Fail After Fail: The Disaster of 2023’s Summer Movies
The total gross of 2023's summer movie season is currently around 3.75 billion dollars. Credit: Denise Jans via Unsplash
The summer movie season of 2023 has been truly bizarre.
This year has already faced massive shifts in the film industry due to the writers' and actors' strikes that began in May and July. These strikes will not only affect the industry until the end of the strike but for years to come, marking a moment not seen since 1960. Moreover, it has been a shakeup for many studios in this year’s summer movie season, as many multi-million dollar films have seen some of the biggest bombs in history. From both critical hits to blunders, it seems no films were safe from audiences' decisions to either flock to the theatres or tank them.
Before discussing the many films that failed financially this summer, we can recognize the many successes. There was Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, both critical and audience hits that show that comic book films are still popular if in the hands of filmmakers with a vision. Independent summer films also did well, including Past Lives and Talk to Me. Lastly, we cannot forget the absolute pandemonium of Barbie and Oppenhiemer, which are two of the best-performing films of the year with Barbie quickly hitting the billion mark and Oppenhiemer is projected to hit around $900 million by the end of its run. However, many films didn’t receive the same amount of cultural, audience and box office resonance.
The first major bomb we saw this summer was The Flash, a movie whose development is more interesting than the film itself. From the decades of a Flash movie that tried to get made, the chaos of Zack Synder’s dour mess of the DCEU, and the insanity of Ezra Miller, The Flash movie was never going to turn out well. Not to help with the audience’s declining interest in DC films, The Flash had CGI that truly didn’t look finished and propelled into internet memes, dragging the film for its ugly visuals. The Flash ended up making $268.5 million by the end of its run, which landed it a projected loss of a little bit under $200 million.
The Flash’s failure put another nail in the coffin for the DCEU but as for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, it ended the series with a resounding dud. With a budget of $300 million, it needed a box office run of at least $600 million. However, by the end of the film’s run, it only grossed $376 million, a massive loss for Disney at around $224 million. Not only is this up there with the biggest bombs in film history, such as John Carter and The Lone Ranger (both released by Disney), but it was not the only bomb the studio had this summer. Haunted Mansion, another reboot released by Disney, has only grossed around $86 million on a $157 million, meaning that the loss is close to $114 million.
These two box office failures are not making Disney’s situation easier this year, as CEO Bob Iger has been one of the main opponents of the strikes as well as MCU’s recent slumping shows and movies have brought division among fans. Furthermore, the releases of The Little Mermaid remake and Pixar’s Elemental were profitable but still disappointing for one of the biggest entertainment companies in the world.
The cases of The Flash, Indiana Jones, and Haunted Mansion they were films that were a part of franchises that weren’t at the peak of their popularity and didn’t have great press. However, this summer had some oddities, from movies that massively underperformed to ones that the majority of people haven’t heard of. The biggest surprise underperformance of the summer was Mission Impossible 7; with a whopping budget of $291 million, it only took in $531 million. This was because of the poor decision to release MI 7 before the weekend of Barbie and Oppenheimer, which both turned out to be the biggest films of the summer. Even so, Tom Cruise’s next film following a hit as big as Top Gun: Maverick should have definitely performed better.
Now, the weirdest bombs of the summer. These films aren’t you’re typical summer blockbusters, but compared to their budgets, were outstanding losses at the box office. Early this summer, Hypnotic came out, directed by Robert Rodriguez and starring Ben Affleck (yes this movie actually exists). Its budget was a sizeable $65 million, but made only $2.5 million, not surprising due to how this movie received essentially no marketing. Speaking of poor marking, this leads us to Dreamwork’s animated film this summer, Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken. The worst opening the studio has ever had, as it only grossed $41 million on a $70 million budget. Furthermore, there is the majority of August’s mid to late film releases that are failing or expected to fail at the box office: The Last Voyage of the Demeter, Blue Beetle, and Gran Turismo. Nevertheless, what was the worst bomb in comparison to its budget this year? Yes, The Flash and Indiana Jones will be known as infamous flops, but there is one film this year that was truly horrific in its box office returns. Fool’s Paradise, Charlie Day’s debut film with a budget of between $28 and $30 million, made S855,173. Yes, thousands.
This summer is telling us a lot about the future of the film industry. Big films like The Flash and Indiana Jones are massively over-budgeted, so do we really need films to cost $300 million? Films such as Dune ($165 million budget) and John Wick: Chapter 4 ($100 million budget) were both commercial and critical successes, legitimately pushed the medium forward, and didn’t require a bloated budget. On top of this, reboot, revival, franchise and universe films are lazy. Why must Disney remake every single 90s animated film? Why must all superhero films be connected in one universe? Why are films developed in a factory format devoid of risk? These are questions that audiences are asking and films like Barbie and Oppenheimer, which legitimately take risks and have a definitive artistic voice, are the ones that are succeeding.
Strikes, box office failures, and changing trends are all signs of a massive shift in the future of American films. This moment is most comparable to the collapse of the Golden Age of Hollywood in the 1960s. Due to dwindling audiences due to television, bloated budgets and poor box office returns, films had to change. Sounds similar, right? Today, we are in the same situation, but this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. After the collapse, it gave birth to the New Hollywood movement of the late '60s through the mid-'80s, often known to be the greatest era in film history. There are always going to be bad films; it is just a factor of the industry but consistently bad films that cost way too much money and lose big at the box office? That can only last for so long. The current industry isn’t sustainable; change is coming if Hollywood wants it or not.