Every major studio hopes the films it showcases at Comic Con this year will be major hits. But if history’s any indication, some of those movies will tank. Here are the biggest turkeys Comic Con has seen in years past.
Methodology: We were able to dig up the Comic Con schedules for the years 2005-2009, using Archive.org’s Wayback Machine. Before 2005, the schedules just aren’t online in any form that we were able to discover. We looked up their domestic box office on Box Office Mojo, and found their budgets on either Box Office Mojo or Wikipedia. We wound up tossing out any movie that made back more than half its budget domestically. (So Serenity, Watchmen and various others aren’t on this list.)
To be honest, it seemed like the trend of Hollywood throwing tons of resources at promoting movies at Comic Con has grown rapidly over the past five or six years — the 2007 schedule makes this year’s schedule look even more hyperactive than it already does. And by the time you get back to 2006, it’s like, “Hey. You know, here are a few movies. Or not.” So 2004 and years earlier probably would have yielded up fewer amounts of ridiculously over-hyped bombs.
The one blip was that, in 2007, Fox apparently cancelled its appearance at SDCC just a week before the event. Fox was due to promote Jumper, Hitman and Babylon A.D., and as far as I can tell, the Fox panel wound up not happening. Otherwise, there would be three more movies on this list of flops promoted at Comic Con.
So this list proves exposure at Comic Con really doesn’t guarantee a movie’s success…. even if a movie got tons of Comic Con buzz. Just remember, last year one of SDCC’s biggest hits was Jonah Hex. (And after I’d just finished writing this, I noticed this L.A. Times article saying much the same thing about Jonah and other flops that got great Comic Con buzz. Update: And here’s a CNN.com article saying the same thing about Kick-Ass.)
So here it is, in descending order of flopness:
The Box
Domestic box office: $15 million
Budget: $30 million
ROI: 50 percent
Doom
Domestic box office: $28.2 million
Budget: $60 million
ROI: 47 percent
Zathura
Domestic box office: $29.2 million
Budget: $65 million
ROI: 45 percent
Tenacious D in: The Pick Of Destiny
Domestic box office: $8.3 million
Budget: $20 million
ROI: 42 percent
Aeon Flux
Domestic box office: $25.9 million
Budget: $62 million
ROI: 42 percent
The Wolfman
Domestic box office: $62 million
Budget: $150 million
ROI: 41 percent
Grindhouse
Domestic box office: $25 million
Budget: $67 million
ROI: 37 percent
The Spirit
Domestic box office: $19.8 million
Budget: $53 million
ROI: 37 percent
Shoot ‘Em Up!
Domestic box office: $12.8 million
Budget: $39 million
ROI: 33 percent
Doomsday
Domestic box office: $11 million
Budget: £17 million (or roughly $34 million at 2008 exchange rates)
ROI: 32 percent
Pandorum
Domestic box office: $10 million
Budget: $33 million
ROI: 30 percent
Astro Boy
Domestic box office: $19.5 million
Budget: $60 million
ROI: 30 percent
Whiteout
Domestic box office: $10.2 million
Budget: $35 million
ROI: 29 percent
The Fountain
Domestic box office: $10 million
Budget: $39 million
ROI: 29 percent
The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus
Domestic box office: $7.7 million
Budget: $30 million
ROI: 25 percent
Pathfinder: Legend Of The Ghost Warrior
Domestic box office: $10.2 million
Budget: $45 million
ROI: 23 percent
Jonah Hex
Domestic box office: $10 million (and counting)
Budget: $47 million
ROI: 21 percent (but it’s still in a few theaters)
Southland Tales
Domestic box office: $275,000
Budget: Est. $15 million
ROI: 1.8 percent
