2023 Box Office Flops That Will Change Hollywood Forever

Thanks to a series of seismic flops and misfires, 2023 will be remembered as a definitive year for the box office. 

Although moviegoing continues to rebound following the COVID-19 pandemic, 2023's domestic haul to date is at $8.4 billion — a 13% increase from 2022's receipts, but still a long way from reaching 2019's $11.3 billion posting, a number that was achieved thanks to hits like "Avengers: Endgame," "Toy Story 4," and "Joker." While the pandemic may be in the rearview mirror, its effects can still be felt in the theatrical exhibition industry. Audience tastes have both substantially shifted and remained the same, a sentiment that can clearly be expressed in this year's biggest hits. 

The most interesting box office conversation this year is the success of "Barbenheimer," which led to "Barbie" and "Oppenheimer" grossing over $2.3 billion worldwide combined. The success of "Barbenheimer," as well as hits like "Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour," "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse" and "Five Nights at Freddy's," should no doubt be celebrated, but it's important to peel back the layers on what went wrong elsewhere. 

2023 has been nothing short of a disaster at the box office for almost all of the major players. From Disney to Warner Bros., some of Hollywood's most prolific studios have suffered record losses, thanks in part to creative bankruptcy, shifting audience tastes, and poor release strategies. Hollywood, as we know it, will change for better or worse, thanks to these 2023 box office flops. 

Released in the wake of several DC Extended Universe misfires, the confirmation of a planned reboot, and lead star Ezra Miller's controversial actions, "The Flash" was never going to be a box office juggernaut for the failing brand. After considerable hype drummed up by Warner Bros., "The Flash" barely grossed over $100 million domestically, wrapping up its worldwide run with a $266 million haul. 

Like "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny," Warner Bros.' "The Flash" made a bold error in assuming that moviegoers automatically care about legacy characters. Audiences rejected Michael Keaton's return as Batman, a creative decision that felt uninspired and calculated purely to capitalize on nostalgia. While superhero fatigue no doubt impacted "The Flash" — no superhero film has grossed over $1 billion since 2021's "Spider-Man: No Way Home" — one would have hoped that the return of a beloved character would spark interest in a brand (and genre) that's seen better days. The film's marketing heavily relied on Keaton's return, strategically diminishing the importance of Miller's character.

For Warner Bros., "The Flash" was confirmation that the DCEU was far from salvageable and that Batman, arguably the franchise's most popular character, isn't a compelling draw if the film surrounding him simply isn't good. One of the biggest superhero bombs of all time, the $200 million-budgeted "Flash" might be the last time we see a franchise lean so heavily into nostalgia as its only marketing point. It's obvious that audiences need more than that to return to cinemas — they need a good movie. For audiences, "The Flash" was simply not that. In fact, it wasn't even on their radar. 

After posting a career-best profit with the release of "Top Gun: Maverick," Tom Cruise's "Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One" had what it took to be one of the biggest films of the year. Instead, the seventh film in the franchise sort of just faded away after its mid-July release, grossing just $566 million worldwide. With a ballooned budget of $291 million thanks in part to COVID-19 restrictions, "Dead Reckoning Part One" reportedly lost Paramount Pictures around $100 million. That outcome felt shocking — "Fallout," the sixth film in the series, posted a franchise-best $786 million haul in 2018, and Cruise was revered throughout Hollywood for "saving cinemas" in 2022. 

Following "Maverick," it felt like the movie star was back: Cruise was poised to rake in another billion with "Dead Reckoning," arguably the best film in the two-decade-old franchise. But the so-called "savior of cinema" was no match for the cultural movement that was "Barbenheimer" and, arguably, "Sound of Freedom," both of which had to be witnessed (depending on the circle you were in).

For audiences, it was more important to be a part of the larger cultural conversation that "Barbenheimer" and "Sound of Freedom" provided, cementing that social media traction really can make or break certain projects. With "Dead Reckoning" flopping, all hope for the movie star may be gone. Instead, Hollywood might now focus on what defeated it: a film made to appeal to a niche subset ("Sound of Freedom") and projects that are primed for virality on social media ("Barbenheimer"), even if that wasn't their initial intention. 

2023 will forever be remembered as an interesting year at the box office, particularly because of how many flops studios have had to deal with. While cinema is alive and well, the theatrical exhibition industry is heading into uncharted, potentially exciting territory after this year's big-budget bombs. Looper decided to move past the biggest financial losers (though they do dominate our lists) and instead focus on the failures that will shape what Hollywood greenlights going forward. 

Research was done to speculate on what bombs would leave the largest impact on Hollywood's production and release strategy. From reeled-in budgets to exercises in creating the next big viral hit, Hollywood will spend the next few years trying to remedy the mistakes it made in 2023. Beyond that, all films except "The Creator" come from franchises that were, at one point, "sure bets." Audience tastes are shifting, and Looper ultimately decided on the five box office flops that it believes should leave Hollywood and its major players thinking about the future.