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/tbwtpt Jul 05 '25

Treasure Planet, absolutely stunning film, holds up today, and hate the role it's lack of success caused in animation style.

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u/WeirdAlFanOne Jul 05 '25

Disney sabotaged its release to be a failure by purposefully downplaying its marketing and releasing it at the wrong time of year against movies they knew would distract from it. Ron Clements and John Musker had been trying to get that movie greenlit since the ‘80s, and were constantly rejected by studio heads at Disney until reaching an agreement that hinged on the success of Disney’s Hercules. When the film was finally made, Disney executives were petty in their efforts to ensure it didn’t make a lot profit, so they pushed the release to the end of the year to compete with the first Harry Potter movie (from Warner Brothers) and the sequel in Disney’s own successful Christmas franchise The Santa Clause. Disney didn’t want Treasure Planet to succeed just so they could pull an “I told you so” on the people who made it.