Think all box office bombs are bad movies? Think again. These flicks may have failed to bring in the cash, but they were good enough to bring on the sequels.
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00:00What's up everybody, Griffey here. Think all box office bombs are bad movies? Well yeah,
00:06they pretty much are, except for one we're about to mention that is the greatest film
00:10of all time. But not all box office bombs are created equal. Here's a few that gotta
00:15see more.
00:16Man, 1987 was a special time. People were walking like an Egyptian, watching the stock
00:22market tank, and enjoying the greatest robot cop movie of all time. That's right, RoboCop.
00:29Though it only brought in around $50 million at the box office, it was a big success thanks
00:33to its low budget, so Hollywood demanded a sequel. RoboCop 2 landed in 1990 and upped
00:39the ante in terms of action, but that also meant a considerably larger budget, and combined
00:45with weak results at the ticket counter, the sequel wound up being a big bust.
00:50RoboCop 2 was a lot like the first, and by a lot, I mean exactly. Roasted by critics
00:55who felt it was simply more of the same, RoboCop 2 was rejected by fans as well. In
01:00the end, the sequel was a major bomb on just about every level, but that didn't stop
01:05the studio from trying again. The geniuses in Hollywood decided what it really needed
01:09was way less violence, so they came up with a PG-13 script and crapped out RoboCop 3,
01:15where the RoboCop, who's not even Peter Weller, tackled harsh second-degree misdemeanors.
01:26Police officer. No loitering.
01:30It too was a major disaster, barely topping $10 million at the box office.
01:36Highlander is the greatest movie of all time. How many times do I have to say it? If this
01:42clip doesn't bring a tear to your eye, you have no soul.
01:46Who are you? We are the same, McCloud. We are brothers!
01:53While Highlander received strong reviews, it couldn't even make back its modest budget
01:58in theaters, because ultimately, the world is a vampire. Thankfully, the Earth realized
02:02the glory that is Highlander once it made it to VHS rentals, and the studio rushed to
02:07make all things Scottish once again.
02:10Highlander 2 The Quickening came out in 1991. It's a movie with a bigger budget and a bigger
02:16cast. The moral of the story is that sometimes Scottish things need to be smaller, because
02:21Highlander 2 bombed pretty hard. It's still great, don't get me wrong, but it is not Highlander
02:27great. If anything, it gets too much hate, but I am contractually obligated to keep my
02:32Highlander rants to a dull roar. So let's just move on.
02:361994 saw Highlander 3, The Sorcerer, and two more theatrical follow-ups by 2007. In Between
02:42was a highly successful TV adaptation that ran for six seasons and that got its own short-lived
02:48live-action spinoff, as well as a pair of animated efforts, proving once again that
02:53Highlander is the greatest film of all time. Why is this even on this list? Did The Godfather
02:59get a TV show? No. Citizen Kane didn't even get a sequel. It was The Sled! The Sled!
03:06The Rocky Horror Picture Show is a story on screen and off, unlike any other. Based on
03:11a stage musical, it tells the story of a gender-bending alien scientist on a quest to create the perfect
03:17human specimen when an ordinary young couple, Brad and Janet, stumble upon his work.
03:23Come up to the lab and see what's on the slab.
03:28Rocky Horror was a theatrical flop upon its 1975 release, but not long after, late-night
03:33screenings across the country began to attract enormous followings, and before long, the
03:38film gained a new reputation as a riotous crowd-poser. Where else could you just throw
03:43popcorn at the movie screen? You're not pulling that off during Highlander. Last Highlander
03:47reference, I promise, that's on me.
03:50Once the studio saw the money rolling in, they thought, how can we commercialize this
03:54and yet make a mediocre follow-up to the original? The result was Shock Treatment, a 1981 film
04:00that sees suburban newlyweds Brad and Janet return to their hometown of Denton to find
04:05that a media conglomerate has set up an enormous city-sized TV studio. Along with the rest
04:10of their community, Brad and Janet live their entire lives on television for all the world
04:14to see, like that would ever happen today.
04:17If you never knew Rocky Horror got a sequel, you're not alone. The original lives on in
04:21late-night screenings, whereas Shock Treatment went straight to midnight screenings. That's
04:26right, they tried to fake some cult classic status for it. You can't do that. Those things
04:31happen organically, right Tommy?
04:33Oh, hi Mark.
04:34You know what Paramount loves? Toys. They hit gold with Michael Bay's Transformers
04:38in 2007, so Paramount dug into the toy box and pulled out G.I. Joe, The Rise of Cobra
04:45two years later. Surely, if a movie about talking alien cars could become a massive
04:49blockbuster, a movie about a fighting force of action heroes with worse aim than storm
04:54troopers could do the same. The problem is that they went a little too big with a mammoth
04:59$175 million budget. And while that definitely helped the movie look great on the big screen,
05:06it made it doubly hard to be a hit. By the end of the film's run, The Rise of Cobra still
05:10hadn't doubled its budget, which is the typical barometer for a movie to be considered successful.
05:16Raking in $300 million isn't exactly nothing, so maybe if they tried again, upped the appeal
05:22with some big names and kept the budget trim, they could do better.
05:25G.I. Joe retaliation assaulted audiences in 2013, adding Dwayne The Rock Johnson and Bruce
05:32Willis to its cast in an attempt to put more butts in seats.
05:35I'll take two cases of Thin Mince and a box of Chuck-A-Lux. Lower your weapons.
05:42All told, it managed to do a little better, bringing in a bit more money on a lower budget.
05:47An American reboot of Godzilla in 1998 flopped so hard that it killed any chance at a sequel,
05:53and nobody tried again stateside for almost 20 years. You might remember this movie fondly,
05:59but go back and watch it. Go ahead. Pause this. I'll wait.
06:06See? It's awful. I mean, how deep is the water around Manhattan? Like 300 feet?
06:11So in 2014, Gareth Edwards' Godzilla took the box office by storm and served as the
06:16first step in a massive cinematic universe. Edwards took the bold step of making it impossible
06:22to actually see Godzilla by keeping the shot so dark you needed to shine a flashlight at
06:26the screen just to see the kaiju. I absolutely adored this Godzilla film, but most audiences
06:33felt kind of meh about it. It did, however, earn more than $500 million on a relatively
06:39modest $160 million budget. It was a major hit, and a sequel was soon ordered.
06:45Following the adjacent and equally successful Kong Skull Island in 2017,
06:50Godzilla King of the Monsters smashed through cinemas two years later. The film went even
06:55bigger, pitting Godzilla against a plethora of ancient evil monsters.
07:00What is a plethora?
07:03With a budget that may have been as high as $200 million, the film's $386 million take
07:09got it labeled a huge disappointment, if not an outright box office bomb. As a result,
07:15the already planned Godzilla vs. Kong was delayed by eight months. This was only made
07:20more problematic because, I don't know if they had it around you, but here in this universe,
07:25the world closed for about a year. Eventually, the crossover Clash of Titans dropped in 2021
07:31and accumulated almost $470 million. This was seen as not too shabby considering it
07:37was released simultaneously on HBO Max. Has anyone seen that movie, Tron?
07:43No.
07:43No.
07:43No.
07:44No.
07:44No.
07:45No.
07:45No.
07:45No.
07:46No.
07:46No.
07:47No.
07:47Yes. I mean, no.
07:50Here's the deal. No matter how revolutionary the film may have been, Tron was simply too
07:54far ahead of its time. Unable to connect with an audience that knew little about computers
07:59in the early 80s, the movie just couldn't muster up the big bucks at the box office.
08:03But when it then went to home video, it gained a following among fans who appreciated its
08:08groundbreaking aesthetics. So it's basically Computer Highlander. That doesn't count as a
08:13Highlander reference because I said computer in front of it. As it continued to increase in
08:17popularity, rumors began to circulate about a possible sequel, with Pixar even considering
08:23spearheading the follow-up at one point in the late 90s. But it wasn't until after the
08:27new millennium that anything ever materialized, and Disney finally put out Tron Legacy in 2010.
08:34This time, the take at the ticket counter was stronger, with almost $400 million totaled for
08:39the sequel.
08:40This is going to be quite a ride.
08:43Tron 3 is allegedly coming our way in 2025, but it's Disney. We'll see if they push it back again.
08:49It's easy to forget that there was a bit of a comic book movie boom before the MCU.
08:54Those early Spider-Man movies were great. Not you, Spider-Man 3. Sit back down.
08:58But that comic book craze led to an adaptation of the action-horror title Hellboy,
09:03directed by Guillermo del Toro. Popular with fans of the original comic,
09:07even critics dug the film for its strong visual flair, gothic tone, and lively action.
09:13To this day, it's still regarded as one of the best superhero movies of all time,
09:17with plenty of praise for then-50-year-old Ron Perlman's performance as the boy from Hell.
09:29Unfortunately, the positive response didn't translate to success in theaters,
09:33and the film couldn't get past the $100 million mark,
09:36which made it a bomb on the back of its $60 million budget.
09:39Despite this, not long after its debut, it was announced that a sequel was already in development,
09:45with del Toro readying a script for a 2006 release. That turned into a 2008 release.
09:51Hellboy 2 The Golden Army fared a little better, but fans never did get their trilogy ender.
09:57When the 2019 reboot crashed and burned, however,
10:00producers were smart enough not to greenlight a follow-up.
10:04Set during the final day at the fictional Camp Firewood, the teen-raunchy comedy spoof
10:09Wet Hot American Summer has the kids all getting ready to say goodbye to their new friends,
10:14while the older counselors are looking to hook up before it's too late.
10:19Andy, have you seen my swimming buddy?
10:22Um...
10:22If I can't find him, I'm telling Beth that you let him drown.
10:26Made for less than $2 million, it was somehow still a bomb,
10:30earning less than $300,000 when released in the summer of 2001.
10:34Reviews were unkind, to say the least, with the Dallas Morning News calling it a
10:40bomb, and the San Francisco Chronicle labeling it
10:45Yet like so many others, Wet Hot American Summer went on to become a cult classic,
10:49thanks to that old home movie rental market.
10:52Oh, Blockbuster, we've really forsaken you.
10:55Though it took a while, a sequel finally materialized in 2015 with the Netflix streaming
11:00miniseries Wet Hot American Summer First Day of Camp, which took the goofiness to a whole
11:05other level. It must have been a hit because it got another follow-up,
11:09Wet Hot American Summer, ten years later.
11:11Released the same year as Tron, Ridley Scott's Blade Runner is considered a masterpiece of
11:16cinema. Brilliantly shot and featuring Daryl Hannah using her atomic elbow on a car window,
11:21the film is an immersive future world and an homage to film noir.
11:26I can wax poetically as much as they'll let me, but you already know that despite having
11:31all the ingredients to become a blockbuster, it was a spectacular box office bomb.
11:36In the decade since its release, Blade Runner became one of the most widely analyzed sci-fi
11:40films of all time, even seeing numerous re-releases on home video, including extended
11:46and director's cuts. Eventually, after years of rumors, a legacy sequel finally got off the
11:52ground. Starring Ryan Gosling, Blade Runner 2049 arrived in 2017 and brought Harrison Ford back
11:58in a supporting role, in a story set decades later as a new agent looks for answers regarding
12:04a replicant conspiracy.
12:06You're not going to kill me, are you?
12:08Depends. What's your model number?
12:11Guess what? It bombed too. If I'm alive in 35 years, I'll come back and see if they've tried
12:16again. Before The Fast and the Furious, Vin Diesel starred in Pitch Black, a modest little
12:22indie sci-fi horror movie. Few probably expected it to launch a franchise, but after becoming a
12:27Hollywood A-lister, Diesel revisited the story for a sequel, ultimately titled The Chronicles
12:33of Riddick. But where Pitch Black succeeded thanks to its modest investment, Chronicles
12:37of Riddick bombed, because its budget ballooned to as much as $120 million. Released in 2004,
12:44the film would have been a mammoth smash hit, had it had the same small budget as its
12:48predecessor, but with a $107 million take, it wound up a big money loser. Still, Diesel was
12:56passionate about the character of Riddick and was committed to more films. Finding someone
13:00who would bankroll them, however, proved a problem given the sequel's failure. Finally,
13:05Riddick arrived in 2013, thanks in large part to Riddick financing the film himself from a lot
13:11of that Fast and the Furious money. They kept the budget reasonable, which allowed the film
13:15to be something of a success. Just goes to prove that age-old adage, family equals profits. I
13:23think they said that. If not, I just said it.