10 terrible movies that became box office hits
Call us cynical, but most of the films on the ceaseless list of the highest-grossing movies ever made are pretty bad. Whether you’re sifting through the endless trough of superhero fodder or consuming a strong dose of Michael Bay-induced CGI, the truth is that the multiplexes of the world invest most of their time and screens in the biggest movies of the moment, and not necessarily the brightest.
If you think we sound a little like the minions of Martin Scorsese, bemoaning the future of cinema amid the influx of superhero stories, you wouldn’t exactly be wrong, but the fact remains; big budget cinema asks you to leave your brains at the door. There are exceptions, of course, with the recent Top Gun: Maverick being a charming return to the skies and the magic of the Harry Potter franchise being infinitely charming, but such success stories are few and far between.
Indeed, there’s nothing wrong with a little bit of escapism, but it’s the degree to which a film respects your decision to leave your brain by the door that decides whether it is a great movie or a terrible one. For our list of the ten terrible films that smashed it at the box office, we’ve picked some of the highest-grossing movies of all time and shamed them for their lack of artistic quality, even if they are smugly counting their coins without a care in the world.
Take a look at our list below, where the likes of Peter Jackson, James Cameron, Zack Snyder and Tim Burton have been unable to escape our critical gavel.
10 terrible movies that became box office hits:
10. Fifty Shades Of Grey (Sam Taylor-Johnson, 2015)
Romantic comedies changed for the worse when Sam Taylor-Johnson’s Fifty Shades Of Grey was released after the popularity of the novel of the same name by E. L. James. Itself written as Twilight fan-fiction, was anyone really all that surprised when they read Fifty Shades Of Grey and realised it was terrible or watched the 2015 film adaptation after reading the book and realised that it was just as bad?
Indeed, both the film and the book of Fifty Shades Of Grey are disappointing works of sexual fiction, yet Universal wasn’t all that disappointed with the film after it earned them $569.7 million at the box office.
9. Suicide Squad (David Ayer, 2016)
The Suicide Squad DC comic has enjoyed two separate adaptations over the course of just five years, with the two movies differing greatly in quality. The rubbish one came out in 2016 and was showered with hate shortly after its release. Starring the likes of Will Smith, Margot Robbie, Cara Delevingne and Jared Leto, the film was criticised for its lack of intelligible story, awful characterisation and bad humour.
Still, this didn’t stop people from flocking to the cinema to consume its toxicity, with the movie earning $746.8 million from a $175 million budget.
8. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (Zack Snyder, 2016)
The collaboration of comic book heroes Batman and Superman on the silver screen had long been the fantasy of fans worldwide, but when their dream finally came true in 2016, most experienced it as a nightmare. A shining example of just why DC has failed to reach the heights of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice was a dull bore of a film that stuffed its narrative with too many ideas and far too much CGI.
Earning $873.6 million, Warner Bros were still buoyed by the film’s relative success, however, re-teaming the duo for Justice League in 2017, a film that was even worse.
7. The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (Peter Jackson, 2014)
Even Peter Jackson would himself admit, if you pressed him for long enough, that the Hobbit trilogy was something of a mistake to undertake. Forced to take on the project without the necessary planning time, Jackson rushed into the production without the same passion as he had for his earlier Lord of the Rings films, and therefore the movies suffered. The culmination of everything wrong with The Hobbit, The Battle of the Five Armies was the worst of the bunch.
Taking almost a billion dollars in total ($962.2 million, to be specific), fans clearly didn’t seem to mind that the movie bookended the disappointing trilogy with a pathetic thud.
6. Alice in Wonderland (Tim Burton, 2010)
Was Tim Burton the best choice to take on the live-action adaptation of Alice in Wonderland? In hindsight, probably not, but at the time, he felt like the perfect man. Instilling a needlessly dark tone on the magical land of Lewis Carroll’s iconic story, Burton cast the likes of Johnny Depp, Mia Wasikowska, Helena Bonham Carter and Anne Hathaway to carry out his vision, but no one was quite able to muster up the charisma.
Considered a considerable commercial success, Alice in Wonderland joined the billion-dollar club, earning $1.025 billion in total from a budget of $150-$200 million.
5. Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise Of Skywalker (J.J. Abrams, 2019)
In the efforts to save face after the commercially successful yet popularly hated The Last Jedi, Disney and J.J. Abrahams created over two hours of absolute nonsense. Damage control was plainly visible when franchise overlord Emperor Palpatine was brought back from the dead to resurrect a suffering sequel trilogy. The limp story follows the surviving members of the resistance in their final battle to take down the First Order, a plot that deflates with the pathetic sound of a wet balloon as plot holes surface one after another.
So many business brains are behind this blockbuster Goliath, and it’s plain to see both in the film’s awful narrative path and its impressive box office performance, raking in $1.074 billion altogether.
4. Transformers: Age Of Extinction (Michael Bay, 2014)
We’re not going to beat a dead transformer here and tell you that Michael Bay’s Transformers movies are bad, with this fact being common knowledge at this point. Even after its predecessors were so critically panned, Bay proceeded with Transformers: Age Of Extinction thanks to the franchise’s impressive box office record and was duly rewarded with yet another financial hit that made a stink among critics.
Gathering $1.104 billion altogether, the success of Transformers: Age Of Extinction simply demonstrated that it’s our fault that these movies keep getting made.
3. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (J. A. Bayona, 2018)
Someone forgot to tell Universal that opening Jurassic Park negates the whole moral point of Michael Crichton’s original novel, but still, money talks. The second movie in the new trilogy of films, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, takes the franchise to dramatic new lows with its convoluted plot that involves a comical dinosaur auction and a coming-of-age story about a young cloned girl being completely stupid.
Still, despite its predecessor being rubbish, too, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom earned an impressive $1.310 billion at the box office, proving dinosaurs will always sell movie tickets.
2. The Lion King (Jon Favreau, 2019)
Disney’s original animated version of The Lion King is considered to be a critical and commercial gem unlike any other, cherished by generations of families. The same will never be said of the 2019 live-action remake, directed by Jon Favreau, a soulless recreation of the classic movie, which contained none of the same charm, magic and vibrancy. Looking and feeling as if it had been devised by A.I., the legacy of the Lion King remake has already disappeared.
Regardless, the film made mad money at the box office, collecting $1.663 billion in total, cashing in on the nostalgia of young fans hoping that the film would be something like their cherished memories. Safe to say, it wasn’t.
1. Titanic (James Cameron, 1997)
We know that James Cameron’s epic romance, Titanic, has its fans, but let’s be real, the Best Picture-winning weepy is so earnest that it’s sickening. Starring a young Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, the film follows a fantastical retelling of the tragic sinking of the RMS Titanic in 1912, adding some Hollywood glitz to the panic that would have surely occurred at the time, treating the event like a romantic red carpet event.
At one point, Titanic was the highest-grossing movie of all time, earning a staggering $2.195 billion at the box office along with a fabulous Best Picture win. We can criticise all we want, but ultimately Cameron is the one laughing.
