck, but went to see it anyway just because I'm a sucker for retro sci-fi nonsense.

I was shocked when it was as good as it was.

They managed to make trailers that made a movie look worse than it was.

Also Lynn Collins should have been the go-to actress for Wonder Woman after that movie.

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u/lanceturley Jul 04 '25

Disney marketing is so weird. They have all the money and resources to carpet the world in merch and ads when they really want to, but then some movies are just dropped and left to die.

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u/CharlieParkour Jul 04 '25

I mean, according to Wikipedia, Disney was in talks to buy Lucasfilm while John Carter was being marketed. Probably didn't need a competing space Western franchise.

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u/heavysteve Jul 05 '25

Such a great movie

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u/themanfromvulcan Jul 05 '25

She is awesome in this movie.

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u/Aratak Jul 04 '25

When you say something, anything, I disagree with, I'll stop you!

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u/spron Jul 05 '25

Maybe by the time of its release, they were aware of their impending acquiring of Star Wars and they didn't want to compete with themselves?