In the beginning, sci-fi films were cheap knockoffs with bad dialog and worse special effects. Then, with 2001: A Space Odyssey, and even more so with the runaway success of Star Wars, studios saw the value of the genre and started pumping money in. While it's virtually impossible for a low-budget movie to bomb, top-dollar productions can fail spectacularly.
Some of the highest-grossing films and franchises have been sci-fi, as well as many of the biggest box office bombs. For the most part, a movie tanks at the box office because it's terrible, but every so often, a good flick inexplicably falls by the wayside. With sci-fi, there have been many movies that didn't resonate with the ticket-buying public but were actually pretty good.
10 Tron Laid The Groundwork For The Matrix
The story of a video game designer trapped inside a main-frame computer sounds like an early draft of The Matrix, but it's actually the plot for the 1982 film Tron. Though the sci-fi adventure movie eventually made some money at the box office, it was considered a flop by Disney, who ended up writing off most of the $17 million budget.
It was panned by critics and lampooned by comedians, but it was a fun movie with a great concept that has spawned a mini-franchise in recent years. The problem with Tron was that it was ahead of its time. Not a lot of people had a personal computer in 1982, and it was the home video game dead era between the Atari 2600 and the NES, so not a lot of people got it.
9 Donnie Darko Is A Cult Classic
The 2001 sci-fi psychological thriller Donnie Darko is so weird that many of the stars of the movie aren't quite sure what it is about. Maybe it's an allegory for the end of the world, or perhaps it's the manifestation of a troubled teen's angst. Whatever the case is, it's abundantly clear that the movie was a bomb, bringing in just over $7 million in ticket sales.
As bizarre and unhinged as the movie is, it's as fascinating as watching a train plowing into a fireworks stand while on hallucinogens. It doesn't matter what the meaning of everything is because Donnie Darko is strangely riveting. As a testament to the movie's quality and watchability, Donnie Darko has become a cult classic.
8 Event Horizon Scares Off Audiences And Critics
In 1997, the concept of unleashing Hell in outer space was explored by the sci-fi movie Event Horizon. The movie was a colossal flop, earning just $42 million against a budget of $60 million.
Critics at the time complained the movie was too gory and focused on scares, like that was a bad thing for a sci-fi horror. Event Horizon has since come to be appreciated because it's a scary high-concept good time. Originally, the film was rushed and edited into oblivion, and unfortunately, all the deleted footage has been lost, making a proper director's cut an impossibility.
7 The Adventures Of Buckaroo Banzai Across The 8th Dimension Rocks
The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension, known simply as The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai, is a tale about a physicist/neurosurgeon/test pilot/rock star who saves the world from the inter-dimensional aliens called Red Lectroids of Planet 10. As cool as that sounds, the 1984 sci-fi comedy was a massive failure, earning $6.3 million versus a $17 million budget.
Normally, when a film barely makes back a third of its budget, it's because it sucked harder than a supernova, but The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai is a tragically overlooked gem. Almost a parody of serials like Buck Rodgers and Flash Gordon, the movie is not only funny but compelling. John Lithgow's hilarious performance as alien baddie Lord John Whorfin is reason enough to watch this forgotten film.
6 The Impossible Failure Of The Thing
John Carpenter's 1982 film, The Thing, about a replicating alien life form that attacks scientists at an Antarctic outpost is one of the greatest sci-fi horrors ever made. It took practical gore effects to the next level, was a scary-good story, and somehow a commercial failure. As weird as it seems, this classic had a weak opening and barely made back its $19.6 million budget.
The only explanation for The Thing's poor showing is that it was released around the same time as Poltergeist and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, so maybe audiences got their horror and sci-fi fixes from those more family-friendly films. While the movie may not have been a big hit, it has endured as a cult favorite, spawning a prequel, as well as possible sequels, comics, and a surprisingly good Playstation 2 game.
5 The Dark Fate Of Terminator: Dark Fate
With the disappointing Terminator: Salvation and Terminator: Genisys, the Terminator franchise was kind of off the rails and literally out of its timeline. With Terminator: Dark Fate, the sixth installment, original creator James Cameron was brought in to bring focus back to the beloved series. Unfortunately, it underperformed at the box office and was considered a major flop.
The film was a direct sequel to Terminator 2: Judgment Day, so it's as if the previous three movies and the Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles TV show never existed. Despite tanking in theaters, it was an entertaining installment in the franchise that fans of the original two films would enjoy. Arnold Schwarzenegger reprised his role as the T-800, and Linda Hamilton came back as Sarah Connor. Fans couldn't have asked for more.
4 The Iron Giant Comes Up Short
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The Iron Giant is one of the best animated features ever made, and it's a travesty that it was a commercial failure. The story of a boy in Cold War 1957 and his giant alien robot friend was brilliantly written, beautifully animated, and should have been a timeless classic. Instead, it only made $31.1 million versus its $50 million budget. Throwing in the cost of promotion and distribution, the movie lost a ton of money.
The reasons for the film bombing are hard to understand. It was great and had an amazing cast, including Jennifer Aniston, Harry Connick Jr., and Vin Diesel, so quality and star power weren't the issues. Maybe audiences have just been conditioned only to accept offerings from Disney and Pixar. Of the top ten highest-grossing animated movies, only The Super Mario Bros. Movie is from a different studio.
3 Nothing But Dread For Dredd
The 1995 film, Judge Dredd, starring Sylvester Stallone in the title role, was goofy and infuriated fans of the comic strip. As bad as it was, it made some money. In 2012, an attempt at a grittier adaptation that was more faithful to the source material was released as simply Dredd. Despite achieving a satisfying post-apocalyptic Mega-City One and more acceptable Judge Dredd, the movie didn't even make back its $45 million budget.
While the film didn't exactly steal the plot from Indonesian action film, The Raid, it did borrow heavily by having a Gun-Fu corpse-fest contained within a high-rise building. Losing only a few points for unoriginality, it was an intense action epic with some of the best, most innovative violence and gore ever filmed. Plus, it had a non-cornball version of Judge Dredd.
2 Shazam! Fury of the Gods Killed The DCEU
Released in 2019, Shazam! was a runaway success, earning $376 million, making a sequel a no-brainer. Things, however, were not well in the DC Extended Universe and in the time after the first film's release, Wonder Woman 1984, The Suicide Squad, and Black Adam all flopped. When Shazam! Fury of the Gods bombed at the box office with a $133,4 million gross, it was the straw that broke the DCEU's back.
The thing is, the second Shazam film is actually quite good and arguably better than the first. Fury of the Gods has a better story, more tense action, and way more humor. It's a shame the DCEU is getting a reboot because this movie set up some intriguing DCEU sequels in the ending credits sequence, including a possible pairing of Shazam and Peacemaker, which would have conceivably been the greatest DC thing ever set to film.
1 Only Loneliness For Solo: A Star Wars Story
Solo: A Star Wars Story made $393.2 million at the box office, which sounds like a hit, but it had a $300 million budget and was the first major disappointment in the Star Wars franchise. There were signs of trouble when original directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller were replaced with "King of Safe" Ron Howard three-quarters of the way into filming, but it was by no means the worst Star Wars movie.
As a perfectly entertaining Han Solo origin story, the movie does a great job of introducing Chewbacca's friendship, the acquisition of the Millennium Falcon, and offering a reasonable explanation for the "Kessel Run in 12 parsecs" controversy. It also brings in some important stuff from the animated series The Clone Wars, like the fate of Darth Maul. Solo definitely deserves a second look because it's the top sci-fi movie that bombed, which is actually pretty good.